Current exhibitions
Current exhibitions
Temporary exhibitions
Nostalgia: Seekers of Fading Stars
The geopolitical situation, armed conflicts, including the full-scale war in Ukraine, the Covid pandemic and their impact on the economy have created a sense of destabilisation and pessimism about the future. Bold utopian visions have been superseded by nostalgia – a reflexive feeling of loss, an often ambivalent emotion that can splinter into both longing and belonging.
Dorota Mytych: At the Back of the Mind
The exhibition comprises paintings, drawings, spatial works and videos, in which the artist exposes the fragility and transience of systems of power or social constructs by showing the processes of their gradual dissolution and transformation. What these works have in common is that they question socially established narrative.
Fabian Knecht: Path of Most Resistance
The exhibition features works that are the result of the artist’s repeated travels through Ukraine, which began in 2005. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale onslaught, the artist has been actively supporting the Ukrainian resistance and volunteering. The artist’s humanitarian war experiences are reflected in his artistic activity.
Andrzej Żygadło: Full Circle
The exhibition Full Circle presents two series of paintings: Shrine and Orthodox Church Site. The paintings draw their inspiration from his native region – today, the Polish-Ukrainian borderland.
Krzysztof Marchlak: Sleeping Beauty
Krzysztof Marchlak’s exhibition deals with the negotiation of boundaries, which in the field of performing identity are set by the social norm, the external gaze, and the fear of otherness and change. The protagonists of Sleeping Beauty are drag queens. Marchlak portrays six people in the moment of transformation that takes place when putting on the stage costume.
Permanent Exhibitions
Great Contemporaries: A Gift from Teresa and Andrzej Starmach
In autumn 2023, Teresa and Andrzej Starmach donated 67 works by the most important Polish contemporary artists to the MOCAK Collection – a significant part of their private collection, accumulated over many years. Following the premiere display of the donated works at the newly opened Bunkier Sztuki Gallery, we prepared a presentation at the MOCAK premises.
Challenging Experiments on Self and Others
Valie Export (1940) is one of the most important artists of her generation. Metanoia is a curated selection of 29 video works from 1966 to 2010. The eponymous ‘metanoia’ is a Greek word, which means spiritual and mental transformation. The collection comprises the artist’s seminal works and shows the wide range of her oeuvre, both in terms of media and subject matter.
Concept-Shapes (MOCAK Collection)
Stanisław Dróżdż is one of the most significant representatives of Polish conceptual art and the most renowned Polish concrete poet. The year 2019 is the year of the 80th anniversary of the poet’s birthday and also the 10th anniversary of his death. In commemoration, the Museum is presenting an individual exhibition of the artist, which comprises entirely works from the MOCAK Collection.
Outdoor Exhibits from the MOCAK Collection
Group of artworks situated in the area surrounding MOCAK refers to four subjects: the Holocaust, history of art, history of politics and intervention in public space.
Live Factory 2: Warhol by Lupa (MOCAK Collection)
MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, in collaboration with the Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Krakow, is opening a new space as part of its Collection. We will be showing Krystian Lupa’s interactive installation Live Factory 2, based on the stage design for his theatre production Factory 2, which premiered at the Stary Theatre in 2008.
The Mieczysław Porębski Library (MOCAK Collection)
MOCAK’s Library is located in a side building. In one of the halls, Mieczysław Porębski’s Library is be exhibited. Porębski, Poland’s most prominent art historian, many years ago expressed his wish to donate his book collection to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow. When the Museum came into being, he returned to that idea and handed over to the institution the Krakow part of his collection.
External Exhibitions
Paintings from the MOCAK Collection at the AGH University of Science and Technology
In our selection, we have taken into account the specific circumstances of the exhibition. The selected works are intended for young and ambitious people facing a professional challenge. The tests that await them require strength, concentration, critical thinking, and determination. Crossing paths with art has a marked impact on the need to define oneself.