This fall at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

The Impermanent: Four Takes on the Collection is drawing to a close, and from 2 September The Impermanent will continue, in a revised format, only in the museum’s first-floor galleries. Since the opening on 21 February 2025, the show of works from the MSN Warsaw collection has been viewed by over 180,000 visitors. In total, the museum’s new building has welcomed nearly 600,000 people since it opened in late October 2024. The new arrangement of works from the collection marks the start of the new season at MSN Warsaw. The museum is launching its regular operations, when it will be presenting several exhibitions simultaneously. A rich program of public events and performances is beginning this fall, along with new formats for educational activities. The museum’s publishing house is also preparing to release several new books.

“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. The appearance of the new building on the Central Square, next to ul. Marszałkowska, sparked strong emotions. 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 is built around these issues. The full range of this show of the museum’s collection will remain on view until 31 August, and after that in a slimmed-down selection through 5 October on the first floor of the museum,” said MSN Warsaw director Joanna Mytkowska. 

Salt Warehouse: This Planet Is Already Inhabited 

(12 September – 16 November 2025)

This exhibition, which will be shown in Gallery A on the ground floor, features “floating artworks” designed and executed by artists, NGOs and collectives belonging to the community of Kraków’s Skład Solny (Salt Warehouse). The community will present itself at MSN Warsaw through the lens of its annual event called the Aquatic Critical Mass. This grass-roots celebration of the Vistula River, held since 2012, involves sailing along the central section of the river as it runs through Kraków (by Wawel and the Old Town) on rafts designed especially for the occasion. Alongside a presentation of physical objects from this happening, This Planet Is Already Inhabited tells the story of the Salt Warehouse community and the solidarity it showed in its victorious battle for this independent space for art.

Near East, Far West—Kyiv Biennial 2025 

(3 October 2025 – 18 January 2026)

The sixth edition of the Kyiv Biennial was prepared by a consortium of curators from L’Internationale, a European confederation of museums, art institutions and universities. It will feature seven specially-commissioned new works, as well as works from the collections of member institutions of L’Internationale and a number of other loans. The artists whose works will be shown include such names as Tolia Astakhishvili, Dana Kavelina, Hito Steyerl, Ali Cherri and Oraib Toukan. The exhibition takes place in a time of ongoing wars, occupations, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s brutal operation in Gaza, and the broader fascist turn in global politics. For many of the participating artists, the violence of war remains a defining context and overarching horizon. Their works show how violence has infiltrated all spheres of life, leading to the degradation of social cohesion and solidarity.

The Woman Question: 1550–2025 

(21 November 2025 – 4 May 2026)

This show, organized by the curator and art historian Alison M. Gingeras, confronts the myth of women’s absence from art. The eight-part visual narrative is a testament to the enduring and dynamic creative activity of women artists over the last 500 years. The result is a collection of nearly 200 works, including contemporary art, as well as paintings by Renaissance, Baroque and 19th-century women artists—from Artemisia Gentileschi and Angelika Kauffmann to Tamara Łempicka, Frida Kahlo, Marlene Dumas and Yoko Ono—offering a centuries-long visual history of women’s “emancipation.” In addition to presenting the diverse artistic output of women, the exhibition aims to show the power inherent in a new approach to art history—one that demands justice, restores the voices of the “erased,” and leads to a revision of the so-called canon.

City of Women 

(21 November 2025 – 4 May 2026)

City of Women is an exhibition comprising four parts: Gutsy, curated by Julia Bryan-Wilson; Other Tomorrows, by Michalina Sablik and Vera Zalutskaya; Her Heart, by Karolina Gembara; and Socialism, Feminism and Art: Artistic Celebrations of the International Women’s Year 1975, curated by Wiktoria Szczupacka. This mosaic of different attitudes and esthetics is a testimony to the wealth, diverse traditions, and strength of feminist art, and is presented in parallel with the monumental historical survey The Woman Question: 1550–2025.

Charity exhibition and auction

(28 November 2025 – 11 January 2026)

The next edition of a project organized in conjunction with the Association of Friends of MSN Warsaw and the Ocalenie Foundation—a gesture of solidarity from the artistic community and an opportunity to provide real support to persons in a refugee crisis, regardless of race, religion or nationality. At the auction on 7 December 2025, bidders can acquire works by such artists as Zuza Golińska, Liliana Zeic, Paulina Ołowska, Wilhelm Sasnal, Mikołaj Sobczak, Marcin Maciejowski, Nikita Kadan, Kateryna Lysovenko, Edward Dwurnik, and Karol Radziszewski.

