UNDOING A MONUMENT Arkadiusz Półtorak on the inauguration of the new Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw building

“Trudna Miłość. Muzeum między placem a pałacem,” Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2024-25
Although the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN) was formally established in 2005, the idea of its creation had been germinating for much longer – at least since 1986, when the influential Polish curator Anda Rottenberg conceived the Egit art foundation with the aim of lobbying for the museum’s establishment. From this point of view, the inauguration of its permanent home in October 2024 can be considered long overdue. There are, however, several mitigating factors to consider. In the early years of post-1989 political and economic transition in Poland, similar public investments lacked both financial and political backing. After Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004, a favorable conjuncture finally emerged. But shaping the museum’s organizational structure took several years, as the prospects for its long-term development remained threatened by shifts in the national political scene. [1] In 2022, the institution, which had been co-funded by the city of Warsaw and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKIDN), was downgraded to municipal status – a negligible price to pay for autonomy but a clear sign of enmity from conservative decision-makers. [2] In this light, the opening of the MSN headquarters – developed entirely by the city and housing a collection built almost exclusively with public funds – marks an impressive achievement. Whether it will remain a source of lasting joy for artists and cultural workers across the country remains to be seen, however, as a wide-ranging revision of post-1989 cultural policy in Poland unfolds. The new MSN building – designed by US architect Thomas Phifer – is a symbol of hope for those who anticipate a greater focus on contemporary art and cultural production than before, especially during the recent right-wing rule. Yet for some, it reflects cultural policies that have come under criticism, such as an excessive focus on large cities, and a disregard for local and grassroots organizations in favor of large-scale institutions. In the opening program, the MSN curators made it clear that they are aware of these ambivalences and willing to confront them.

“Trudna Miłość: Muzeum między placem i pałacem,” Museum of National Art in Warsaw, 2024-25
The completion of the new museum building was no easy task. The first version of the project – designed for the very same site by Christian Kerez – had already failed before the first shovel was ever driven into the ground, largely due to technical and administrative reasons. [3] Furthermore, the building’s location on Plac Defilad (Parade Square) is a historically charged space where any new addition could easily feel obtrusive or “out of place.” It was here that the first secretaries of the communist regime spoke to the masses during national festivities and political rallies before 1989. It was also here that the militia beat journalists and demonstrators with truncheons during martial law, a fact immortalized in Tadeusz Rolke’s photographs from 1982, which are now part of the MSN collection. Finally, it was here that Piotr Szczęsny, a self-proclaimed “gray citizen” (szary obywatel, a Polish expression for everyman), immolated himself in protest against Poland’s right-wing government in 2017. Such a place can hardly serve as a blank slate onto which the collective imagination can be freshly written.
Some of the myriad stories associated with this site were commemorated in the exhibition “Trudna miłość. Muzeum między placem i pałacem” (Tough Love. The Museum Between the Square and the Palace), which accompanied the opening of the MSN building as part of the Warszawa w budowie (Warsaw Under Construction) festival. [4] The show – curated by Fredi Fischli, Niels Olsen, Tomasz Fudala, and Natalia Sielewicz – chronicled various cultural practices that have animated the square throughout the last century, serving to make the space more welcoming and “human” beyond the rhythm of political rites. Alongside visualizations of Kerez’s would-be museum project, or postwar plans for the center of Warsaw, there were photographs of a pre-1989 craft fair or school supplies market and snapshots of the street trading that flourished on the square in the 1990s. Exhibited on a market-stall table, the found footage was arranged by the speculative architecture studio Centrala. [5] The exhibition also included works by artists who take a critical look at museum architecture in its social context, including Meghan Rolvien’s Unschöne Museen (2024) and Debasish Borah’s A Few Notes on How to Look at Strange Objects (2024) – two video works that question museum displays as vehicles of knowledge and power – as well as Carrie Mae Weems’s Museum Series (2006–ongoing). Juxtaposing the fragility of the human body with the cool permanence of museum architecture – so often an architecture of power – Weems’s photographs are as beautiful as they are foreboding. In the exhibition, they serve as a reminder that great architecture is not enough to win the public’s affection for a cultural institution like the MSN.

