The Compulsion to Repeat

The opening of the exhibition The Impermanent is accompanied by a set of short and medium-length films from the MSN Warsaw collection, to be screened at KINOMUZEUM on 21–23 February.

Artists using analogue and digital means take a range of different approaches to presentation of artistic and political phenomena. The common denominator is the direction of their gaze, mediated by the eye of the camera: outside their own time, outside their own cultural circle, and outside the dominant artistic practices and trends. The viewpoint presented in their work is thus The Other’s perception of phenomena and the practices, rituals, and everyday life of the people captured by the camera. 

The British playwright J.B. Priestley claimed that linear time is the worst conception of time in the history of humanity. The title “The Compulsion to Repeat,” an allusion to Raymond Bellour and Laura Mulvey’s notion of the reflexive viewer, invites a reconfiguration of the nostalgic attitude toward the past through a recognition of its impact in the present time.

Following the looping presentation of films by artists from the MSN Warsaw collection throughout the day, there will be three evening screenings of films by Diane Severin Nguyen, Józef Robakowski and Jill Godmilow—three different ways of breaking down time and space and exploring the boundaries of memory, historical meaning, and the film medium itself.

The film program accompanying The Impermanent will run through 5 October 2025. 

Tickets:

21 February, between 2 and 7 pm, free admission to KINOMUZEUM with your ticket to The Impermanent
22 and 23 February, between 12 and 7 pm, admission to KINOMUZEUM with your ticket to The Impermanent will cost PLN 1
Admission after 7 pm (for the showings of full-length films) will be based on the regular ticket prices for KINOMUZEUM.
Tickets to “The Compulsion to Repeat” are available only on-site at the cinema box office.