Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (3(39).2014)

Piotr Rypson

I Gallery of 20th and 21st Century Art

The Gallery of 20th and 21st Century Art was opened in the National Museum in Warsaw in
February 2013. The earliest works exhibited there - two landscapes by Tadeusz Makowski,
date back to 1912-13, while the most recent - a drawing by Oskar Dawicki, was created in
2012. Thus, the new permanent gallery builds a chronological bridge across the century. We
are showing works created either in Poland or by artists with a direct connection to Poland.
The scarcity of European and non-European art in the collection renders impossible any
attempt at even a symbolical, yet in any way consistent encrustation, let alone a presentation
of possible links or contexts. At the same time, one ought to bear in mind that at the differ-
ent stages of shaping the art field in Poland, it was exposed to various influences, while the
artists spent longer periods or even their entire lives in different geographical and cultural
spheres.
The risky decision to make a selection of works from a collection of over one hundred and
fifty thousand objects, given the very limited exhibition space of c. 700 m2, was dictated by
several premises explained in publications that accompanied the opening of the gallery. They
will be cited in the present text. What should be stressed here is our assumption that entire
sets of works in the gallery may and often will have to be exchanged in the future. It is also for
this reason that the present commentary will be of an enumerative nature.
The collections of modern and contemporary art at the National Museum in Warsaw -
painting, sculpture, prints and drawings, design and poster - represent some of the largest
of their kind in Poland. They were born together with the development of the independent
country, in the capital of pre-war Poland, and greatly expanded in the post-war period. This is
the only large collection of art of the previous century in Warsaw, which - despite the visible
gaps and shortcomings - testifies to the museum’s constant involvement in the process of
accumulating, documenting and, above all, presenting art of its time. Since the new building
opened its doors in 1938, showcases of 20th-century art, both Polish and foreign, have marked
a very important characteristic of NMW’s activity. Underlining this continuity also points
to the need of similar involvement in the present century - a matter important both for our
audience and for the identity of the institution itself.
At the same time, the city in which the museum is located is suffering from a lack of
continuity caused by the obvious historical cataclysms, the post-war period of communist
rule with its non-transparent ideological discourse as well as the dynamic social and cultural
changes of the past decades. The educational role of the museum and its permanent galleries
is invaluable in this respect.
The need to organize a permanent exhibition that would encompass the entire century is
all the more poignant as there is no other place in today’s Warsaw where such a vast panorama
of art could be shown - other Warsaw collections are either fragmentary or fledgling in this
respect. Therefore, in spite of the limited space and certain rather acute gaps in the collection
itself, we have decided to present such a chronologically extensive selection.