The Museum is open 11:00 – 19:00
Cinema is closed now
The Museum is open 11:00 – 19:00
Cinema is closed now
Plans for 2026
Since opening its new headquarters in October 2024, MSN has welcomed over 800,000 visitors. Exhibitions, accompanying events, cinema, and educational programs attracted nearly 530,000 visitors to the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw last year.
In 2026, the public will see ten new exhibitions, including monographic exhibitions by Julie Mehretu, Maria Jarema, and Edward Dwurnik. There are also plans for an extensive presentation of world sculpture and an international exhibition devoted to surrealism. We will also invite the Museum's audience to participate in an extensive public, cinema, and educational program. The Museum's branches: the House in Szumin, the Dance Pavilion, and the Sculpture Park in Bródno will be working intensively.
– The MSN wants to offer access to knowledge about global artistic life, trends, discussions, and ideas as part of a solid program based on a broad network of institutional cooperation and reliable research on the one hand, on the other hand, immersion in local artistic life and civic debate allows the institution to resonate with changing circumstances and emotions, serving as a platform for conversation," says MSN director Joanna Mytkowska. "In 2026, we plan to develop this deliberative nature of program building. First and foremost, we invite various organizations and individuals to co-create it in the free-access spaces on the ground floor. Exhibitions are also constructed in a similar spirit. New presentations, in dialogue with each other, should make a visit to the Museum a unique experience of the pulse of the present day. A present day that is multi-threaded, intense, sometimes chaotic, but also one in which signposts can be found. Julie Mehretu and Maria Jarema in March
In early spring, museum visitors will see two large monographic exhibitions devoted to artists who have redefined the language of abstraction: Julie Mehretu (born 1970) and Maria Jarema (1908–1958). Mehretu is one of the most influential contemporary American painters, who imbues her paintings with an intense, political element. Her monumental works intertwine gesture, history, and memory of place in multi-layered abstract compositions. The exhibition is being organized in collaboration with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, with significant loans from the Pinault Collection. It is curated by Joanna Mytkowska and Szymon Żydek (MSN), based on a concept developed by Susanne Gaensheimer and Sebastian Peter (K21), in close collaboration with Julie Mehretu's studio. The exhibition of Maria Jarema's work, presented on the same floor and prepared by Éric de Chassey (Beaux-Arts de Paris) and Natalia Sielewicz (MSN), will offer a new perspective on one of the most original figures of Polish modernism in the interwar and postwar periods. A conscious participant in the European avant-garde and a pioneer of emancipation, Jarema freely crossed disciplinary boundaries, redefining the role of the artist in public life. Mehretu and Jarema share the belief that abstraction does not mean cold autonomy or detachment from the reality that surrounds us, despite the generations and geographical contexts that separate them. The stake of their art is the transformation of life and the perception of the world.
Between March 27 and 29, the MSN will also host a program dedicated to video and art film from South Korea, prepared in collaboration with the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul (MMCA) and curated by Sebastian Cichocki and Soojung LI.
At the beginning of summer, a comprehensive international exhibition entitled In the Very Bowels of Change: Surrealism and Anti-Fascism will open at the beginning of summer, first presented from October 15 to March 30, 2025, at the Lenbachhaus in Munich under the title: But Live Here? No Thanks: Surrealism and Anti-Fascism and prepared by a curatorial team consisting of Stephanie Weber, Adrian Djukić, and Karin Althaus. The exhibition, featuring works by Hans Bellmer, Erna Rosenstein, Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Éluard, Lee Miller, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, and Toyen, among others, will combine international themes (previously presented at the exhibition in Munich) with Polish ones. Curators Dorota Jarecka and Magda Lipska are collaborating on this project with curators from Lenbachhaus and Paweł Polit from the Museum of Art in Łódź. The audience will be able to follow the trail of extraordinary events and international solidarity connecting Prague with Coyoacán in Mexico, Cairo with Republican Spain, Marseille with Fort-de-France in Martinique, Puerto Rico and Paris with Chicago. The aim of this presentation is to show surrealism as a network—a political and international movement, as its protagonists considered it.
