Archive
Archive
Temporary exhibitions
OKNOPLAST FOR ART. Exhibition of the winning artworks
This year’s OKNOPLAST FOR ART competition was the second edition of the international contest organised by MOCAK and OKNOPLAST GROUP. The exhibition showcases five executed works accompanied by the designs. The works belong to the OKNOPLAST GROUP collection.
Weaves: Contemporary Artistic Textiles from the MOCAK Collection
In recent years, one cannot fail to notice that contemporary artists have become increasingly more inclined to take up weaving as a medium that allows them to expand the form and scope of expression. Works made using this technique are also an important area of interest on the part of the MOCAK Collection.
Michel Kichka. Cartooning on the Frontline
The exhibition shows a selection of the cartoons I drew about two different wars: a war in my motherland and a war in another country, far away from my home. With my pencil and brush I try to support my people, to give strength to the families of the hostages, to express my deep mourning to families who lost their mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers, to send my empathy to the wounded, to the traumatized and to those who have become refugees in their own country.
Try to make it real. But compared to what?: Contemporary Art from Lithuania
The exhibition presents the most important trends and figures in contemporary Lithuanian art. Its leitmotif is paradox in art. It has been organised in collaboration with the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in Vilnius and is based both on the collections of this institution and private collections.
Painting – Art’s Golden Medium: MOCAK Collection
Painting is a contract between the vision of a painting and the hand. It is there that the content, meaning and beauty can be conjured up. But when the hand does not feel the idea or when it is technically clumsy, the image is distorted. In this exhibition – through four themes – we show paintings from the MOCAK Collection that demonstrate a successful concord between hand and image. Some of these works emphasise the subject while others tone it down. Painting is a versatile medium.
Agnieszka Osiecka’s Photographic Gift
Osiecka did not take photographs with the intention of making them public. She treated photography as a tool for observing others. She refers to her taking photographs in her Diary. Some of her photographic concepts had a deliberate artistic slant. For example, a series of photographs from New York in which something red appears in the frame.
Island
Krystian Lupa studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and is still drawn to the image, as evidenced in his excellent video stage sets and in his drawings, these days mainly digital. As if this were not enough, he also practises autobiographical writing, analysing himself and those close to him. Since he is open and unabashed, these stories have the power of confession.
Artists from Krakow: The Second Krakow Group
In 1957, the second Krakow Group was formed, an association of independent artists, each with a different way of thinking but all equally committed to art. They were individualists, but what united them was their interest in contemporary art. The basic prerequisite for being invited to join the Group was a creative ‘neurosis’ – a feeling of intoxication with the drug that was making art. In this approach, the second Krakow Group was a few years ahead of Fluxus. It became the Polish avant-garde of postmodernism. Despite its name, artists from cities other than Krakow could also become members.
You Are Mine
Jakub Julian Ziółkowski (1980) is one of the most important contemporary Polish artists. The exhibition at MOCAK is the first comprehensive presentation of his work – with 100 works on display, including large-format paintings, elaborate installations, precise drawings and monotypes, small sculptures and ceramic objects. The monumental painting A Dream about Life and the totemic sculpture The Spirit of Our People, exhibited outside, were created especially for the exhibition.
OKNOPLAST FOR ART. Exhibition of the winning artworks
In 2022, MOCAK and OKNOPLAST Group organised the first-ever edition of the competition OKNOPLAST FOR ART. Five of the designs along with the completed artwork are presented at the exhibition: three award winners and two given a distinction. Following the exhibition, the pieces will inaugurate the OKNOPLAST Group art collection.
Return to Ceramics
Return to Ceramics is an exhibition of works by contemporary artists who use the medium of ceramics in their practice. At the core of the exhibition are works from the MOCAK Collection, by: Feiko Beckers, Burçak Bingöl, Nschotschi Haslinger, Agata Kus, Justyna Smoleń and Jakub Julian Ziółkowski. In addition, the exhibition will feature pieces by Wojciech Ireneusz Sobczyk, Aleksandra Liput, Natalia Kopytko and Tomek Kulka.
Hijra – Between Genders
The exhibition by Lukáš Houdek, an artist in the MOCAK Collection, explores the subject of the Hijra community in India. ‘Hijra’ is a term used in South Asian countries that refers primarily to people recognised at birth as male, but who reject this identification. Some have undergone sex reassignment surgery to female, while others remain at the stage of hormone therapy or have not made any permanent changes to their bodies.