Ball on the Square 

This celebration of the last days of summer is inspired by nostalgia for childhood vacations, sunsets on the beach, sleepless nights, summer flings, and gazing at the stars. On Saturday, 13 September, we invite you to join in the festivities on the Central Square. Ball on the Square is a performance choreographed by Przemek Kamiński and executed by forty performers selected in an open audition. It is an invitation to watch, and then to dance as soon as the Ball on the Square in front of MSN Warsaw turns into an open-air party.

Dance and Other Performing Arts Pavilion

MSN Warsaw’s former home is currently undergoing renovation to adapt it for a new function. The building at ul. Wybrzeże Kościuszkowskie 22 in the Powiśle neighborhood, near the riverfront, the footbridge connecting the two banks of the Vistula, the Copernicus Science Center and the University of Warsaw Library, will become the Pavilion of Dance and Other Performative Arts. Soon the first program will be announced, along with open auditions and the first fruits of partnership projects. Details will be published on www.pawilontanca.pl.

Performance program at MSN Warsaw

The museum is joining the festival Generation After: Showcase, organized for the ninth time by Nowy Teatr, presenting the latest phenomena from the Polish theater and performance scene. Works by Hana Umeda, Przemek Kamiński and Michał Zadara will be shown on 5–6 September. And on the weekend of 27–28 September, as part of the farewell to the exhibition of works from the museum’s collection, MSN Warsaw will host the latest performance piece by Nadia Markiewicz (in cooperation with the Bunkier Sztuki gallery in Kraków), as well as a performance by Sylvie Fleury employing the famed cocktail dresses from the 1960s designed by Yves Saint Laurent in homage to the paintings by Piet Mondrian. 

Grand finale of the Sonics & Scenics festival

The summer program of this festival, curated and produced by The Wapping Project from London and MSN Warsaw, is nearing the end. It includes interventions, installations, performances, film screenings and discussions, including the premiere of a series of new works of sound art. The closing days of Sonics & Scenics, 20–21 September, will feature the launch of a new music publication by Teoniki Rożynek commissioned especially for the festival, a concert by Aleksandra Słyż, and a performative lecture by Jennifer Walshe.

Public Program

We have already completed 140 events in the Public Program, open to all and held in the spaces of the ground floor of the MSN Warsaw building. In the second half of the year there will be more encounters with artists; expert tours, lectures and panel discussions; workshops and interactive activities; as well as audio and visual shows. Plans are in the works for the program accompanying our autumn exhibitions, including Near East, Far West—Kyiv Biennial 2025, where there will be a discussion of the book Leak, about the Friendship gas pipeline, with artist Hito Steyerl and researchers Svitlana Matviyenko and Philipp Goll. The Common Museum program, implementing demands developed by a civic council of artists in 2024, will continue. Thanks to recommendations by the Public Program Social Council, meetings and debates are planned around two topics: “How modern is Poland?” and “MSN Warsaw as a shelter.”

Education: Primary Forms, workshops, and “The Art of First Steps”

From January through July 2025, over 18,000 people took part in over 1,000 educational events at MSN Warsaw. The next edition of Primary Forms, an education program for pupils from grades 4 through 8 from the Mazovia region, will be held this fall. Creative Family Workshops, Thursday workshops for adults, and themed weekend tours will all return in the new season. A new event will be the dance classes called “The Art of First Steps” for toddlers age 1–3, as well as tours for parents on parental leave, where infants will visit the galleries in prams, slings and baby carriers. There will also be events for the blind and vision-impaired, users of Polish Sign Language, and those on the autism spectrum, as well as special workshops and classes for school and preschool groups. In September all of the family events will be inspired by What Is Art For?—the first children’s book published by the museum, where the characters are artworks from the MSN Warsaw collection.

What Is Art For? by Katarzyna Witt and Ola Niepsuj, and other new publications

On 7 September 2025 there will be the launch of the long-awaited book What Is Art For? written by Katarzyna Witt—art historian, educator, and author of children’s books. It will be an exceptional encounter with modern art in an appealing and friendly form for kids. The book, illustrated by Ola Niepsuj, combines a visual atlas with texts, creative tasks, and illustrations sparking the imagination of young readers. They might even laugh. The artworks from the MSN Warsaw collection appearing in the book will encourage readers to look closely and reach their own interpretations.

On top of this, there will be the release of Cosmos: Discussions—Texts—Friendship by Anda Rottenberg and Mirosław Bałka, as well as the catalog to the exhibition The Woman Question: 1550–2025. We also invite you to events with authors including Weronika Gęsicka, Peter Pomerantsev and Chris Niedenthal.