“Trudna Miłość: Muzeum między placem i pałacem,” Museum of National Art in Warsaw, 2024-25
According to the curators, the aim of the exhibition was to critically recognize the entanglement of the museum in its urban environment. The title of the exhibition, “Trudna miłość” (Tough Love), could be understood in several ways. To the Polish audience, the title may have intuitively sounded like a metaphor for the complex attitude of Warsaw’s inhabitants toward the historically charged square. However, the curators highlighted different connotations, hinting at the museum building’s own “complex relationship” with the site. [6] With this latter interpretation in mind, I couldn’t help but feel that the exhibition – despite its critical ambitions – had a PR edge to it. While the square was presented as a liminal space, chaotic and overwritten by conflicting narratives, the Phifer building seemed to promise a reconciliation – not least because, as the artworks collected in the exhibition suggested, the museum that inhabits the edifice is a self-aware and self-critical institution, wary of its own privileges. In Centrala’s selection of archive material from the last decade, Plac Defilad appeared as an inhuman and empty space, a huge car park where only the activities of the museum-in-construction – such as performative interventions accompanying previous editions of the Warszawa w budowie festival – offered some hope for a brighter future. Such an image obscured the agency of the square’s other stakeholders, including two public theaters (Teatr Studio, Teatr Dramatyczny) and a municipal gallery for contemporary art (Galeria Studio, adjacent to one of the theaters) all housed in the Palace of Culture and Science that directly neighbors the MSN.
For institutions whose windows overlook the new MSN building – as well as the construction site of the new Teatr Rozmaitości building, closing the frontage between the Palace and Marszałkowska Street – the new neighbors’ presence may feel somewhat uneasy. MSN is not the only cultural organization that breathes life into the square, nor is it the only one that makes the place hospitable to contemporary culture and progressive ideas, but of all the organizations around the square, it enjoys a unique fortune. In recent years, the majority of large public investments in Poland have gone to institutions dealing with history rather than contemporary culture, reflecting the priorities of the right-wing government in the years 2015 to 2023. And while the new coalition government declares different values, it is currently multiplying defense spending at the expense of other sectors. Against this background, the MSN building figures not only as a significant intervention in the urban layout of Warsaw’s center but also as a departure from business-as-usual in Polish cultural politics. This was not lost on the media, which gave the unveiling of the MSN’s new headquarters extensive coverage, highlighting the exceptional nature of the event. However, not all journalists approached the investment as a welcome exception to the status quo, and voices of criticism could be heard from both sides of the political spectrum. Some right-wing commentators saw the investment as superfluous and the actual building as a symbol of the liberal elites’ alleged power. Meanwhile, some of the more left-leaning commentators, while enthusiastic about the idea of hosting MSN on Plac Defilad, suggested that Phifer’s design is too conventional – not as cutting-edge and futuristic as, say, the Centre Pompidou in Paris was when it debuted – and therefore not a point of reference for future museum architects.

“Trudna Miłość: Muzeum między placem i pałacem,” Museum of National Art in Warsaw, 2024-25
Personally, I appreciate the MSN building – and especially its interior – for its understated elegance, and I am glad that the decision-makers responsible for its construction did not succumb to the temptation to introduce a grandiose vanity project into the city center. But for all its aesthetic virtues, the design is not without its faults. The high-vaulted, white-cube exhibition halls will not always bend easily to the curators’ will and – even more importantly – the building has not been designed with zero-emissions in mind, which makes it age mercilessly from the very outset. It will therefore provide a difficult framework for projects at the intersection of art and environmental activism, which the museum has consistently supported through exhibitions and public programs such as “Formy podstawowe” (Primary Forms). The second inaugural exhibition, “Muzeum jako szkoła” (Museum as School), was dedicated to this project – which brings together artists and students from Warsaw’s primary schools – and did little to hide the fact that the practices featured in the program are alien to the white cube. While participatory games, workshops, and performances in the tradition of radical pedagogy lend themselves easily to literary description – as in the quasi-handbooks published by the museum and the project’s co-organizers, The Roman Czernecki Educational Foundation [7] – they are difficult to translate into a static museum exhibition, something to be looked at rather than acted upon. Phifer’s architecture works well as a backdrop for monumental sculptures or installations such as Sandra Mujinga’s Ghosting (2019) or Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Kompozycja monumentalna (Monumental Composition, 1973–75), which were showcased in a preview of the MSN collection. However, if the building is to become a welcoming environment for practices that make a radical break with modernist formalism, its architecture will certainly need to be challenged.