Actions in Nature
The exhibition Actions in Nature is part of a series of presentations by artists whose works can be found in the MOCAK Collection. We will be showing a selection from the dozens of drawings we hold from 2016–2020, as well as new photographs and videos.
![Muntean/Rosenblum, untitled [They realized that their capacity…], 2011, oil / canvas, 190 × 220 × 5 cm, MOCAK Collection14](https://d1uip03pwa14dd.cloudfront.net/system/images/29757/a89f3bd70d_box120.png)
Contemporary Models of Realism (MOCAK Collection)
The term ‘realism’ appeared in the second half of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of realistic representation applies throughout art history. In the popular perception, 'good art' is a faithful representation of reality. This is not, however, what artists consider the most important. They engage in a dialogue with realistic images using their tangibility as raw material to build their concepts.
Notes of a Madwoman
Notes of a Madwoman is also the title of the artist’s debut novel (Znak, 2022). The book reveals experiences relating to different aspects of life: being a woman, an artist and someone with a diagnosed mental illness. The works on view in the MOCAK Library are illustrations for selected chapters of the novel.
Maks Levin, War Correspondent
The show presents photographs by Maks Levin, taken from 2014 to 2022. The earliest works cover events that took place on Independence Square (Maidan) in Kyiv. The most recent photographs report on beginning of Russian invasion on Ukraine (February and March 2022).
Politics in Art
Politics in Art is the 10th exhibition in the flagship MOCAK series, in which we combine art with the most important civilisational concepts. Each exhibition presents a variety of artistic interpretations of a given theme. Politics in Art has been confronted with a tragic time when political ambitions have turned into a crime.
Bruno Schulz: Sex-Fiction
The exhibition at MOCAK will show several dozen drawings and prints by Bruno Schulz. We have also prepared an experiment with self-portraits. We have cut out representations of the artist’s face from larger compositions and arranged them in a sequence analysing his psyche.
Life Recorded in 745 Notebooks
Janina Turek was born in Krakow in 1921 and died there in 2000. She spent most of her life at 6 Parkowa Street in the Podgórze district of the city. On the face of it, she was an ordinary housewife. Yet for 57 years – in secret from her loved ones – she kept a diary. The object of her observations was everyday life, the simplest human activities, to which we often pay little attention. After Janina Turek’s death, her diaries, written almost throughout her life and hidden in her flat, were found by her daughter. The core of the exhibition will be a presentation of notebooks that have been in the MOCAK Collection since 2016. The exhibition will be complemented by photographs from the family archive, as well as postcards that the diarist collected and a film interview with Janina Turek’s daughter.
Erotic Provocations
Natalia LL, a prominent contemporary artist considered one of the pioneers of feminist art, died on 12 August 2022. Her work had roots in conceptualism and was also part of the body art movement. The MOCAK Collection contains more than 40 works by Natalia LL, dating from 1964 to 1993. This collection of her works has never before been presented in its entirety at MOCAK, the exhibition is thus a premiere, but is above all a tribute to an outstanding artist.
Mieczysław Porębski: Portrait of the Master
On the tenth anniversary of the death of Mieczysław Porębski, the MOCAK Library will host a display of photographs and portraits of this outstanding theoretician, critic and art historian. We will present objects from the Museum Archives: photographs from the time of the occupation, family photographs and documentation of Porębski’s foreign travels. An important part of the exhibition will be the Professor’s portraits made by artists who were friends of his.
This Blood Is for You
The project This Blood Is for You was initiated by Franciszek Orłowski in 2016. At that time, the artist invited Warsaw residents from different cultural backgrounds to donate blood. The collected blood went to the Polish blood bank. The action was documented. Two years later the artist carried out a similar project as part of a festival organised by the Konstmuseum in Uppsala. The exhibition at MOCAK shows the third, Krakow-based and expanded version of this project.
On the 10th Anniversary of the Death of Wisława Szymborska
The show includes – alongside the poet’s collages from the MOCAK Collection – copies of Polish editions of Szymborska’s poems, a selection of translations and monographs devoted to her, poetic posters by Ryszard Krynicki, and her private memorabilia – one of them her Nobel Prize medal, and portraits of Szymborska by Beata Stankiewicz, Leszek Sobocki, Edward Dwurnik and Krzysztof M. Bednarski.
