The Impermanent: Four Takes on the Collection

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw) will open its inaugural exhibition in the Museum’s newly built home, designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners in historic Plac Defilad (Parade Square). Opening February 21, The Impermanent: Four Takes on the Collection will focus on the ways artists from around the world have made sense of modernism and its political, economic, and artistic implications. Drawing from the Museum’s holdings of more than 4,300 artworks by Polish and international artists, the exhibition is a testimony to the changes that have taken place across the visual arts in the last seven decades.

The exhibition includes more than 150 works—half of which were created by women artists—from the 1950s to the present. More than 100 artists are represented in The Impermanent, the largest-ever exhibition presented by the Museum, which was founded in 2005.

The Impermanent: Four Takes on the Collection is organized by a team of curators that includes Sebastian Cichocki, Tomasz Fudala, Magda Lipska, Szymon Maliborski, Łukasz Ronduda, and Natalia Sielewicz. Located on the first and second floors of the Museum, it is organized around four distinct themes, each providing a unique interpretation of developments in Post-War and contemporary art. The themes are:

“Banner: Engagement, Realism and Political Art,” presenting artworks directly engaged in political debate. Made by artists living in a variety of historical and political contexts, this section explores the ways art has been an integral part of wider debates concerning rights, policies, and power. Highlights include Alina Szapocznikow’s sculpture Friendship from 1954, which was partially destroyed when it was moved from the nearby Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw in 1992. Also on view are works by Nikita Kadan, David Wojnarowicz, Prabhakar Pachpute, Włodzimierz Pawlak, William Pope.L, and Wilhelm Sasnal, among others.

“Synthetic Materialities: Body, Commodity and Fetish from the Cold War to the Present,” focusing on consumerism, pop culture, and mass media. This section looks at how art has expressed or clashed with capitalist values worldwide, focusing not only on artists from countries that had booming Post-War economies, but also those from some of the poorer countries of Eastern Europe and the Global South. This section features a work by Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury made of synthetic resin and fiberglass that depicts a slender woman in turquoise. Also included are artworks by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Isa Genzken, Soshiro Matsubara, Lucy McKenzie, Frances Stark, and others.

“Dark Planet: Art, Spirituality and Future Coexistence,” comprising works that come from non-traditional and isolated artistic practices, such as folk, amateur, and Indigenous art. Looking at the history of non-modernist traditions, these galleries focus on artists who attempted to “see through” the existing world into deeper, spiritual reality. Anchored by the work of post-Communist Polish artist Roman Stańczak, this part of the exhibition brings together artists from distant geographical and political contexts and reveals the possibility of a future community. Other artists included are Miriam Cahn, Trương Công Tùng, Nathalie Djurberg, Tau Lewis, Tala Madani, and Vivian Suter, among others.

“Real Abstractions: The Autonomy of Art Against the Catastrophes of Modernity,” presenting artworks that focus on the limits of art. Centered on the promises of modernism and the collapse of its utopian dream of unlimited progress, this section also looks at art’s relationship with other ways of understanding the world. Among the highlights is Monika Sosnowska’s Façade, a sculpture that depicts the collapse of a modern architectural building as a comment on the failures of modernism. Also on view are works by Kader Attia, Edi Hila, Arthur Jafa, Otobong Nkanga, Rebecca H. Quaytman, Ser Serpas, and more.

The Impermanent marks the complete opening of MSN Warsaw. Framed by the Soviet-era Palace of Culture and Science on one side and an arcade of shops and malls on the other, the Museum anchors the revitalization of Parade Square, the largest public square in Europe and a gathering place for Varsovians since the 1950s.