Inaugurated on 9 June 2022, the exhibition of Piotr Uklański Il Tormento di Chopin is open to the public until 31 May 2023. The Polish-born artist living between Warsaw and New York entered the Grand Salon of the private mansion of the Polish Library of Paris located on Île Saint-Louis.
Where does the exhibition title come from? It is based on the work of Nino Salvaneschi, biographer of Chopin. Its author develops a specific term – “il tormento”, to explain the melancholy of the piano virtuoso’s music. What would be the reasons of this nature? Would it be his departure from Poland and nostalgia for his motherland? Or his unruly romantic relationships? Although one remembers his notorious relationship with George Sand extensively analyzed, recent studies on Chopin’s correspondence reveal that his inner suffering had its origins in his taboo love for… The spirit of Chopin and the Franco-Polish romanticism he embodies haunt history… and the Polish Library. As an example Uklański depicts this fear through his photograph where queer actor Filip Rutkowski poses in front of the artist’s objective as a dying Chopin.
The series of portraits of Polish-Parisian characters, which Uklański made to decorate the walls of the Grand Salon of the Polish Library, tell the story of the city. Paris was a refuge, an emblem of freedom of artistic expression, but also a vivid reminder to artists of their stories of fugue, stormy emotions and nostalgia for their homelands. Chopin’s dark character and his romantic work, preserved and revered at the Grand Salon of the Library, are a springboard for Uklański in his application to the identity, ideology and history of the Polish nation.