24.05.2023 / at 19:00 / Galeria Obok Zpaf / Plac Zamkowy 8, Warsaw
Union of Polish Artists Photographers Warsaw District invites you to an exhibition by Tadeusz Rolke Beatrice 2. In the role of Beatrice Dominika Wojtulewicz.
On the evening of the tenth of May, I called a Friend. "Tadziu, today is Beatrice's name day"- I said. He seemed touched. "Today? .... I'll have to make the most of it somehow." - he stated with a smile.
"Beatrice" has been present in Tadeusz Rolke's work since the 1980s. It was then that for the first time, using the language of photography, he told the story of his mysterious, lost love. A dozen black-and-white photos were taken in a secret apartment where the lovers had previously met. The artist, having invited a professional model to participate in the session, frame by frame reconstructed their intimate experiences. A bold idea that could have dangerously verged on banality. As Tadeusz recalled years later, "it was a very personal and emotional project. It required justification and an explanation of where it came from."
And this is where Beatrice entered the scene, or rather was summoned by another photographer-philosopher. Tadeusz Rolke showed the photos to Marek Holzman, and the latter reached onto a library shelf for a poem by Jan Lechon. Looking intently at his colleague's work, he quoted a passage from the poem Meeting, From the 1924 volume "Silver and Black."
"There is no heaven or earth, no abyss or hell.
There is only Beatrice. And she's just not there."
First public showing of works from the series Beatrice took place at Emilia and Andrzej Dłużniewski's 20/26 Beer Gallery in the 1980s. Thus "secret love," as Tadeusz Rolke calls it to this day, came out of hiding. What's more, years later it also appeared Beatrice 2, although here, as the artist emphasizes, we are talking about an autonomous group of photographs. Among them, one can look for distant analogies to the previous series. Another "personal emotional matter" that does not like questions and does not give clear answers. The mystery photo, promoting the exhibition, plays with the viewer's imagination. Lying on the couch, the woman has no face, behind her is drawn the profile of another, repeated again in another silhouette in the third plan. A multiplied image of longing and fascination.
"I am not an expert on poetry," Tadeusz tells me. Yet I suspect that Beatrice has accompanied him all his life, both photographically and privately. At the age of ninety-four, he still has her image under his eyelids. And for that you need a sensitive and poetic soul.
Iga Niewiadomska
You are cordially invited to the opening of the exhibition Beatrice 2 by Tadeusz Rolke - a giant of Polish photography, at the Obok ZPAF Gallery, on May 24 at 7 p.m. I am very pleased that the first event organized by the new Board of the Warsaw District of ZPAF is precisely the vernissage combined with the celebration of the 94th birthday of our distinguished colleague. See you at the vernissage.
Adam Tuchlinski / President of the Warsaw District of the ZPAF
Tadeusz Rolke - photographer.
He became interested in photography as a teenager during World War II. His first camera was ZEISS IKON Baby Box Tengor. At the age of 16 deported to Germany for labor. Prisoner of the Stalinist period. In 1956 he was given a full-time job as a photographer, and worked for the weekly magazines "Stolica" and "Świat", monthly magazines "Polska", "Ty i Ja". For the Cracow-based "Przekroj" he took fashion photos, becoming a master of this field. Befriended with the Warsaw bohemia, he photographed the artistic life of the capital. Author of excellent portraits of writers, painters, actors, musicians and singers. In 1970 he moved to Germany for 10 years. His photos appeared in the illustrated weekly "Stern", the weekly "Die Zeit", the weekly opinion magazine "Der Spiegel" and the magazine "Art". He returned to Poland in the early 1980s and taught at the Department of Journalism at Warsaw University and the Warsaw School of Photography. He considers one of his most important projects to be a series of photographs and a photo album Here we were. The last vestiges of a lost culture, telling about the traces of the Jewish community in today's landscape of Poland. Author of many exhibitions and albums. In 2010 he was awarded the Gold Medal "Meritorious for Culture Gloria Artis".
She lives in Warsaw, loves life and still works.