“Herbert / Waves” is an exhibition of Zbigniew Herbert’s poems and drawings – vivid, bold, as essential as breath. The undulating structure of the display panels invites visitors to float on the rhythm of poetic phrases and lines, immersing themselves in Herbert’s world and his notebooks, where words and images intertwine into one organic whole. This form, placed in a publicly accessible square, opens the viewer to motion and permeation: of word and image, light and memory, beauty and horror. It creates a silent spectacle in which not only Herbert’s works perform – but also the viewer’s emotions. Herbert’s poetry grows out of pain, resistance, and sudden insight, and his gaze – sharp and tender – is directed toward what is fragile, forgotten, marginalized. In a world dominated by noise and haste, this exhibition offers a space for reflection, teaches sensitivity, and restores poetry to its place – in the city, in language, in ourselves.
“Zbigniew Herbert was a poet of precisely chosen words. His poems – spare, restrained, almost bare – arise from anxiety and fragile hope. They touch on essential, deeply human matters. There is an intuition of depth in them, an intuition of the mystery of existence. They confront beauty and horror. They side with the weak, the humiliated, the exiled. The exhibition is a kind of theatre of poems, where all this is voiced, with the drawings from the poet’s sketchbooks – travel sketches, attempts to grasp the truth of our world, of its reality tinged with mystery – serving as the set design and visual material for this silent performance,” says Prof. Paweł Próchniak, curator of the exhibition and member of the Zbigniew Herbert Foundation Council.
“This exhibition is an invitation to travel with Herbert – a journey deep into oneself and the world, a pause to rediscover the surrounding reality and ourselves. His work is an act of attentiveness, a light, a focus on what truly matters in life. Thanks to the collaboration with Centrum Praskie Koneser and Liebrecht & wooD, we can extend this invitation to a wide audience – in a place that is open, vibrant, and alive with culture. It’s proof of how much can be created together when shared sensitivity connects us,” adds Maria Dzieduszycka, President of the Zbigniew Herbert Foundation.
🗓️ August 1 – November 30, 2025
📍Plac Konesera (Koneser Square)
