Archive
Temporary exhibitions
Pop-Art After the Holocaust
Boris Lurie (1924–2008) was an American artist, who was born into a Jewish family in Leningrad (today Saint Petersburg). Lurie’s creative output encompassed many fields: he was a visual artist – creating paintings, installation and objects – as well as a writer and poet. His was art that was politically engaged and called for social action, art that was spontaneous, anarchic and therapeutic.
Polish Cut-Outs
Polish Cut-Outs by Alicja Biała are an ever-expanding collection of over 40 collages. The biggest ones are compositions more than two metres long. The exhibition will feature both new cut-outs and those illustrating Marcin Świetlicki’s selection of poems Poland (A Collection of Patriotic Songs).
Motherland in Art
The key concept of ‘motherland’ has been undergoing a great and at times painful modernisation in today’s world.
MOCAK Collection: Polish Collection of Josef Kloppenborg
The new exhibition of the MOCAK Collection consists of two distinct and very different parts. The first one is Polish collection of Josef Kloppenborg. In the second part, we present the sculpture and objects that the Museum has acquired in the last three years.
To the Absolute through the Abstract
Today, the works of Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart can be found in the most important museum collections throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Modern in London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. In the Museum in Wiesbaden there is an archive devoted to the artist and it is there that the largest institutional collection of Vordemberge-Gildewart’s works can be found. At the exhibition we present over 20 works from the collections of the museums in Osnabrück and Wiesbaden, as well as art galleries in Berlin and London and private collections.
Play within the Walls of the Academy
At the exhibition we present the works of current students and recent graduates of the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilnius (Vilniaus dailės akademija). The objects, installations and films on display were created during 2014–2018 under the guidance of Deimantas Narkevičius. Their formal and thematic diversity results from the teaching methods used and the approach to art.
Award of the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation 2018
Each year, the course funded by the grant from the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation in Switzerland takes place in different countries. In 2011 MOCAK organised its first Polish edition, with the participation of 15 artists. Their works were presented in the exhibition Award of the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation. From amongst them, the international jury, appointed by the Foundation’s Council, selected three winners: the first prize (20 000 Swiss francs) went to Anna Okrasko, and two distinctions (of 10 000 Swiss francs each) – to Róża Litwa and Jan Dziaczkowski.
In Search of the Total Drawing
At the exhibition we present drawings by Dietrich Helms (b. 1933) from 1954–2006. The earliest date back to when the artist was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg.
Elusive noise: unfolding the virtual (2014-2018)
The exhibition is part of the Krakow Photomonth 2018 Festival.
Extraction (2017-2018)
The exhibition is part of the Krakow Photomonth 2018 Festival.
Artists from Krakow: The Generation 1970–1979
Artists from Krakow: Generation 1970–1979 is the second in our biennial series, in which we show the most important trends in Krakow’s contemporary art. The artists presented in the current exhibition graduated at the turn of the 20th century. The majority are familiar on the international art circuit and some are lecturers at art academies.
Nonsense Technologies
Since 2015, Przemysław Jasielski and Rainer Prohaska have been working on their concept of ‘nonsense technologies’; in joint exhibitions, they have shown their works which ironically combine art and sciences. At MOCAK, we will be showing interactive objects and installations from 2009–2017.
New Trends in Art
In the history of Polish art, Leon Chwistek has made his name as a trend setter. He was a philosopher and logician but he was also fascinated by the avant-garde tension of his time. Endowed with considerable intellectual and artistic potential, he saw it as his duty to influence the shape of the changes to come. First, he became involved in the formist movement, becoming its intellectual spokesman.
Play on Meanings
The exhibition has been devised by Jarosław Kozłowski. Professor invited his ex-students to show their works at the Re Gallery.
Poetry and Art on the Brink of Nazism
Joachim Ringelnatz (1883–1934) is one of the classics of German poetry. Snippets of his humorous verse that distances itself from the reality are still popular today as topical aphorisms. In Cuxhaven, a town with close links to the poet, there is the Ringelnatz Museum. Ringelnatz was also a painter; his paintings, however, have not been very well known.
Lagertheater
Between 1939 and 1945, in concentration camps and POW camps there was theatre. Much has been written about the artistic activities of the prisoners in such camps but we do not have much information about performative creativity. The present exhibition provides the first-ever opportunity to take a close look at theatrical activity in the camps.
Art in Art
Art in Art is another exhibition in our series that confronts important areas of life with their perception by artists. This exhibition will, however, differ from the others.