Sandra Mujinga, „Ghosting,” 2019
A few days after the official opening, in the last week of October, the museum presented its first serious challenge to the building with a choreographic program curated by Magdalena Komornicka. The aim of the program – comprising 21 live performances, only some of which were being premiered at MSN – could be, in a nutshell, described as “de-monumentalizing” the building through sensory exploration. As the curator stated in one of her interviews, the idea was “to make the viewer feel the height and proportions of the empty halls, the texture of the walls, the temperature of the floors, the smell, colors, and light of the museum’s architecture.” [8] At the same time, the program reflected the ideas about the social role of art and the museum to which MSN has been committed since its inception. Experiences of the oppressed and discriminated against – those of women, LGBT+ communities, or people with disabilities – were at the heart of all the performances. They were also full of allusions to Poland’s recent past, combined with suggestions for revising the discourses of art and social history, in which discriminated-against voices have long been made inaudible.
The choreographic program included Weronika Pelczyńska and Magda Fejdasz’s Rzeźbiary (Those Sculptor Gals), a witty and moving take on tableaux vivant. Reenacting a series of sculptures, mostly by 19th-century Polish female artists, the performers channeled the joy of female sisterhood and friendship through their rapid-fire interactions. First shown at the National Museum in Warsaw in 2023, the work found an important context at MSN in the form of the collection preview, which featured only works by women, with such well-known artists as Alina Szapocznikow, Monika Sosnowska, and the aforementioned Mujinga and Abakanowicz at the forefront. With Rzeźbiary, Pelczyńska and Fejdasz have upped the ante. In my view, their work could be read as a call to reclaim lesser-known figures from post-1945 art history who – much like the 19th-century protagonists of the performance – developed their practices in the shadow of their male teachers, partners, and colleagues.

Weronika Pelczyńska and Magda Fejdasz, „Rzeźbiary,” 2024
In Iza Szostak’s choreography Skaj is the limit, which premiered at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in 2019, domestic objects – such as the sofa upholstered with the eponymous skaj, a leather imitation – play a key role, recalling both the social ambitions of Polish society in the years of transformation after 1989 and the immaturity of the local economy at the time. Although the cultural establishment was quick to dismiss the distinctive aesthetic of 1990s fledgling capitalism as kitsch, around the time of the premiere of Szostak’s work, it was being reclaimed by the Polish club scene in the wake of a gabber revival. In that context, Szostak’s work – co-performed with Carlos Martinez Anaya and Tatiana Dziewanowska – could be read as both an expression of the underground zeitgeist and an attempt to queer the social history of Poland in recent decades. Today, the performance provokes questions about how communities of taste are formed and about the role of cultural institutions such as MSN in such processes. For what is worth, the Warsaw-based museum certainly has the power to nurture cultural distinction. It is crucial that it uses this disposition responsibly, avoiding the reinforcement of social exclusions, but also positioning itself wisely among other institutions in Poland – including the aforementioned Ujazdowski Castle, currently in search for a new identity after the right-wing takeover that lasted between 2020 and 2024.
The list of social and cultural issues highlighted by the artists participating in the choreographic program at MSN could go on and on. Certainly, the choice of works reflected the curator’s efforts to present the institution as sensitive to the voices of its constituents. At the same time, the museum executives have made it clear that their work will be anything but performative gestures. In response to public pressure, the museum recently pledged to support the self-organization of artists and cultural mediators. Its director, Joanna Mytkowska, has also emphasized how seriously she takes the challenge of the museum’s presence in the heart of the city, in close contact with its inhabitants. It remains to be hoped that the museum’s good-willed initiatives will not collapse under the weight of its own prestige, and that the team’s public sensitivity will continue to foster its credibility among both non-professional and art audiences. Even among the latter, credibility should not be taken for granted. In the first decade of the 21st century, artistic communities across the country lobbied for the construction of the Warsaw museum, recognizing its wide-reaching benefits. [9] Today, their attention is no longer as focused on the capital. After eight years of a right-wing government that increased overall spending on culture but distributed it in a non-transparent way and limited the funds allocated to regional and municipal coffers, more and more attention is being paid to culture outside the major cities. There are also growing calls for more public funding to support grassroots initiatives, which, for the time being, remain forced to compete with large institutions and festivals for state subsidies. The role of MSN within this cultural landscape is still to take shape. However, with the museum’s excellent track record in audience development as well as collaboration with NGOs and informal advocacy groups, it is easy to imagine MSN as something of a training and development center in community engagement – a place where best practices are shaped and shared in close dialogue with multiple organizations and practitioners. In fact, this vision may already become reality in the upcoming months, as some of the exhibition spaces will be handed over to artist-activist collectives from across the country. [10]