The Last Swiss Holocaust Survivors
The exhibition presents statements of Holocaust witnesses and their descendants. Fourteen survivors are portrayed, along with excerpts from their personal memories of the Holocaust. The exhibition condemns anti-Semitism, still in evidence in many countries. Its goal is to pass on to the young generation the values of tolerance and openness to the other.
The Artist Is Present
The exhibition is a presentation of artistic strategies based on the artist’s use of their own body as a means of expression and a source of symbols. The self-portrait is the underpinning area of such activity, which also involves a study of the body’s strength, attractiveness, disfigurement and functionality. This is where painting and performance work best. This art declares unequivocally that the basic material and inspiration in visual creation is the human being.
![Przemek Matecki, untitled [Michaelangelo], from the series //Small Paintings//, 2016–2018, mixed technique / canvas, 20 × 20 cm, MOCAK Collection26](https://d1uip03pwa14dd.cloudfront.net/system/images/32801/f404514abb_box120.jpg)
Art Feeds on Art
The works presented at the exhibition are most often based on painting and sculpture, but also on literature and film. The artists draw on old art and the work of their contemporaries. They choose meaningful works and enter into a dialogue with them – whether critical, affirmative, or, occasionally, humorous. They reinterpret literary and film works. They give a topical slant to established iconographic patterns, such as the adoration of the Magi or crucifixion. They create their own variants of well-known masterpieces.
Music as Notation: Music as Experiment
The MOCAK Collection contains several dozen scores of experimental music. These are usually musical notations written in private languages and intended for performers who work directly with the composer. The starting point for this part of the exhibition are works shown in the Polish Institutes in Prague (1983) and Paris (1985), and at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1986) during the exhibition Musical Score as Piece of Art. These include graphic scores by Marek Chołoniewski, Piotr Grella-Możejko, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bogusław Schaeffer and Ewa Synowiec. Another part of the exhibition consists of scores understood in a broader sense. These are written down and drawn plans of action and performance, several of which took place in Krakow.
Symbols of Life after Death: Commemorative Sculpture by Krzysztof M. Bednarski
The exhibition is dedicated to two recently deceased eminent artists – Krzysztof Penderecki and Adam Zagajewski. Krzysztof M. Bednarski is the author of the sarcophagus sculptures dedicated to them in the National Pantheon at the Church of St Apostles Peter and Paul. The exhibition at MOCAK will be a broader presentation of his commemorative art.
Architecture as Symbol, Text and Backdrop
Artists employ in many different ways the wealth of meanings that architecture provides. They explore its symbolic potential. They touch upon the architecture's role as our constant companion and the backdrop of everyday events. And they also turn it into a sophisticated tool of communication.
The Cover Alien to the Book: Library Intervention
As part of her intervention, the artist gave the old books new titles and painted new dust jackets. Thus, the former content of the books was invalidated. The gesture is radical, but not final: the dust jackets can be removed so as to return to the original relationship between the dust jacket and the content.
The Sky Above Krakow: LGBT Speak Out Drone Performance on Rynek Główny
The project is an artistic attempt to give a public voice to persons from LGBT communities. It takes advantage of drone technology. The drones are equipped with pairs of LED screens and megaphone speakers. The screens display the movement and expression in the eyes of the individuals speaking. Their eyes have been recorded simultaneously with their voice to be synchronically broadcast from the drone megaphone.
Artists from Krakow: The Generation 1950–1969
The exhibition presents artists connected with Krakow born in the 1950s and 1960s. This is the third exhibition in the series inaugurated by MOCAK in October 2015. The goal of this series is to review art in the city which for centuries has been a capital of art.
Artist and Editor
The Marian Eile exhibition is part of the series presenting artists from Krakow, whose media encompassed both image and words. The goal of the series is to refresh our memory of artists – somewhat forgotten – whose personalities had an impact on the cultural life of the city.
The Ultimate Song
At the exhibition The Ultimate Song by Paweł Althamer and Artur Żmijewski we present a selection of 20 collages created between 2017 and 2019. The collages are made of excerpts cut out from books- starting with Taschen’s erotic and pornographic publications, through nature and anatomical albums, to historical and scientific atlases.
