In anticipation of the opening of
"The Penumbral Age: Art in the Time of Planetary Change"

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw informs that the opening of the exhibition "The Penumbral Age: Art in the Time of Planetary Change" will not be held on 20 March 2020 as planned. The institution has been closed due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We are not unaware of the irony of the situation: the consequences of violence against nature, one of the themes of the exhibition, have led to institutional paralysis.

Climate change affects every sphere of life, including art: its systems of production and distribution, its social function, and its relations with other disciplines, particularly science.
While we wait for reopening of the museum, starting on 20 March 2020 at 7:00 pm, which was when the opening of The Penumbral Age had been scheduled, we will release materials online related to this dormant exhibition awaiting its opening.

We are launching the website wiekpolcienia.artmuseum.pl, where a group of works from the exhibition will be presented along with a glossary compiled by Prof. Ewa Bińczyk, author of the widely discussed book Epoka człowieka. Retoryka i marazm antropocenu [The Human Epoch: Rhetoric and Apathy of the Anthropocene]. Artistic films reflecting on the environment will also be regularly featured on the site.

A page called Wiek półcienia has been created on Facebook, where the curators of the exhibition, Sebastian Cichocki and Jagna Lewandowska, post materials gathered during work on the show, with reports on artists and collectives taking part in The Penumbral Age, videos, audio files, and links to texts related to the climate crisis, art and activism.

While looking forward to welcoming the public to the Museum on the Vistula again in the future, we intend to share information in this virtual space on “managing the irreversible,” and new forms of solidarity, empathy and togetherness in the face of the climate crisis and the related pandemic.