Titled “Gift”, the exhibition forms part of this year’s celebrations marking the 115th anniversary of Milosz’s birth.
“Czeslaw Milosz was born in Lithuania and often emphasized his origins”, curator Piotr Drobniak, director of the Polish Institute in Vilnius, said. “He would sometimes say of himself that he was Lithuanian, but his native language was Polish and he belongs to Polish culture”.
Karpowicz said the works were not illustrations of Milosz’s poems, but stories shaped by them.
“I chose the poems that moved me most deeply”, she told Polish Radio.
She cited “Orpheus and Eurydice” as one example, saying it speaks of “the symbolism of following someone to the other end of life and confronting transience”.
She also referred to the poem “Eyes”.
“The painting was made in a very rough way. I even allowed one couple to touch it”, Karpowicz said. “It is a very symbolic work, because Milosz wrote this poem near the end of his life, when he was already losing his sight”.
The exhibition will run in Vilnius until May 27. It will then move to the Regional Museum in Kedainiai, where the Czeslaw Milosz Festival will be held on June 9, before going on display in Warsaw in the fall.
(jh)
Source: Polish Radio, Instytut Polski w Wilnie