duo show: tomasz machciński and tom wilkins in collaboration with the ricco/maresca gallery

At a very young age, Tomasz Machciński built an identity around an autograph, addressed to him by an actress he believed to be his mother. From this confusion, which lasted more than twenty years, a protean and personal mythology was born that reconstructs the artist. Exhibited in 2019 at the Rencontres de la Photographie, his works are already part of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and the Museum of Photography in Krakow (Poland). In 2023, he is exhibited at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève in Chrysalides: le rêve du papillon. Color and black & white self-portraits will be shown at the Independent Art Fair in New York and in a solo show at the gallery in September 2024.

Who is Tom Wilkins? That is the question Sébastien Girard has been trying to answer since 2011 when he acquired 900 enigmatic Polaroids, which were later published in 2017 under the title My TV Girls. This series of television captures, ranging from 1978 to 1982, consistently features women and concludes with the only self-portrait in the series where Tom Wilkins portrays himself as a woman. Found in an house in Boston, United States, the acquisition of this extensive photographic series gave rise to the almost detective-like investigation that Sébastien Girard pursued for nearly 12 years in order to unravel the mystery of Tom Wilkins.