Przemek Kamiński, „Exodos,” 2024
In the choreographic program, an optimistic – albeit not slightly utopian – view of the possible future of the museum was offered by Przemek Kamiński, whose brand-new work Exodos draws upon the work of Fred Herko, one of the artists associated with New York’s Judson Dance Theater. The piece – performed with irresistible gusto by Omar Karabulut and Michał Przybyła – conjured up the image of the museum as a scene of desire, recognizable from such emblematic films as Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003) and Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam (1972). My wish for the newly opened museum is that it will remain, not only during such performances as Exodos, a place marked by many tender feelings and desires – above all, by the desire to know, to connect with art, and to bond with others.
“Trudna Miłość. Muzeum między placem a pałacem,” Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 25. October, 2024-05. January, 2025
Arkadiusz Półtorak is a cultural studies scholar, art critic, and curator based in Kraków, Poland. He works as an assistant professor in the Department of Performativity Studies at the Jagiellonian University and acts as the current president of the Polish Section of AICA, the International Association of Art Critics. He has written extensively on the intersections of contemporary art and curating, political theory, and cultural policymaking, and has contributed to multiple publications on the matter, including Was sagt die Kunst? Gegenwartskunst und Wissenschaft im Dialog (eds. Monika Leisch-Kiesl and Franziska Heiß; transcript Verlag, 2022), The Trouble with Value (ed. Kris Dittel; Onomatopee, 2020), and Kinship in Solitude – Perspectives on Notions of Solidarity (eds. Anna Jehle and Paul Buckermann; adocs Verlag, 2017). In 2024, he was a resident critic at the Verein K in Vienna; the author would like to thank the association for facilitating his communication with TEXTE ZUR KUNST.
Image credit: Courtesy of the artists and the Museum of National Art in Warsaw, 5. © Wirkus Warsaw; 6 + 7. photos Pat Mic
Notes
[1] | For a detailed account of the inaugural years of MSN in Polish, see Dorota Monkiewicz, “Tworzenie koncepcji Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie w latach 2004–2007,” Magazyn Szum, October 25, 2024. |
[2] | The decision was overturned last year, after the right-wing government of Zjednoczona Prawica (United Right) left power, and since January 2025, MSN has been co-run by the ministry again. |
[3] | Marcin Szczelina, “Christian Kerez Bids Farewell to Warsaw,” Domus, September 13, 2012. |
[4] | Held since 2009, Warsaw Under Construction is a series of exhibitions and public events dedicated to the transformation of Warsaw’s urban environment and the lives of its inhabitants. Throughout the festival’s history, under the patronage of MSN since its inception, it has focused on themes such as architecture and design in the service of education, climate engineering, and culture in its various forms. |
[5] | Fredi Fischli, Niels Olsen, Tomasz Fudala, and Natalia Sielewicz, “Tough Love. The Museum Between the Palace and the Square. Warsaw Under Construction 16,” curatorial description, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2024, 2. |
[6] | Ibid., 1. |
[7] | See Formy podstawowe, Zeszyt ćwiczeń nr. 1, (Warsaw: MSN; EFC Foundation, 2023), online here. |
[8] | Dorota Łaski-Hamerlak, “Od abakanów po performance – wreszcie jest!,” Design Alive, October 20, 2024. |
[9] | See Monkiewicz, “Tworzenie koncepcji…” |
[10] | See “Pierwszy rok MSN-u w nowej siedzibie,” , MuzeOn, January 2025. |