Opening of the exhibitions "In the Very Bowels of Changes" and "Ways of the Black Spread Over the White Land"

 

The exhibition In the Very Bowels of Changes... unfolds in twelve chapters, tracing a map of complex relationships between Surrealists present in all parts of the world—linking Prague with Coyoacán, Mexico; Cairo, with Republican Spain; Marseille, with Martinique’s Fort-de-France; Puerto Rico and Paris, with Chicago; and London, with New York.  The show is an adaptation of the show presented at the Lenbachhaus in Munich under the title Aber hier leben? Nein danke. Surrealismus + Antifaschismus [But live here? No, thank you. Surrealism and Antifascism] from October 15, 2024, to March 30, 2025, and was created in collaboration with that institution and the Museum of Art in Łódź. The exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art is an extension of that show. 

The exhibition Ways of the Black Spread Over the White Land explores the influence of Poland’s relations with Blackness and Sub-Saharan Africa on art and visual culture between 1945 and 1989. By bringing together works by artists from Poland and Nigeria, as well as graduates of Polish art academies hailing from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya, among other places, we examine historical relationships that were pushed to the margins of memory with the onset of political transformation.