Landscape after the Holocaust
With his life and art, Jonasz Stern left a permanent mark on the Polish art of the 20th century. Before the war, he was a member of the first Grupa Krakowska (Krakow Group), and in 1957 he co‑founded Grupa Krakowska II, with members including Maria Jarema and Tadeusz Kantor. These were the two most significant artistic formations in Poland.
Poland ↔ Israel
The exhibition in the Re Gallery has been organised in collaboration with Miri Segal, PhD, the head of the Postgraduate Fine Art Program at Hamidrasha Beit Berl College in Kfar Saba, Israel – as part of the aforementioned program.
The Artist and the Trace: Materials from the MOCAK Collection Artists' Archive
The exhibition is the first in a series intended to popularise the MOCAK Archive collection. The objects on display are testimony to artistic processes and ephemeral performative actions. The unique archival material documents public actions, artistic projects, and exhibitions from the period 1973–2004.
Grapevine: 1988–1992
The exhibition is organized as a part of the Krakow Photomonth 2017 Festival.
A New Archaeology for Liban and Płaszów
The exhibition is organized as a part of the Krakow Photomonth Festival 2017.
Art Taken Out of the Ordinary
One can judge an artist by whether he has discovered his own method of ‘processing the world’ – one that opens the eyes of others to new symbolic areas. Daniel Spoerri is a great artistic discoverer.
Sensations of Reality and Conceptual Practices 1965–1980
The exhibition is another in the series of individual presentations of artists from the MOCAK Collection. We are showing Jarosław Kozłowski's early works from the period 1965-1980: drawings, sketches, photographs, paintings, as well as installations and assemblages. They are an expression of the artist's personal experiences placed in a political-historical context.
The Sea
The motif of the sea has been present in art and literature for centuries. The presentation in Alfa Gallery shows a variety of works executed in different media by contemporary artists from Poland and other countries, who have been inspired by this theme.
Grenzsituationen
The twentieth-century existential philosopher Karl Jaspers introduced the concept of Grenzsituationen, limit situations; amongst these extreme situations he included death, struggle, suffering and guilt.
Social Performance
Katarzyna Bobiec and Dominika Borkowska are students of artistic mediation at the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław. In Re Gallery they have arranged interactive spaces inspired by their performance activities.
Medicine in Art
Medicine in Art is another exhibition in the series that confronts terms permeating the public sphere of reference with the viewpoint of the artist.
Still Life: Psychological Portrait
The exhibition will present two series combining photographs and text. The images show carefully arranged food items and everyday objects. The series Not So Miscellany is reminiscent of traditional still lifes, whilst works from the series Hyper Reality are open compositions.
Trial Print
The exhibition presents works created in 2014–2016 in the Copperplate Engraving Studio of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow under Professor Krzysztof Tomalski.
Making Connections
The exhibition of works by Robert Devriendt is another individual presentation of artists from the MOCAK Collection.
Aneta Grzeszykowska
The exhibition is organized as a part of the Krakow Photomonth Festival 2016.
Max Pinckers Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty*
The exhibition is organized as a part of the Krakow Photomonth Festival 2016.
Looking for Yourself in Others
Looking for Yourself in Others is an exhibition of 13 drawings by Tomasz Wiatr at the MOCAK Library. A doctor from Krakow, he embarked on a creative way of spending his leisure time and began a parallel life as an artist.
Artists from Krakow: The Generation 1980–1990
MOCAK is embarking on a series of exhibitions showing the oeuvres of artists who live and work in Krakow. These presentations will encompass a variety of media. The series is inaugurated with a show of artists born between 1980 and 1990.
When Politics Enters Daily Life
In his distinctive art practice, Hungarian artist Csaba Nemes critically investigates sites of social and economic imbalances, the unexpected overlaps between personal and political history, and instances of friendship in times of despair. The exhibition at MOCAK presents Nemes’s singular artistic achievement that deftly branches into painting, drawing, film, animation and photography.
Beuys, Kantor, Demarco
The exhibition is devoted to the three artists Joseph Beuys, Tadeusz Kantor and Richard Demarco.
Young Painting from Linz
The exhibition at the Re Gallery at MOCAK will present works by six students at the University of Art and Design Linz in Austria.
Poetry and Photography – The ‘Blue Pueblo’ Project
The exhibition is pivoted on a fusion of poetry and photography. In 2013, Grzegorz Wróblewski wrote his poem Blue Pueblo. Inspired by it, Wojciech Wilczyk took a series of photographs of Amager, the district of Copenhagen where the poet lives. The poem and a series of black-and-white photographs, displayed on the wall side by side, all combine into the project Blue Pueblo.
