Spring 2026 program

MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow inaugurates the celebrations of its 15th anniversary by presenting a new program of exhibitions, focused on a thorough analysis of the political: from emancipation and resistance in the face of patriarchal systems, through a critique of fascism and totalitarian power, down to issues regarding the ecology and status of the artists. 

Ewa Partum: Contemplating Art, Contemplating Love

With works by: John Baldessari, Josef Bauer, Mehtap Baydu, Lenora de Barros, Bettina Bereś, Renate Bertlmann, Joseph Beuys, Geta Brătescu, Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, Vlasta Delimar, Iwona Demko, Monika Drożyńska, Jochen Gerz, Alexis Hunter, Sanja Iveković, Alfredo Jaar, Tadeusz Kantor, Běla Kolářová, Joseph Kosuth, Jiří Kovanda, Barbara Kozłowska, Jarosław Kozłowski, Katalin Ladik, Cecylia Malik, Piero Manzoni, Anna Maria Maiolino, Dóra Maurer, Gustav Metzger, Yoko Ono, Clemen Parrocchetti, Joanna Pawlik, Adam Pendleton, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Bogdanka Poznanović, Jadwiga Sawicka, Carolee Schneemann, Penny Slinger, Gabriele Stötzer, Sturtevant, Endre Tót, Ulay, VALIE EXPORT, Wolf Vostell, Robert Watts, Zorka Wollny, Marta Ziółek and Jana Želibská

Toyen: Dreaming in the Margins
Annette Kelm: Speak, Volumes
Monika Drożyńska: Heall
Katarzyna Krakowiak-Bałka: Ecologies of Togetherness—First Act: The Nest
Marta Romankiv, Dominik Stanisławski, Łukasz Surowiec: Great Job
Martyna Nowicka, Arkadiusz Półtorak: re:primer. Chapter 1: Self-identifications

Ewa Partum: Contemplating Art, Contemplating Love highlights the Polish artist Ewa Partum (born 1945), an iconic figure in the contemporary art of the past six decades, whose groundbreaking oeuvre is a feminist manifesto, aiming at creating a new, non-patriarchal reality. Its postulates extend far beyond the realm of art, as the artist believes in the agency of her actions and their power to bring about social change. She consistently pursues a program of corporeal conceptualism, pointing out that her problem is ‘a problem of a woman’. She contemplates both art and love. The exhibition, curated by Adam Budak and Marta Smolińska, presents the art of Ewa Partum juxtaposed with works of artists from around the world. In the encounters between individual works, the political engagement of art, the potential of language and feminist rebellion come to the fore. Ewa Partum showcases herself as a rebel who does not hesitate to act also in the public sphere. The artist has made the imprint of her glossed lips her trademark, and she deploys her naked body as the medium for confronting authority.

Toyen: Dreaming in the Margins, curated by Adam Budak and Martyna Sobczyk, is the first ever exhibition in Poland of one of the most extraordinary women artists of the Surrealist movement. Recognized as one of the most enigmatic and fiercely independent figures in Surrealism, Toyen (1902–1980) was born Marie Čermínová, in Prague. She adopted a gender-neutral identity early in life, rejecting societal conventions—a position reflected throughout her work and public persona. Eroticism, tenderness and the antifascist critique are in the focus of this exhibition, which explores the depth and breadth of Toyen’s graphic work, including illustrated books, prints, drawings, catalogs and archival materials, as well as a fine selection of the artist’s oil paintings—making it one of the most comprehensive presentations of this part of her oeuvre ever compiled.

Speak, Volumes is German artist Annette Kelm’s first ever solo exhibition in Poland, organized by MOCAK with  Kraków Photomonth Festival, and curated by Anna Voswinckel and Krzysztof Pijarski. One of the two photographic series on view, Die Bücher presents the covers of around one hundred individual volumes—first or early editions of books that were banned, blacklisted and many of them publicly burned by the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. Kelm’s work asks us to engage differently with material culture—how the book, as object, becomes a bearer of collective memory, a portal to forgotten or suppressed discourse. In Travertinsäulen Recyclingpark Neckartal, the artist photographed a row of travertine columns nestled between what is now a recycling facility and a waste-to-energy plant on the outskirts of Stuttgart. They were originally intended for a monument to the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on the Adolf-Hitler-Square.

This season, MOCAK has also inaugurated projects that align with the concepts of site-specificity, new technologies and ecology, and that redefine the museum’s spaces, turning them into active and participatory sites for all.  

Heall by acclaimed Kraków-based artist Monika Drożyńska uses flags outside the museum building to voice a topical message that explicitly embraces the institution’s identity. The installation acts as the museum’s welcoming gesture towards the viewers and the surrounding public space. Heall is an anti-war manifesto and a call for peace. It has been created at a time of ongoing armed conflicts: the war in Ukraine, Russia’s imperial and fascist ambitions, and the systematic relativization of statements about genocide in Gaza. Heall functions as a gesture of opposition to the normalization of war, violence, and indifference—a reminder of our shared responsibility and the need for healing.

Katarzyna Krakowiak-Bałka, during her year-long residency at MOCAK, is working with the museum’s architecture. Her installation The Nest, located on the building’s facade, is the first instalment of the project, titled Ecologies of Togetherness, in which the museum is treated as an organism—existing architecture that can be overwritten, renegotiated and supplemented with new layers of meaning.

Marta Romankiv, Dominik Stanisławski and Łukasz Surowiec joined forces as an artistic/curatorial collective in order to intervene in the museum’s operations that usually remain invisible and out of bounds to artistic input—renovation works. For a month the artists have been renovating the Beta Gallery, preparing the space for planned exhibitions and turning the institution’s very infrastructure into a field of artistic activity. The project Great Job poses questions about working conditions and remuneration rules for artists in cultural institutions, juxtaposing the discretionary nature of artists’ fees with the clearly defined market rates applicable to construction work.

Finally, MOCAK introduces a new format for its Gallery Re, which, under the banner of re:primer, is being transformed into an engaging space for encounters and intellectual exchange. The project created by the curators and scholars Martyna Nowicka and Arkadiusz Półtorak hacks the museum’s program and opens the institution up to collaboration with new communities. The ground floor of the building houses a mobile recording studio, where pop-up radio broadcasts take place, recorded with the participation of the audience. The upper floor houses a workshop and exhibition space, with an ongoing presentation of Doug Ashford’s video Bunker 2, 2016.