Museum of Warsaw, 29.02-26.05.2024
On February 29, an exhibition will open at the Museum of Warsaw Beautiful is the youth of our age. Photoalbums 1850-1950, entirely devoted to photo albums. This is a unique opportunity to see more than a hundred extremely rarely shown objects from one of the largest collections of Warsaw photography. The photo albums from the 19th and 20th centuries will be accompanied by works by contemporary male and female artists. The exhibition is part of the program of the Center of Photography, a new initiative of the Warsaw Museum aimed at fostering interest in photography.
Exhibition Beautiful is the youth of our age. Photoalbums 1850-1950 will show the transformation of photo albums, the perpetuation and passing of prevailing conventions and how they are intertwined with the history of photography. It will present the roles that albums have played in communities, families or institutions. The exhibition will also focus on the emotions that browsing through an album evoked and still provokes. An album is an everyday item, still present in our homes. Some of us certainly remember browsing through a photo album together and the mixture of emotions that accompanied it: fascination, longing, emotion, but also embarrassment caused by an unfavorable photo. The exhibition will show both albums documenting family events and those that commemorate the functioning of school or professional communities -says Karolina Puchała-Rojek of the exhibition's curatorial team about the exhibition.
The experience of looking at photo albums almost always requires an awakening of the imagination, especially in a museum, where you can't touch and page through them. It helps to see what these unique objects hide. The aim of the exhibition is to show that photo albums are the natural habitat of photography.
Evoking memories and preserving memories
A photo album can serve many functions. In the 19th century, it was, among other things, an elegant gift, a tool for building social standing and strengthening national identity, or an inspiration for conversation at social gatherings. With the spread of photography, the popularity of capturing memories and building personal stories in the form of albums has also increased. Albums can evoke emotions, strengthen ties and spark imagination. The exhibition will also include objects completely devoid of sentiment, used for scientific or crime documentation.
Each album has its own story
The importance of private stories is underscored by the quote in the title. The words "lovely is the youth of our age" come from a handwritten signature on a scrapbook page given to a girl named Franka on the occasion of her name day in 1943.
Photo albums often have more than one author or contributor. The exhibition highlights the importance of not only the creator of the photographs, but also the people who compose the albums, the owners and contributors. Without them, the story of the albums is incomplete. Examples include. Album by engineer Stefan Stattler. The photographs he pasted together form a proud story of the development of one of the largest enterprises in the Kingdom of Poland. After 40 years of work, Stefan Stattler stepped down as director of the Lilpop, Rau and Loewenstein Industrial Society plants amid disagreements. Embittered, on the last page of the album he pasted a portrait of a horse next to his portraits and, in a bitter commentary, likened his fate to that of a draft animal.
Not just photography
The photo albums presented at the exhibition combine various means of expression. On their pages we will find drawings, calligraphed dedications, collages, private notes. Photo albums are usually treated as a place to store photographs. For exhibitions, photographs are removed from them or the album is presented open only on selected pages. Rarely is attention paid to the arrangement of photos on the card. Elements such as newspaper clippings, drawings or souvenirs pasted or inserted into the album are sometimes overlooked - says Katarzyna Adamska of the exhibition curatorial team. A wide variety of materials are used to create the album, from covers, such as those decorated with velvet, wood or silver, to flowers inserted between the pages. Proper and safe display of such complex objects is a challenge - made possible by the long preparation of the conservators.
One hundred years of photo-album history
The Museum of Warsaw has a unique collection of Polish photo albums. The oldest of them date back to the beginnings of Warsaw photography. The exhibition will present, among others, the first photographic album of views of Warsaw by Karol Beyer from 1859 or an album with the famous photographic documentation of the construction of the Kierbedzia bridge. Photographs by such authors as Zofia Chomętowska and Sylwester Braun will be shown in non-obvious contexts - albums dedicated to specific people on different occasions. There will be no shortage of albums from which one can read the stories of Warsaw families, as well as former female schools or even the cycling community. Some of the objects will be shown to the public for the first time.
Photo-albums and contemporary art
The historical objects in the exhibition are accompanied by works by contemporary artists who treat the photo album as a form of expression. For Aneta Grzeszykowska, private photographs are the starting point. W Album of 2022, the artist "wiped" the image of her daughter, and pieced together the story of her life backwards, from her 10th birthday to her arrival in the world. The artwork will be available for viewing on its own. In another room, we will see the work of Igor Omulecki, who has arranged family photographs from over two decades into a nostalgic slideshow. Izabela Pluta's works, on the other hand, focus on the materiality of the 19th-century album - its ornaments and shapes; they also ask the question of whether the album is a carrier of memory of the past. It will be possible to see how different functions photo albums can take on while looking at small Polaroid notebooks created by Rafał Milach, who uses them as handy sketchbooks.
Center of Photography of the Museum of Warsaw
Beautiful is the youth of our age. Photoalbums 1850-1950 is the first exhibition put on by the Center of Photography, a new initiative of the Warsaw Museum that aims to foster interest in photography. The exhibition will be accompanied by guided tours and meetings, as well as a scholarly conference that will deepen reflection around photo albums.
As part of the project Focus on Photography The Center of Photography benefits from funding received from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway - the EEA and Norwegian funds, as well as funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Exhibition Beautiful is the youth of our age. Photoalbums 1850-1950 will run from February 29 to May 26, 2024 at the Museum of Warsaw at 32 Old Town Square. The museum is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets: PLN 20 / PLN 15, free admission on Thursdays.
Curatorial team: Katarzyna Adamska, Piotr Głogowski, Monika Michałowicz, Ewa Nowak-Mitura, Karolina Puchała-Rojek, Julia Staniszewska, Anna Topolska