14 July – 24 October 2021
5/3 PLN

Praga of the 1970s. Photographs by Albert Krystyniak

Albert Krystyniak, the author of the photographs exhibited here, spent his childhood in the Praga district of Warsaw. In the 1970s, when the oldest part of the district was being rebuilt, he would repeatedly return there to preserve its landscape in photography.

Selected for the exhibition are over 80 photographs from a larger photo-reportage made at the time. The pictures offer an insight into one section of Warsaw, revealing the flaws of a 19th-century city, the wartime damage as well as the neglect and makeshift character of the early Polish People’s Republic. At the same time, we discover in the photographs a community that is intimately linked to this decrepit scenery. In still other shots we see tokens of the district being modernised as of the 1960s, e.g. detached blocks of flats.

At the time when this photo portrait of Praga was being made, decision-makers were faced with the question of how to heal this urban tissue. What to do with the many degraded tenement houses? How to help their inhabitants? Where to find the necessary financing? Some of the problems were solved at the time, others have remained relevant to the present day, as have the questions posed above.

fot. Tomasz Kaczor

COLOPHON

Curator: Adam Lisiecki

Assistant to the curator: Anna Wigura

Photography consultant: Karolina Puchała-Rojek

B Katarzyna Kuzko-Zwierz, Piotr Stryczyński, dr Jarosław Trybuś

Exhibit design: Aneta Faner

Graphic design: dr Anna Światłowska

Production: Klementyna Świeżewska

Implementation: Ksenia Góreczna, Ewa Lenczewska, Tomasz Makarewicz, Krzysztof Świerczewski, Krzysztof Hernik, Leszek Sokołowski, Tomasz Marzec

Conservators: Robert Kołodziejski, Igor Nowak, Piotr Popławski

Digitisation: Adrian Czechowski, Mikołaj Kalina, Michał Matyjaszewski, Andrei Niakrasau, Anna Sulej

External loans: Konrad Gutkowski

Exhibit acquisitions: Adam Michalak, dr Tomasz Pruszak

In-house loans: Dominika Jarzyńska-Pokojska, Tomasz Lewandowski, Aneta Matuszewska, Dorota Parszewska, dr Rafał Radziwonka, Zuzanna Sieroszewska-Rolewicz, Filip Żelewski

Availability: Katarzyna Szafrańska

Text edition: Urszula Drabińska

Text translation: dr Marcin Turski

Accompanying program: Karolina Jusińska, Aleksandra Karkowska-Rogińska, Anna Kraus, Adam Lisiecki, Anna Wigura

Exhibition carers: Małgorzata Chrząstkowska-Neuvonen, Małgorzata Kościelnik, Marzena Łasińska, Małgorzata Łysak, Małgorzata Marciniak, Alicja Sokołowska, Michał Sowa, Anita Tomaszewska

Communications and marketing: Julia Borowska, dr Karolina Grabowska-Garczyńska, Joanna James, Anna Kraus, Aleksandra Koszalska, Joanna Krupa, Aleksandra Migacz, Karolina Młynarz

Persons loaning objects for the exhibition: Albert Krystyniak, Adam Lisiecki

Accompanying publication: Praga lat 70. Fotografie Alberta Krystyniaka, Muzeum Warszawy 2021

We extend our gratefulness to all those contributing to the exhibition.