Gombrowicz - Berlin - Instytut Pileckiego

Take a postmodern vagabond, a literary genius, a globetrotter, and a complex Eastern European migrant all in one and send him to a city that is in no way inferior to him in terms of diversity and identity ambiguity. What do you get?

That's right: Witold Gombrowicz in Berlin! That is precisely the theme of a new exhibition,

GOMBROWICZ. An open-air exhibition in the Hansa Quarter (07.11.2021–19.12.2021)

Hansa Library, Altonaer Straße 15, 10557 Berlin  

About the exhibition 

Originally conceived by the Witold Gombrowicz Museum in Wsola, the exhibition, displayed before the backdrop of a local Hansa Library in Berlin, consists of quotations from his work, documents from Gombrowicz’s most important locations in life, and carefully selected photographs. To do justice to the international significance of his work, the exhibition is presented in four languages at once: Polish, English, German and French.

Witold Gombrowicz is one of the most important Polish authors of the 20th century. On 19 July 2021, a commemorative plaque was affixed to his house at Bartningallee 11/13. Gombrowicz lived there after he and Ingeborg Bachmann were invited to West Berlin in 1963 on a Ford Foundation scholarship.

A thoroughly memorable return to Europe after a long stay in Argentina, made at a critical point of the Cold War, about 100 km away from his home, in the Hansa Quarter. The city, ravaged by population decline and the ambience of the Cold War, was to be restored to its former glory thanks to the influx of international intellectuals. In the end, Gombrowicz only stayed for a year, but his traces remain to this day.

A cooperation of the Pilecki-Institut Berlin and OFFEN FÜR KULTUR. Supported by the Hansa Library and Witold Gombrowicz Museum in Wsola. Supported by funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.