Vicious Circles of Madness
At the exhibition we present three installations: Ian Ross Baughman’s Multi-Equation Case Model, Revitalisation of Jacek Malczewski’s ‘Vicious Circle’ (MOCAK Collection) and Le danse macabre de terrorisme. The most important element in the works of Marcin Berdyszak is the human figure, contextualised by means of clothing, positioning, props and surroundings.
Anthropocene. Student Exhibition – Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow
The works presented at the exhibition express a sense of unease and insecurity at the prospect of the predicted climatic catastrophe. Nature can no longer take the human impact.
Philosopher and Photographer
The exhibition is part of our series of projects in which we showcase outstanding poets, writers and thinkers in other than their accustomed creative roles – as painters, draftsmen, collage makers or photographers. To date, we have exhibited works by Wisława Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, Joachim Ringelnatz, Leon Chwistek and Herta Müller. Each exhibition is accompanied by a sizeable publication that analyses and compares the different creative fields.
World War II – Drama, Symbol, Trauma
In preparing an exhibition about World War II, we had no ambition to chart its history but rather to focus on some threads that have had the greatest impact on the Polish consciousness. Artworks are accompanied by documents as well as propaganda and literary materials. In the exhibition we present 39 artists. Many of the works come from the MOCAK Collection.
The Pope
The Pope is a further exhibition that brings diverse artistic responses to the bishop of Rome. The previous show took place in 2014. Today, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Karol Wojtyła (1920–2005), known to the world as John Paul II, the Museum has prepared a presentation devoted in its entirety to the phenomenon of the Polish Pope.
Private Exhibition
The oeuvre of Mikołaj Smoczyński (1955–2009) continues to be discovered anew. MOCAK houses the entire body of his artistic legacy. The exhibition aims to bring the figure of the one of most prominent Polish artists closer to the audiences. This year we commemorate the tenth anniversary of Smoczyński’s death.
The Ghosts of Matter
The exhibition is the latest in a series of individual presentations by artists whose works are featured in the MOCAK Collection. Guido Casaretto is interested in matter per se – the sea, mountains, the universe, but also stone and wood. Casaretto analyses different forms of the matter of the Universe, and subsequently – using a variety of media – produces their replicas.
I Am a Wounded Man: Writer, Actor, Painter
At the exhibition we present a few dozen of works by Wiesław Dymny – paintings, drawings, collages, book cover designs, stage set designs and photographs, selected from the artist’s abundant legacy. The majority are undated; they were created as sketches of whatever the artist happened to have to hand. Dymny was dismissive of his works; he gave them out to friends and cared little for them – as far as he was concerned, his task was done when the work was completed.
I Enter Every Reality
Exhibition to celebrate the artist’s 60th birthday. This is the first such comprehensive presentation of selected works by Shinji Ogawa in the MOCAK Collection. It has been supplemented with works on loan from the artist and from private collections (Mizuho Ogawa, Seiichi Yoschino and STANDING PINE).
Crush the Infamous! Artists from the Collection of Sachsenhausen
At the exhibition we show the works of eight artists – former prisoners of Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. The narration of the exhibition is based not only on works created during the imprisonment, but also on those from before and after the war, not related to the camp experience. The exhibition includes multimedia materials, photographs and archival materials.
Nature in Art
At the exhibition Nature in Art we show contemporary works of more than 70 artists from many countries, in techniques ranging from painting, photography and video to object and installation. The exhibition has been divided into five parts: Beauty, Ecology, Confrontation, Matter and Symbol.
Ten Jews Who Made Poland Famous
The series of paintings by Beata Stankiewicz entitled Ten Jews Who Made Poland Famous is a deliberate reference to Andy Warhol’s series Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century. Both series present figures whose fame and greatness mattered more than their ethnicity. Both artists suggest – with a certain dose of bitterness – that bias against Jews can only be tempered by their individual genius.
Where One Cannot Speak: Word as Image, Image as Word
At the exhibition we present dozens of the collages by the Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature Herta Müller, which she created during 2005–2018. This is the first-ever presentation of these works in a museum of contemporary art.
Lodz Film School: The Young Generation
At the exhibition we will be showing the end-of-year etudes by first-year students of the Film and TV Directing Departmentat the Lodz Film School, produced in the documentary studio led by Grażyna Kędzielawska and Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz.
