The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw is a municipal cultural institution. It was established by a decree of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage on April 6, 2005. The museum conducts research programs on modern art and is gradually expanding its offer to the public. The focus is on the visual arts, graphic design, industrial design and architecture.
The exhibition includes more than 200 works by 36 artists from Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic States from the 19th century to the present day. The works come from 10 museums and even from the collection of a hospital in Warsaw. All these works are united by their symbolism and their themes: diseases, fears, wars, epidemics, mythological monsters. At the center of the exhibition are the works of the world-renowned Polish artist Aleksandra Waliszewska (born 1976), who uses art to transport the audience into an eloquent world of fantastic images. This is her first exhibition in Lithuania.
The Dark Arts. Aleksandra Waliszewska and the symbolism of East and North © Museum of Modern Art Warsaw
Aleksandra Waliszewska, one of the greatest talents on the contemporary Polish art scene, has found a wide circle of admirers with her bold paintings, extending beyond the traditional art audience to include alternative and pop culture circles. Her work has appeared on music albums and her paintings have been used to illustrate a book of lyrics by world-famous singer Nick Cave.
Waliszewska's works explore dark themes
The Polish artist does not refrain from using eerie details in her work. Her paintings are full of traditional symbols of human mortality - skeletons, disemboweled bodies, naked organs, oozing wounds, festering corpses, desecrated graves and skulls. The overcoming of fear and illness in Waliszewska's works can be linked to other masters of the Polish symbolist movement "Young Poland" (Młoda Polska), who in this movement combined their existential struggle with incurable diseases with irony, self-contempt and exaggerated self-importance.
The artist's macabre work is complemented by a sense of humor and conveys a sense of futility and doom. The artist's works range from cats transformed into monsters to fairies and enchanting landscapes.
February 3 to May 22, 2023
