Opening program

On 25 October 2024, the Museum of Modern Art in Waraw will open its new home on Plac Defilad. The welcome for the new building—an agenda of events open to all—will last for three weeks and give visitors a preview of future activities at the museum.
 

In addition to an exhibition of selected works from the MSN Warsaw collection, the opening will include performance pieces, social and educational events, concerts, lectures, and the new edition of the Warsaw Under Construction festival. The museum’s publishing wing will offer new titles, and the new cinema in the building will show its first screenings, accompanied by an extensive public program.

 

The Collection in Two Acts—25 October 2024 and 21 February 2025

The opening and first few weeks of operation of MSN Warsaw in its new building will primarily feature the presentation of several large-scale sculptures and installation pieces by Polish and international women artists, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alina Szapocznikow, Sandra Mujinga and Cecilia Vicuña, and opening of the new edition of the Warsaw Under Construction festival, titled "The Museum Between the Square and the Palace."

According to Joanna Mytkowska, director of MSN Warsaw: “We are launching our operations with a show of works by women. In this way we will continue the global trend of catching up on our understanding of forgotten or ignored women artists, covering up these blank spots with patches of color. Thus, for the museum, this portion of our collection gathered over the past 20 years will serve as a manifesto of support for neglected portions of the art scene and a continuation of the search for missing figures from art history. These efforts have resulted for example in the great posthumous blossoming of the popularity of Alina Szapocznikow, whose work Friendship will be seen by our visitors on the opening day. So we are showing both historic works, including a large abakan by Magdalena Abakanowicz, as well as works by contemporary female artists of international importance, such as Sandra Mujinga from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cecilia Vicuña, the Chilean icon of feminist art. The selected works perfectly reflect the context of the site and the long presence of MSN Warsaw on Plac Defilad, addressed in this year’s edition of the Warsaw Under Construction festival.”

Warsaw Under Construction 16; The Museum Between the Square and the Palace

All the way back in its first edition, the Warsaw Under Construction (WWB) festival examined the context of construction of a new home for MSN Warsaw on Plac Defilad. Over the following years, the curators and invited artists entered in their works into a dialogue with the Palace of Culture and Science and the history of the space surrounding it. They raised such questions as who will regain this urban square, and whether it will be a socially friendly place if it passes into private hands? They debated with urban activists and the city authorities over the type of public space to be created around the museum’s new building, and reminded us that after 1989, the urban life of the Polish capital injected its energy here, filling the space of Plac Defilad with bus stations, parking lots, shopping arcades and food joints. The square, which stood apart from the dynamic transformation of other neighborhoods, only seemed on the surface to remain empty. Warsaw Under Construction 9 in 2017 was entirely devoted to Plac Defilad at a significant moment in its change into a central urban square.

On Plac Defilad today, we see the large mass of the museum with is minimalist façade of white concrete, placed between the soaring structure of the Soviet-era Palace of Culture and Science and Domy Centrum, a set of retail structures stretching for a length of 350 meters. After two decades operating as a nomadic institution, the museum is now permanently embedded in the surrounding cityscape. The present and history overlap in many aspects of MSN Warsaw’s new home, the touchstone for the agenda of the 16th Warsaw Under Construction festival, titled Museum between the Square and the Palace.

Dancing about architecture—Polish and international cooperation and the Turnus Show 

The agenda for the opening of the new building of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will include a review of the Polish choreography scene of the last 10 years, as well as a special occasion to explore the museum’s architecture through motion, dance and performative practices. The invited artists will reexamine works already familiar to the Polish audience, returning years later to works previously shown at MSN Warsaw in its earlier incarnations, as well as new projects premiering at the same time as the opening of the new building at ul. Marszałkowska 103.

The second wave of performance pieces in the launch of MSN Warsaw’s new home will be overseen by curators from the Kontakt Collection. The program prepared for MSN Warsaw includes not only performances and actions by contemporary artists, but also reconstructions of two of Július Koller’s “anti-happenings” and a performative exhibition.

We also invite you to Turnus—Show what you can do!—a performance in which anyone can take part. The only limitation will be the parameters of the cinema and the motto “Performance.”

The museum also plans to showcase the building’s architecture through music. During the opening weekend we invite the public to three concerts by world-renowned female musicians from Poland and abroad, whose work intersects pop, the visual arts and alternative culture, and who boldly experiment with styles, music genres, and their own image.

