What Is Enlightenment?
200 years of the Print Room of the University of Warsaw Library
The exhibition "What Is Enlightenment?" is conceived as a dialogue between the Age of Reason and today’s world, between the prints and drawings from the collections of King Stanisław August Poniatowski and their interpretations by contemporary artists.
The exhibition attempts to respond to the current debate in Poland and around the world on the “crisis of Enlightenment values.” To what extent is the crisis something new and self-contained, and to what extent is it inherent in the internal dynamics of the Enlightenment? The issue of the Enlightenment is always an issue of the here and now: any understanding of today’s reality without drawing on the sources of modernity will always be incomplete. This is clearly evident in the Polish context, where discussions and conflicts over the approach to modernity, and the role of religion and tradition, the significance of what is public and shared, have remained unresolved since the days of Stanisław August, but continue to drive thinking about a better future.
