LETTER TO THE PUBLIC

Dear guests, tourists, art lovers, students, seniors, artists, architecture buffs, passers-by, Varsovians and visitors!

Soon it will be one year since the opening of the new building of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. It has been an incredibly intense time as we have explored together the possibilities of the new museum. So far we have welcomed about 600,000 visitors.

The appearance of the new building on the Central Square, next to ul. Marszałkowska, sparked strong emotions. It seems that almost every one of you wanted to express and share your views—sometimes delight, sometimes doubt. Although many new museums are being built in Warsaw, often in a similar architectural idiom, MSN Warsaw remains at the center of a national debate. Why is this so? MSN Warsaw is privileged to be an institution defining the dynamic change underway in Poland. How modern do we want to be? What is it that we hate about modernity? How tolerant and open can we be? Where are the boundaries defining our community? Through art that beats with the pulse of the contemporary world, we can face these questions calmly and in depth. The Impermanent: Works from the MSN Collection, which remains on view through the end of September, is built around these issues.

Starting this autumn, MSN Warsaw launches its regular operations, based on offering several exhibitions simultaneously, enriched by numerous public, educational and performance events, as well as film screenings at the Kinomuzeum. Our aim will be to create a diverse program, meeting the many needs and differing desires for contact with art. But we firmly stand for the values that build the identity of MSN Warsaw, openness to a multiplicity of perspectives while maintaining respect for their peculiarities, faithfulness to facts against the alluring power of narrative, and leaning into a common future, whatever challenges it poses, even if it conflicts with our habits (or pushes us out of our comfort zone).

We hope to jointly create the program along with you, to use this space together and share our resources. In October we are opening "Near East, Far West—Kyiv Biennial 2025", an exhibition of the latest art from the region, being created despite the war but also in relation to the war, supplemented by reflections on the dangerous geopolitical changes captured by the new notion of “Middle-East-Europe.”

In November we invite you to a series of shows on women’s art, from the monumental historical survey "The Woman Question: 1500–2025" and the exhibition "City of Women", to activist, academic and post-feminist presentations. On top of that, we offer many smaller-scale exhibitions and activities, headed by a show on the Kraków community of the Salt Warehouse and charity auction for people in the refugee crisis. We invite you to visit MSN Warsaw!