KINOMUZEUM

Opening on day one of MSN Warsaw’s new building, Kinomuzeum will be a space where independent and experimental films meet the most interesting phenomena from mainstream cinema. At Kinomuzeum, audiences will find European arthouse fare, genre films, films by artists, documentaries, and animated films. Visitors will have a chance to meet filmmakers, and discuss film art with experts in theory and practice. The Kinomuzeum program will also include works from MSN Warsaw’s own extensive film resources, archives, and collections of individual artists. Kinomuzeum will continue the institution’s existing long-term cooperation with film festivals and artistic collectives, while also entering into new collaborations. Film works accompanying exhibitions at MSN Warsaw will be a major part of the repertoire at Kinomuzeum as well. The Kinomuzeum space is located on the ˗1 level of the new MSN Warsaw building, with an entrance from the Cinema Tower on the northwest corner of the building.

A partner of Kinomuzeum is the electric utility E.ON Polska, which for years has supported theater and music festivals as well as outdoor film screenings. E.ON’s sponsorship of MSN Warsaw’s cinema is the next step in the growth of Warsaw’s cultural offerings in which the company is actively engaged.

“Supporting the cinema at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw is a continuation of E.ON Polska’s commitment to promoting culture and worthwhile film events in the Polish capital,” said Andrzej Modzelewski, CEO of E.ON Polska. “And we are happy to note that this marks a renewal of the fruitful past cooperation between E.ON and MSN Warsaw. Our company has been strongly tied to the local community in Warsaw for years. We are eager to engage in cultural events which are not just an outstanding source of inspiration, but also strengthen social bonds. These values are crucial for culture and for the power industry—especially at a time of transition. Just as electricity lights up our homes and cities, cinema also illuminates our minds, generating new ideas and perspectives.”
 

Education and the 4th edition of the “Primary Forms” program

The first visitors to the new home of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will be young people. After construction is completed, schoolchildren will be able to take guided tours and participate in creative workshops, and also pursue another special edition of the “Primary Forms” program. The finale will be an exhibition of contemporary art prepared by youngsters in the program.

The aim of “Primary Forms” is to bring contemporary art to primary schools, offering pupils the opportunity to create their own works and exhibitions, and develop their skills in creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. The program won second prize in the “Creative Processes” category at the Warsaw Cultural Education Awards gala, and was nominated for the Outstanding Museum Practice Award from the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM).
The development of “Primary Forms” is made possible by the EFC Foundation in its role as Education Partner of MSN Warsaw. For years, the foundation has consistently worked to build democracy resilient to the challenges of the present, focusing on areas such as education in the spirit of liberalism, grounded in empathy, independent reasoning, and responsibility. The opportunity for substantive and programmatic cooperation with the foundation will greatly contribute to implementation of the museum’s educational mission.

MSN books for museum opening

Last but not least, the museum’s publishing arm, Wydawnictwo MSN, is preparing special publications marking the opening of the new building. A volume by the architectural and urban anthropologist Michał Murawski, titled Form of Friendship: The Museum on the Square, will include an essay by the author, interviews with such figures as the building’s architect Thomas Phifer, architecture critic Deyan Sudjic, urbanist Marlena Happach, and folks from the Sunflower Solidary Community Center. The book will be issued in Polish and English. The second item published on the occasion of the museum’s opening is an album by Marta Ejsmont, a photographer who has documented the process of construction of the MSN Warsaw building over the years. It will offer a unique artistic record of how the new building arose.

Partners—cooperation old and new

The museum’s strength, and its task, is building good, strong relationships. In many areas of its operations, MSN Warsaw establishes partnerships aimed at strengthening the institution and realizing its mission and goals. This allows it to build an open, accessible program for the broad public, while also unleashing synergies between social groups and communities. The opening of the museum’s new home scheduled for 25 October 2024 could not occur without the support of the City of Warsaw and long-term partners: consultancy EY, patron of MSN Warsaw, and law firm DZP, MSN Warsaw’s legal partner. The new opening on Plac Defilad also means new cooperation, and thus the brands Audi and Invest Komfort have become strategic partners of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

Łukasz Zadworny, Audi Brand Director for Poland, said: “We share with MSN Warsaw courage in thinking and acting, and faith in the future combined with respect for the past and the world around us. Art has always arisen from challenging the established norms and limitations, from the need to express one’s own view without compromise, and to push new boundaries. We prize these pioneering forms of expression most highly—this is evident in our design, which we stress just as strongly as new technologies. This is why working with MSN Warsaw was a natural choice for us.”

Michał Ciomek, vice president of Invest Komfort, commented: “We understand the role of artists in the contemporary world. We support artistic education and the dialogue sparked by creative individuals. Hence our decision to cooperate with the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Our patronage will extend to the museum’s operations as well as the opening of the new building. We are thrilled to be part of this key cultural event in Poland this year. Each of our residential developments is created with a view to how it will resonate with the society, the city, the culture, and the existing architecture. That’s why we also supporting the architectural and educational pathways with our patronage.”