tomasz machciński: american dream, I made it all because of you
curators: Zofia Czartoryska and Katarzyna Karwańska
Created in collaboration with the Tomasz Machciński Foundation, the first solo show dedicated to Tomasz Machciński at the Christian Berst Art Brut Gallery features his photographic self-portraits and covers five decades of his immense artistic practice, which until now had remained private. The artist’s entire life has been nurtured by the American dream and fueled by two powerful illusions that have given meaning to his life: the magic of the screen and the perpetual quest for true love.
I made it all because of you wrote Tomasz Machciński in one of the dozens of letters sent to actress Joan Tompkins. A rising star in Hollywood, the actress saw a photograph of Tomasz as a bedridden child in a Red Cross catalog. This catalog listed war orphans available for distant adoption. She then sent a letter to Tomasz with one of her film photos, which she signed With love for Tommy. Joan ‘Mom’ Tompkins. For Tomasz, born in 1942 in a small war-torn Polish village, this was the beginning of an improbable relationship that transcended borders, decades, and social classes.
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.