– The MSN wants to offer access to knowledge about global artistic life, trends, discussions, and ideas as part of a solid program based on a broad network of institutional cooperation and reliable research on the one hand, on the other hand, immersion in local artistic life and civic debate allows the institution to resonate with changing circumstances and emotions, serving as a platform for conversation," says MSN director Joanna Mytkowska. "In 2026, we plan to develop this deliberative nature of program building. First and foremost, we invite various organizations and individuals to co-create it in the free-access spaces on the ground floor. Exhibitions are also constructed in a similar spirit. New presentations, in dialogue with each other, should make a visit to the Museum a unique experience of the pulse of the present day. A present day that is multi-threaded, intense, sometimes chaotic, but also one in which signposts can be found. Julie Mehretu and Maria Jarema in March
In early spring, museum visitors will see two large monographic exhibitions devoted to artists who have redefined the language of abstraction: Julie Mehretu (born 1970) and Maria Jarema (1908–1958). Mehretu is one of the most influential contemporary American painters, who imbues her paintings with an intense, political element. Her monumental works intertwine gesture, history, and memory of place in multi-layered abstract compositions. The exhibition is being organized in collaboration with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, with significant loans from the Pinault Collection. It is curated by Joanna Mytkowska and Szymon Żydek (MSN), based on a concept developed by Susanne Gaensheimer and Sebastian Peter (K21), in close collaboration with Julie Mehretu's studio. The exhibition of Maria Jarema's work, presented on the same floor and prepared by Éric de Chassey (Beaux-Arts de Paris) and Natalia Sielewicz (MSN), will offer a new perspective on one of the most original figures of Polish modernism in the interwar and postwar periods. A conscious participant in the European avant-garde and a pioneer of emancipation, Jarema freely crossed disciplinary boundaries, redefining the role of the artist in public life. Mehretu and Jarema share the belief that abstraction does not mean cold autonomy or detachment from the reality that surrounds us, despite the generations and geographical contexts that separate them. The stake of their art is the transformation of life and the perception of the world.
Between March 27 and 29, the MSN will also host a program dedicated to video and art film from South Korea, prepared in collaboration with the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul (MMCA) and curated by Sebastian Cichocki and Soojung LI.
Two exhibitions in June
At the beginning of summer, a comprehensive international exhibition entitled In the Very Bowels of Change: Surrealism and Anti-Fascism will open at the beginning of summer, first presented from October 15 to March 30, 2025, at the Lenbachhaus in Munich under the title: But Live Here? No Thanks: Surrealism and Anti-Fascism and prepared by a curatorial team consisting of Stephanie Weber, Adrian Djukić, and Karin Althaus. The exhibition, featuring works by Hans Bellmer, Erna Rosenstein, Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Paul Éluard, Lee Miller, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, and Toyen, among others, will combine international themes (previously presented at the exhibition in Munich) with Polish ones. Curators Dorota Jarecka and Magda Lipska are collaborating on this project with curators from Lenbachhaus and Paweł Polit from the Museum of Art in Łódź. The audience will be able to follow the trail of extraordinary events and international solidarity connecting Prague with Coyoacán in Mexico, Cairo with Republican Spain, Marseille with Fort-de-France in Martinique, Puerto Rico and Paris with Chicago. The aim of this presentation is to show surrealism as a network—a political and international movement, as its protagonists considered it.
As part of the exhibition Ways of the Black Spread Over the White Land, curator Oliwia Mimi Bosomtwe will draw on the art and visual culture of the Polish People's Republic to examine representations of Polish relations with blackness and sub-Saharan Africa. It is a story about facts, fantasies, imaginations, and the race between ideas and reality. The exhibition will be an impression of several decades in which art, politics, and ethnography intermingled, creating a confusing web of interests entangled in the ideas of socialist postcolonialism. The project is also conceived as an attempt to draw attention to an alternative narrative of the era that gave rise to African diasporas in Poland.
Edward Dwurnik. The Art Worker in July
The exhibition dedicated to one of the most important Polish painters of the 20th century will focus on the artist's work from the 1970s and 1980s and will present two major painting series, Athletes and Workers. Curator Łukasz Ronduda aims to reconstruct Dwurnik's original artistic attitude, shaped at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, which was characterized by great empathy, a struggle against the elitism of art, connections with the work of outsiders, and which shaped the concept of painting as a document of social life.
Edward Dwurnik. The Art Worker in July
The exhibition dedicated to one of the most important Polish painters of the 20th century will focus on the artist's work from the 1970s and 1980s and will present two major painting series, Athletes and Workers. Curator Łukasz Ronduda aims to reconstruct Dwurnik's original artistic attitude, shaped at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, which was characterized by great empathy, a struggle against the elitism of art, connections with the work of outsiders, and which shaped the concept of painting as a document of social life.