Impossible Objects
The first edition of the exhibition Impossible Objects took place in the Polish Pavilion at the 14th Biennale of Architecture in Venice. At MOCAK we will be showing the most significant element of the project that represented Poland at the Architecture Biennale.
Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz
The exhibition at MOCAK highlights the significant presence of the theme of Auschwitz in the historical, social and cultural discourse. It demonstrates how contemporary artists from Poland, Israel and Germany interpret events from the past. This is not about presenting art broadly thematically related to the Holocaust, rather – about works that deal with the ‘anus mundi’– Auschwitz as a place of genocide, the most tragic man-made symbol there is.
Gender in Art
Gender in Art is another project in MOCAK's series that confronts significant civilisational themes with artist's interpretation. The international exhibition will feature works of about forty artists. The accompanying publication, beside documenting the exhibition, will be a collection of essays which will present the issue from different perspectives.
S/he
At the exhibition we present works by four students at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. The works illustrate the changes that have taken place in the social roles designated to men or women. The subject matter of S/he is related to the exhibition presented in the main part of the museum – Gender in Art.
People
The exhibition is part of the series of exhibitions at MOCAK that aim to enhance the creative image of well-known. We will be showing a few dozen of his sketches of faces. These are from a selection of a few hundred of the poet’s drawings from the collection of the National Library of Poland in Warsaw.
Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century
At the exhibition we show the eponymous series that portrays the most prominent 20th-century personalities of Jewish extraction. Amongst them are academics, politicians and figures related to the world of culture such as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Golda Meir, Gertrude Stein and Franz Kafka.
Space: The MOCAK Collection
Space is the first exhibition of works from the MOCAK Collection and Archive to be presented at Krakow Live Festival. The exhibition, in which we will be presenting some 30 objects, sculptures and installations, is part of the programme Art at the Festival.
Lighting Studio
The year 2015 was proclaimed by UNESCO as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies. Therefore at Re Gallery we present lamp designs by the students of the Faculty of Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.
Indrė Šerpytytė, 1944–1991
The exhibition as part of Krakow Photomonth Festival.
Logical Emotion: Contemporary Art from Japan
The leitmotif of the exhibition can be encapsulated in two concepts – often treated as each other’s antithesis – ‘logic’ and ‘emotion’. The organisers of the exhibition hold that the tension between these concepts is the pivot of contemporary Japanese art. The exhibition aims to discover the essence of the ‘Japanese identity’, presenting it in different contexts and attempting to define distinguishing features of its aesthetics.
Omer Fast
Omer Fast’s exhibition at MOCAK will be the artist’s first larger presentation in Poland. We will show four video installation. Omer Fast is part of the programme of individual exhibitions showing the output of artists represented at the MOCAK Collection.
Two Series
The second in the series of Mikołaj Smoczyński’s exhibitions is based entirely on his works in the MOCAK Collection; we will be presenting two of the earliest photographic series by the artist: Double Object and The Secret Performance.
Nikifors
Nikifor Krynicki is the pivotal point of the exhibition. Other artists on display represent a philosophy and artistic approach similar to the Master from Krynica.
Young Israel
The first exhibition at Re Gallery by artists from outside Poland. We present video works by young Israeli artists – Ben Hagari and Nadav Bin-Nun.
The MOCAK Collection
The most recent exhibition of the MOCAK Collection, while retaining several works of art from its previous opening, has been extended to include the works acquired in the last two years. Just like in previous year the exhibition is divided into sections according to the media in which the works were created. Our main focus are the most important ones: photography, painting, sculpture and video.
Sculptures, Paintings, Films
At the exhibition of Julian Opie, one of the leading contemporary British artists, we will be presenting his new works, the majority prepared especially for the Krakow exhibition. The prevailing themes are people and nature.
Installation or Object? Works from the MOCAK Collection
At the exhibition we will show over a dozen works from the Museum’s Collection. Some of them have never been before been shown at MOCAK. Within the scope expressed in its title – Installation or Object? – the show examines the problem of fluidity of media in contemporary art.
Object, Space, Photography
The first in the series of exhibitions at MOCAK presenting the oeuvre of Mikołaj Smoczyński. The show is based entirely on the works of art and archives bequeathed to the Museum by the artist’s heirs in 2011.
America Is Not Ready For This
In 2011 Karol Radziszewski decided to set off to America in the footsteps of Natalia LL. The exhibition, which consists of the documentation of his encounters there, as well as his email correspondence and archive photos, creates a new portrait of Natalia LL.
