The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE invites you to the first exhibition of Bob Dylan’s paintings and drawings in Poland.

Exhibition partners: Halcyon Gallery in London & BWA Municipal Gallery Bydgoszcz, City of Bydgoszcz

The project is co-financed by the City Council of Toruń

Exhibition is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund within the Regional Operational Programme for Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship for the years 2007-2013 and the budget of Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship

Bob Dylan’s music excites millions of fans all around the globe. It has reached almost every corner of the world. On the other hand, his drawings, paintings or installations are known to only a handful of the most faithful fans. Thanks to the persistence of the CAMERIMAGE Film Festival organizers, Dylan’s paintings and drawings, exhibited extremely rarely, eventually are going to be displayed in Toruń, Poland.

Dylan revealed his passion for drawing as late as in 1994, when he presented a series of sketches created during his tours in Europe, America and Asia between 1989 and 1992. The drawings known as Drawn Blank were usually made in charcoal or pencil, and later reworked. By using various techniques and materials Dylan recreated the Drawn Blank paintings in a number of different colour schemes. In 2010 the artist turned to a new medium – acrylic on canvas – and created fifty paintings known as The Brazil Series. One year later he presented another cycle, The Asia Series, which not only reflected his personal observations of life and people during his travels around China, Japan, Vietnam and Korea, but featured quotes from works by such artists as Edouard Manet, Paul Gaugin and Henri Cartier-Bresson. In 2013 Dylan displayed a collection of twenty three canvases dedicated to New Orleans, city which he describes as ‘one very long poem’. The same year the National Portrait Gallery in London presented thirteen pastel portraits of his brush, featuring both his friends and fictional figures. His last project includes seven iron gates made of old metal objects welded together. The Revisionist Art series is of a similar nature, and features thirty collage paintings created from elements taken from popular American magazines.

The Toruń exhibition will showcase only a small section of Bob Dylan’s abundant and diversified artwork. It will feature paintings and graphics created in 2008 and 2013 on the basis of the Drawn Blank drawings, as well as one of Dylan’s iron gates that he worked on in 2012 and 2013. The exhibition accompanying CAMERIMAGE is a unique event for Dylan’s fans and art lovers. Bob Dylan does not present his works very often, and he chooses the exhibition venues carefully. His highly personal approach to paintings and installations makes them even more special. Needless to say, the exhibition of an outstanding poet, a three-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, the man who revolutionized the rock music of the twentieth century, cannot be missed.

The artworks presented at the exhibition are based on motifs sketched by Bob Dylan, mainly in pencil and charcoal, in the period between 1989 and 1992 in the course of his tours throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe, and Asia. Ninety-two of those black-and-white drawings were published in the book Drawn Blank in 1994, but not shown publicly. Reproduced in the digital fine art print technique, which stands for high quality digital prints on durable quality media, the drawings formed the basis for the paintings and prints presented in the Tumult Gallery. All the works are on loan from the Halcyon Gallery in London.

Exhibition organized by Tumult Foundation as an accompanying event of CAMERIMAGE Festival, in cooperation with BWA Municipal Gallery Bydgoszcz, Halcyon Gallery in London, Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship Office and Torun City Council.