![Dana Arieli, //Kraków//, from the series //Phantom Project// [2009–], 2015, digital photograph, 50 × 75 cm, courtesy of D. Arieli, http://phantoms.photography49](https://d1uip03pwa14dd.cloudfront.net/system/images/27205/ecbcfe4888_box120.jpg)
The Polish Phantom
In MOCAK Library, we present a selection of her photographs from the series The Polish Phantom. The exhibition comprises five parts (Warsaw, Nowa Huta, Krakow, Auschwitz, Kielce). Contemporary photographs document objects, spaces and places related to World War II and Polish People’s Republic.
Violence and Memory
The exhibition presents archival photographic materials from the race and folklore sections as well as the landscape sections of the Institute of German Works in the East. (IDO), which are now to be found at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the Jagiellonian University and in the Jagiellonian University Archives. The photographs created during World War II, mainly of the Podhale and Lemko highlanders, were incorporated into the symbolic form of the Carpathian iconostasis.
LEBENSMITTEL
The LEBENSMITTEL (Foodstuffs) photobook and exhibition project by the German photographer Michael Schmidt, born in Berlin in 1945, comprises 177 photographs, taken between 2006 and 2010, on twenty-six trips around Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, and Spain. The photographs were shot at feedlots and slaughterhouses, fish farms and commercial greenhouses, fruit farms and vegetable plantations, pasta factories and cheese dairies, as well as at various plants processing meat, potatoes, and insects.
Pompier, Muck, Socrococo
Artist Anna Orłowska, chose the Lenin Steelworks’ fortress-like administrative centre, popularly known as the ‘Doge’s Palace’, as the starting point for her exhibition. In addition to photographing of the ‘Doge’s Palace’, Orłowska took shots of the nineteenth-century manor house of painter Jan Matejko, located just a kilometre away. The physical proximity of these two buildings, constructed in eras so apparently mutually antithetical, became a point of departure for reflections on the intellectual and formal affinities between the art of Matejko – the greatest of Polish pompiers – and socialist realism.
Clinic
The materials presented in the exhibition come from the production Clinic by Łukasz Surowiec, staged in Poznań at the end of October 2016. His protagonists were incurable actively drinking alcoholics, mostly homeless, who – due to their life situation and administrative requirements – were unable to undertake effective therapy.
Vote Together
Guests at the MOCAK Café had the opportunity to see Vote Together posters designed by Wolfgang Tillmans.
Karl Marx vs Moby Dick: An Analysis of Form and Demolition of Ideas
Moby Dick and Karl Marx dominate the creative output of Krzysztof M. Bednarski. The first is represented as a simple, smooth object that inspires thoughtful reflection. The other as a dishevelled head, which provokes discussion. Moby Dick symbolises a mirror that reveals the depravity of human nature. Marx symbolises the regard for human fate, a regard that has inspired political crimes. KMB employs both these objects in terms of both form and ideas.
![Muntean/Rosenblum, untitled [The forest flies apart...], 2018, oil / canvas, 270 × 430 cm, courtesy of Muntean/Rosenblum, Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam 56](https://d1uip03pwa14dd.cloudfront.net/system/images/24838/7f53c7745b_box120.jpeg)
Walking Wounded
Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum have been an artistic duo since 1992. They are known primarily as authors of monumental compositions – group scenes accompanied by quotations from literature. The protagonists of their paintings are young people whose figures have been repainted from photographic materials from the artists’ archives, magazines and the internet.
The Language of Flowers
For Akira Inumaru, nature is an inspiration and material. The artist uses flowers and dyes obtained from plants, and subjects them to the impact of the sun.
Crime?
The subject of the Mac Adams’ fascination and source of inspiration are situations which are both ambiguous and disturbing. He creates installations and photographs in which he manipulates the perception of viewers in such a way that they have the impression of watching a crime scene.
The Studio of Łukasz Skąpski
At the exhibition we show photographs, videos and objects by students and graduates of the Skąpski Studio of Photography and Artistic Strategies at the Academy of Art in Szczecin.
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.
![Leon Chwistek, untitled [Self-portrait], 1920s – 1930s, ink / papier, 34 × 21 cm, private collection72](https://d1uip03pwa14dd.cloudfront.net/system/images/22526/3558326032_box120.jpg)
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.
Permanent Exhibitions
Motion as the Stuff of Art (MOCAK Collection)
At the latest exhibition of the MOCAK Collection, we show selected objects and installations, in which motion plays a particular role. In all these works it functions as the device for instilling meaning and bringing coherence to the message. In this manner, motion has almost become an object. In keeping with Einstein’s theory, energy turns into matter.