Sculpture in September
Prepared by Jagna Lewandowska and Szymon Maliborski, the presentation of contemporary sculptural practices will cover not only the exhibition halls, but also the arcades around the MSN building. The exhibition will primarily feature works by female artists who take the disintegration of form as their starting point and treat sculpture as a balance of forces—flows and changes, as well as tensions between the process and the finished form. References to biological forms associated with the body draw attention to sculpture as an impermanent structure, susceptible to modification. The artists presented will include June Crespo, Dominique White, Teresa Solar Abboud, Giulia Cenci, Edith Karlson, Iza Tarasewicz, and Gizela Mickiewicz.
The turn of September and October at the MSN will be an opportunity to participate in events, meetings, and discussions prepared by Jakub Depczyński, Joanna Erbel, and Alicja Wójcik as part of the WARSZAWA W BUDOWIE festival.
The turn of September and October at the MSN will be an opportunity to participate in events, meetings, and discussions prepared by Jakub Depczyński, Joanna Erbel, and Alicja Wójcik as part of the WARSZAWA W BUDOWIE festival.
Not just galleries. Two works in the stairwell
The exhibitions described above will be complemented by new works of art, which will be displayed in the stairwell in 2026. In March, we will see a work by Minh-Lan Tran – a draped painting-installation, falling like a broken scroll. It will consist of layers of latex, silk, and canvas, reacting to light like a membrane. In the second half of the year, a new work by Italian artist Giulia Cenci will be presented there.
Young Polish art in Gallery A
Young Polish art in Gallery A
MSN continues its mission of making art available to the widest possible audience, free of charge, thanks to Gallery A, located on the ground floor and fully visible from Marszałkowska Street. The Museum also values its close connection with the Polish art world, which is why throughout 2026, the ground floor will showcase the work of experimental Polish artists of the younger generation. On January 29, an exhibition prepared by Łukasz Ronduda (MSN) entitled Misterioso Nadii Markiewicz will open. Markiewicz is an artist interested in creating a new image of disability that refers to categories such as mystery and uniqueness. April will see the first institutional presentation of the work of Przemysław Piniak, a prematurely deceased intermedia artist (curatorial team: Szymon Maliborski, Gabriela Skrzypczak, Przemysław Sowiński). In July, Gallery A will feature paintings by Adam Kozicki, an artist inspired by the frenetic pace of the modern internet (curator: Natalia Sielewicz). Admission to the ground floor of the museum is free thanks to cooperation with Audi.
Not just exhibitions. Events, education, publishing, cinema, SEPR and dance
At the MSN, exhibitions are always a starting point for various forms of dialogue and contact with the public: meetings, films, publications, guided tours, and workshops. The museum wants to be a lively, open center for debate about art, which is why this year's exhibitions will be accompanied not only by catalogs and books, but also by educational workshops for children, guided tours for parents of young children, classes for adults, creative family workshops, debates, and film screenings. At the same time, in cooperation with its educational partner, the EFC Foundation, the 5th edition of the "Basic Forms" project will be implemented. This time, students will independently carry out artistic instructions prepared by artists from Poland and abroad, including Mirosław Bałka, Philippe Parreno, and Alicja Czyczel. KINOMUZEUM will focus on five program pillars: premieres, film festival screenings, new Polish cinema, classics, and programs accompanying exhibitions. The DKF series "Dobra Wspólne" (Common Goods) and "Dzikie musicale" (Wild Musicals) will be joined by new formats, such as meetings with filmmakers and film critics (e.g., Michał Oleszczyk, creator of the popular podcast "SpoilerMaster"). Once again, the museum cinema will host the most important Polish film festivals: WATCH DOCS, Millennium Docs Against Gravity, and the Warsaw Film Festival.
While continuing the work on reconstruction of the “Black Room,” in 2026 MSN Warsaw and Polish Radio will invite the public to participate in events inspired by the historic achievements of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (SEPR)—including a concert of quadraphonic works and a screening of animated films with soundtracks made at SEPR. There will also be presentations of contemporary applications of original analogue instruments for electronic music. We will hear Aleksandra Słyż, who won a Polityka Passport award this year, as well as Thomas Ankersmit and the duo of Yannis Patoukas & Mathijs Leeuwis, among others. In conjunction with Polish Radio Program 2, we will also begin work on commissioning a composition to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of SEPR in 2027.
On Thursday, January 8, the newly opened Pavilion of Dance and Other Performing Arts also opened, where the audience will see international and Polish performances, events, and workshops (the full repertoire of the Pavilion can be found at www.pawilontanca.pl).
photo: Aleksander Małachowski (hashtagalek)