The author about his REMAKE project:
I dedicate this exhibition to the memory of Kees Broos, deceased today in Arnhem, who was a friend of mine, art historian and connoisseur of photography.

In the 80s, the exhibition showing my portraits of Poles swept through some distinguished museums of Milan, Munich, Baden-Baden, Oslo, Finnish Iyvaskyla and had its end at the Royal Castle in Warsaw in 1988. As part of this tournée, it was also presented in 1984 in the Dutch Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem and Museum voor Moderne Kunst in Arnhem.

So when the “Passage Oost-Europa “Culture Festival was organized in Arnhem, the director of the Museum Liesbeth Brandt Corstius and her husband Kees Broos invited me to portray the participants of the Festival. I was putting up my successively emerging portraits in the Festival Centre, at Schouwburg auditorium. In autumn 1990, for 2 weeks I was taking photographs of Russians, GDR-men, Polish and Dutch people. Painters, actresses and directors, composers and conductors, jazz musicians, historians, writers, sculptors, architects and staff organizing the Festival. It is through my collaboration with the Dutch at the Festival I made a portrait, afterwards widely published, of Jerzy Grzegorzewski who visited the Festival with the Studio Theatre

In Poland, there is no such festivals, people of culture; they lost with Coca-Cola and beer events and therefore this remake serves as a remembrance of that great idea. Thanks to the invitation by Monica Ney,
25 years later I show my photographs in Poland. Photographs were printed with Digigraphie technology on exclusive photographic paper Epson Traditional Photo Paper, 420gr /m2.

Today, under the wild capitalism of Polish reality, portraits of Poles seem to be unnecessary, with the exception of celebrities that I am not interested in. That is why the memory of what we really are is becoming weaker and weaker.

Having modest earnings, young photographers cannot afford a studio. At a higher development phase, own place to work is essential for each portraitist. Among many talented young people, none of them was able to get a photographic studio. As a result, nobody continues my path of work. I struggle, as much as I can, to preserve my 40 years of achievements and for the possibility to continue my work; albeit in the long run in the dramatic battles with the soulless administrators I have no chance to win. During sleepless nights I realize that after I die all my works will end up in the trash bin.

Krzysztof Gierałtowski
Warsaw, September 5, 2015