Symbolic Design (MOCAK Collection)
Artists seek opportunities to practise art everywhere they can. They have found them, amongst others, in the field of architecture and design – disciplines traditionally governed by function. The designer’s creative inspiration follows the principle of utility. Contemporary artists employ the relationship between imagination and function in quite a contrary way. With some exceptions, they completely reject the practical function, instead dwelling on its symbolism. Objects appear deceptively practical, yet simultaneously do not yield themselves to practical use. This results in a conceptual play.
Figure and Design (MOCAK Collection)
The new exhibition of the MOCAK Collection presents sculptures and objects that the Museum has acquired in the last three years.
Projects
Thursdays with the Collection
Thursdays with the Collection is a long-term project: each Thursday selected video works from the MOCAK Collection are shown in the Museum’s audiovisual hall.
External Exhibitions
Poles Keep Painting: Works from the MOCAK Collection
The exhibition Poles Keep Painting: Works from the MOCAK Collection at the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in Vilnius presents works by 18 Polish artists.
Responsibility for Memory: The Role of Art in Holocaust Remembrance
The exhibition Responsibility for Memory: The Role of Art in Holocaust Remembrance highlights the importance of art for the remembrance of the Holocaust today through the work of three generations of artists, who had experienced the Holocaust and responded to it in their art. The exhibition – arranged chronologically in seven sections –focuses on the artist and witness Yehuda Bacon, who survived the liberation of the concentration camp at the age of 15.
Art Is Me
On illuminated advertising panels in central Krakow locations we present selected photographs by Krzysztof Marchlak from the series Art Is Me. These are portraits of Krakow painters of different generations.
Nature as a Creative Material: MOCAK Collection in Vilnius
During 15–17 October the International ArtVilnius’21 will take place. This is the largest event of its kind in the Baltic countries. As in previous years, it is accompanied by a special exhibition programme, as part of which MOCAK has, for the sixth time, been invited to present an exhibition based on its Collection. The exhibition Nature as a Creative Material demonstrates the creative potential of nature.
The Musical Score and the Garden. Music in Drawing, Garden in Music
The exhibition offers an insight into his ideas about music and garden. It encompasses composer's private sketches – so-called pre-scores – as well as drawings of concepts for the garden. The second part of the exhibition consists of portraits of Krzysztof Penderecki by Beata Stankiewicz, Marcin Maciejowski, Bartek Materka, photographs by Marian Eile from the series A Return Visit: Dali at the Pendereckis, and photographic documentation from the park in Lusławice by Marek Bebłot and Bartek Barczyk.
The Artist Is Present: MOCAK Collection in Vilnius
The exhibition The Artist Is Present will show photographs and videos in which the images of the artists themselves appear. Presented works focus on different models of femininity, the role of the woman in society, motherhood, family relationships and the issues of the traditional family model.
David Olère: Survivor of Crematorium III
The exhibition David Olère. Überlebender des Krematorium III (David Olère: Survivor of Crematorium III), organised by the Center for the Persecuted Arts in Solingen and the National Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau inn Auschwitz was organised in collaboration with MOCAK, Yad Vashem, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg and the University in Osnabrück.
An Ingenious Psychoholic
The exhibition, curated by Maria Anna Potocka, will present works produced by Witkacy’s famous Portrait Company and series of the artist’s posed self-portraits.
An Ingenious Psychoholic
The exhibition, curated by Maria Anna Potocka, will present works produced by Witkacy’s famous Portrait Company and series of the artist’s posed self-portraits.
Im Heimweh ist ein blauer Saal
At the exhibition at the Center for Persecuted Arts in Solingen, co-organised by MOCAK, we will show 220 collages by Herta Müller. The presentation accompanies the premiere of the book Im Heimweh ist ein blauer Saal, published by Hanser-Verlag.
Artist in the Field of Art: MOCAK Collection in Vilnius
Between 30 May – 2 June 2019 there will take place the jubilee 10th edition of the International Fair of Contemporary ArtVilnius’19. It will be accompanied by a special exhibition programme, as part of which MOCAK – for the fourth time – will be presenting some of its collection.
An Ingenious Psychoholic
The exhibition, curated by Maria Anna Potocka, will present works produced by Witkacy’s famous Portrait Company and series of the artist’s posed self-portraits.
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 New History in Art: MOCAK Collection in Vilnius
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.