Literary Inspirations
The artist who finds inspiration in literature tries to visualise what the writer has left to the reader’s imagination. The exhibition concentrates on works that relate to narratives in which the world is a place as magical as it is absurd, full of incredible phenomena.
I Am a Drop in the Ocean: Art of the Ukrainian Revolution
At all times, art accompanied the protests; it was a sphere of freedom, an expression of resistance to Russian influence in the corrupt state.
Crime in Art
Crime in Art is the 4th exhibition to date in MOCAK’s series which combines art with the most significant civilisational themes such as history, sport, science and religion. Crime reveals all the inner fanatical turmoil, bleak helplessness and wrong without atonement.
Popes
The exhibition analyses the phenomenon of fascination with Pope John Paul II, his image and the material traces of his presence. The presented works represent just a small portion of the critical look at the increasing exaltation of society.
Krzysztof Niemczyk. Situationist, Writer, Painter
The exhibition aims to remember this uncompromising and independent artist. We will be showing fragments of Niemczyk’s manuscripts, his paintings, portrait photographs and photographs documenting his artistic actions as well as souvenirs from the family archives: the artist’s letters to his sister, records and books from his collection.
My Presence
The works on display have been produced at the UMCS Institute of Fine Arts in Lublin under supervision of Professor Jan Gryka. The majority of the artists are in their third year. The common theme of all the works is self-portrait.
Inner Space
An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of the Józef Babiński Specialist Hospital in Krakow
Walker Evans: The Magazine Work
The exhibition as part of Krakow Photomonth Festival.
Taryn Simon The Picture Collection
The exhibition as part of Krakow Photomonth Festival.
Przemysław Branas Hiccups ShowOFF Section 2014
The exhibition as part of ShowOFF Section 2014 Krakow Photomonth Festival.
Petr Pavlensky Anonymous Nationalist
The conceptual artist and political activist Petr Pavlensky represents a new wave of protest and dissident art in Russia. The exhibition Anonymous Nationalist recounts an episode from real life where a murder was committed in a civilian setting, but with militaristic intentions.
Władysław Hasior: The European Rauschenberg?
Władysław Hasior’s exhibition at MOCAK will be the first such comprehensive Krakow presentation of the artist’s work in four decades. Hasior is one of the most prominent Polish artists.
Uprooted
The exhibition is the first presentation in Poland of the works of the Norwegian photographer Rune Eraker and also the first exhibition of socially engaged photography at MOCAK.
Social Photography: Workshops
Re Gallery – exhibition space opened in May 2013, designated for presenting the works of art students. This time we will show the works of the art students of the Film School in Łódź, produced during the workshops with a Norwegian photographer Rune Eraker.
The Whole World in Small Pictures
At the exhibition we will present over two thousand miniature pictures by Alina Dawidowicz. These are watercolours or felt tip representation, which she started making in the 1980s at the rate of some 20 a week.
Collages
Wisława Szymborska’s exhibition Collages aims to broaden the artistic perception of the Polish Nobel winner. The poet’s art covers three areas: serious poetry, light-hearted poetry and cut-and-paste works, or collages. These areas combine to define the artistic personality of Szymborska.
New Collection
The theme of the new display of the MOCAK Collection will be artistic media. We will present their most important forms: photography, painting, sculpture, drawing and video. In this exhibition, we also want to illustrate the artists’ ideas on how to individualise media.
30th Council of Europe Exhibition The Desire for Freedom. Art in Europe Since 1945
The post-1945 works that will be presented at MOCAK show the social and political climate of contemporary Europe. Human rights, equality, democracy – such are the issues dealt with by the exhibition The Desire for Freedom, co-financed by the European Commission.
Good Boy
In October, MOCAK will present the first comprehensive exhibition in Poland of the world-renowned artist Erwin Wurm.
14 Films
The exhibition in MOCAK’s Audiovisual Hall is a presentation of all the films made by Josef Dabernig so far. The artist had for many years worked in the fields of sculpture, design and architecture but it was his films and photography that came to dominate his artistic expression.
Her Hair
At Krystyna Piotrowska’s individual exhibition we will be presenting video, object and installation. In spite of the variety of the media used, the artist’s sole topic is hair. In her works, she demonstrates the cultural significance of hair.
Projects
Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom
Presentation of the initiative by Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler,
which has been carried out since 2014. As one of its parts, the
invited artists and activists create designs of banners which show
utopian projects.
Quotes from the Collection
Quotes from the Collection is a year-long project at the MOCAK Library that will provide a framework for the presentation and discussion of selected works from the MOCAK Collection. The project will provide an opportunity to get to know works that are not at present part of the Collection exhibition as well as an incentive to analyse the creativity of selected artists in
an unhurried and in-depth way.
