XX+XXI. Polish Art Gallery

XX+XXI. The Polish Art Gallery in the Main Building of the MNK shows a panorama of the history of Polish art of that period. The exhibition presents an overview of important phenomena, movements, and artistic trends through outstanding works from the collection of contemporary art at the MNK.

Since the beginning of its existence, the National Museum in Krakow has been building a collection of currently active artists, acquiring works that are now included in the canon of Polish art.

The gallery presents examples of painting, graphics, sculptures, films, installations and objects, as well as examples of contemporary decorative art – glass and ceramics (Henryk Albin Tomaszewski, Alina Kalczyńska-Scheiwiller).

The XX+XXI Gallery covers the entire second floor of the Main Building. The following rooms guide visitors through over 120 years of Polish art – from the Young Poland period, through the avant-garde movements of the first and second decades of the 20th century, to contemporary art.

In the first rooms of the gallery, you can see the works of Young Polish masters: Stanisław Wyspiański, Jacek Malczewski, Józef Mehoffer, Wojciech Weiss, and Olga Boznańska. The following spaces feature presentations of the works of Zbigniew Pronaszko, Zofia Stryjeńska, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Leon Chwistek, Jan Cybis and others.

An important part of the exhibition is occupied by impressive works created in the second half of the 20th century by Tadeusz Kantor, Maria Jarema, Jerzy Nowosielski, Roman Opałka, Ryszard Winiarski, Andrzej Wróblewski, Wojciech Fangor, Łukasz Korolkiewicz, Ewa Kuryluk and many others. The exhibition features representatives of the artistic groups: “Wprost” (Leszek Sobocki, Zbylut Grzywacz), “Gruppa” (Jarosław Modzelewski, Włodzimierz Pawlak), and “Ładnie” (Wilhelm Sasnal, Marcin Maciejowski).

A separate space, operating in its own rhythm, is a room in which we present Krakow graphics from the years 1960–1985 (Krakow school: Jerzy Panek, Mieczysław Wejman, Zbigniew Lutomski, Ryszard Otręba). Periodically exchanged works represent a small portion of the vast collection of drawings and prints, which includes over 23 thousand diverse objects on paper supports.

The sculpture is represented by, among others: Xawery Dunikowski, Konstanty Laszczka, Alina Szapocznikow, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Władysław Hasior. A separate, last room of the exhibition is dedicated exclusively to this discipline of art. Its arrangement and selection of objects show the diversity of approaches to the idea of sculpture and the multitude of reflections that are associated with it: about body and figure, space and form, construction and memory.

Curatorial team: Andrzej Szczerski, Anna Budzałek, Magdalena Czubińska, Alicja Kilijańska, Bożena Kostuch, Urszula Kozakowska-Zaucha, Światosław Lenartowicz, Agata Małodobry

Coordination: Katarzyna Stolarz

Arrangement: Wzorro Design