External Exhibitions
Witkacy: The Genius Troublemaker
Witkacy started on his creative path as a painter. Painting, however, was to disappoint him. He came to see it as a craft, and so he set up the Portrait Painting Company, and painted some 4 500 portraits, the majority of which perished by fire in Warsaw during the war. The idea behind Witkacy’s company and its rules were a forerunner of conceptualism. He next experimented with image through photography, a medium in which he could see fully his wild, unbridled personality.
Exhibitions accompanying the Danish premiere of the opera The Passenger in Aarhus
As part of the programme accompanying the premiere of the opera The Passenger at the Den Jyske Opera in Aarhus (Denmark), there will be two exhibitions devoted to the life and work of Zofia Posmysz. The exhibitions can be seen from 3 to 28 August in the foyer of the Concert Hall of the Danish National Opera and in the Women’s Museum in Aarhus, curated by Maria Anna Potocka, Director of MOCAK.
The MOCAK Collection: The New History in Art
During 7–10 June the International Contemporary Art Fair ArtVilnius’18 will take place in the capital of Lithuania – the largest such event in the Baltic countries.
The Passenger
The exhibition is accompanying the premiere of the opera The Passenger based on the novel by Zofia Posmysz at the Semperoper Dresden.
MOCAK Collection at the MBWA in Leszno
The exhibition MOCAK Collection at the MBWA in Leszno is part of a research project that our Museum has been conducting over a number of years, aiming to analyse the social function of art understood not as pleasurable pastime but above all as a means to understand and change the world.
Second Generation: Graphic Novel by Michel Kichka
The exhibition is part of the programme accompanying the premiere of the opera The Passenger at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen.
Zofia Posmysz: Auschwitz and Literature
The exhibition is part of the programme accompanying the premiere of the opera The Passenger at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen.
Ryszard Krynicki. Sehen wir uns noch?
To coincide with the publication of Ryszard Krynicki’s collection of poems Sehen wir uns noch? by the German publishing house Hanser, MOCAK in collaboration with the Center for Persecuted Arts in Solingen has prepared an exhibition dedicated to his works.
Literary Images of the Holocaust: The Passenger by Zofia Posmysz
The exhibition is part of the programme accompanying the premiere of the opera The Passenger at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen.
L’arte differente: MOCAK al MAXXI
Exhibition of works from the MOCAK Collection in Rome
This will be the first such large scale and comprehensive presentation of works from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cracow, MOCAK, to be presented in Italy. We will be presenting over 50 works including paintings, photographs, video, installations, and objects.
Landscape after the Holocaust
MOCAK Collection in Vilnius
From 9 until 12 June, at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Centre Litexpo in Vilnius, the 7th edition of the International Contemporary Art Fair ArtVilnius’16 will take place. This is one of the most prominent events of this kind in the Baltic states.
Death Does Not Have the Last Word: The Experience of Auschwitz Today in the Center for Persecuted Arts in the Art Museum Solingen
From December, in the Center for Persecuted Arts in the Art Museum Solingen it will be possible to view part of the exibition previously presented at MOCAK: Poland – Israel – Germany: The Experience of Auschwitz.
Nikifors in Zakopane
The first presentation of the exhibition Nikifors took place at MOCAK. Its second facet shown at the Tatra Museum in Zakopane has been organised as part of the 41st Academic Symposium ʻModern Economy and Public Administrationʼ.
Inner Space in Wałbrzych
An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of the Józef Babiński Specialist Hospital in Krakow. From 17 November it will be transferred to the Książ Palace in Walbrzych.
Krzysztof Niemczyk exhibition in Rome
From 3 until 28 November 2014 as part of the project In Polonia per saziare l´amore at Fondazione Pastificio Cerere there is on the exhibition of Krzysztof Niemczyk.
Inner Space in Leszno
An Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of the Józef Babiński Specialist Hospital in Krakow. From 14 October until 13 November the exhibition will be presented in the District Museum in Leszno.
Collages or Home-Made Cut-and-Paste Postcards
On Friday 4 July at 7 pm at the "Signs of the Times Centre" of Contemporary Art in Toruń the exibition will open entitled Collages or Home-Made Cut-and-Paste Postcards by Wisława Szymborska. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow is the exhibition partner.
Art Is Freedom: Exhibition of works from the MOCAK Collection
The exhibition Art Is Freedom is the first-ever presentation in Ukraine of works from the MOCAK Collection. The selection includes a few dozen works by Polish and international artists.