{"id":200808,"date":"2025-10-04T03:38:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T03:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/200808\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T03:38:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T03:38:19","slug":"msn-warsaw-director-joanna-mytkowska-on-museums-in-times-of-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/200808\/","title":{"rendered":"MSN Warsaw Director Joanna Mytkowska on Museums in Times of Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJoanna Mytkowska is the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw<\/a>), which moved into a high-profile new home in the middle of the Polish capital last fall. Set in Warsaw\u2019s Central Square near the Palace of Culture and Science\u2014a Communist-era landmark dedicated to Jospeh Stalin in 1955\u2014MSN Warsaw\u2019s white modernist building cuts a dramatic figure in a city that has undergone tremendous change. The museum was designed by American architect Thomas Phifer, best-known for his work on Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland.<\/p>\n

\n\tMytkowska has been MSN Warsaw\u2019s director since 2007 and led the institution through a tumultuous period during eight years of right-wing Populist rule<\/a> in Poland from 2015 to 2023. This past summer, the new museum was a flashpoint in the Poland\u2019s presidential election, when the progressive mayor of Warsaw, Rafa\u0142 Trzaskowski, lost to nationalist candidate Karol Nawrocki, signaling another rightward shift. (Donald Tusk, of the Civic Platform party, remains Poland\u2019s more powerful prime minister, and a parliamentary election in 2027 will be pivotal in the country\u2019s political future.)<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Portrait<\/p>\n

\n\tMytkowska spoke with ARTnews about MSN Warsaw\u2019s first year in its new home, which launched with a series of performances last fall before installing \u201cThe Impermanent: Works from the MSN Collection\u201d (on view through October 5). Forthcoming exhibitions include \u201cNear East, Far West\u2014Kyiv Biennial 2025\u201d (opening October 3) and \u201cThe City of Women,\u201d a four-part show opening in November that includes \u201cThe Woman Question: 1550-2025,\u201d curated by Alison M. Gingeras.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and concision.<\/p>\n

\n\tARTnews: How do you feel about the first year in MSN Warsaw\u2019s new home?<\/p>\n

\n\tJoanna Mytkowska: The new building already has the status of an icon because of its location in the center of Warsaw next to the Palace of Culture and Science. The location encapsulates layers of history in Poland, from war and Communism to the transformation of the country. Our collection is trying to help people from other places understand that transformation by showing international contemporary art from a local perspective. For the local public, the museum is more controversial. There were huge expectations from people waiting for this building for 20 years, and people can get very upset if they don\u2019t find themselves or their own story in the collection. There are young artists who say that the museum not radical enough. And then people more interested in traditional ways of talking about history ask, \u201cWhy you are not telling a chronological story?\u201d There are very different perspectives and very different views.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut we are happy because what\u2019s going on around the museum is extremely intense. We see that there are emotions all around, even if some of them are critical. We are also, for good and for bad, in the middle of the political debate about the shape of the future of Poland. We were very often mentioned during the recent campaign for the President of the Republic, by different sides in very different ways. So this is a process that is ongoing. History will tell us how it will evolve, in a few years.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarta Ejsmont<\/p>\n

\n\tIn your essay in a volume about MSN\u2019s collection, you mention the museum\u2019s long-standing \u201cambivalence toward the nature of the canon.\u201d What is the source of that ambivalence?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat has always part of the identity of this institution. In our beginning were very close with the artistic community of Warsaw, and that was a rather progressive community. We managed to become an institution thanks to support of the artistic community of the city. It was a huge job to convince the government to build this museum and to negotiate with different groups, but our initial milieu was the community of artists. Contemporary art in Poland has a rather difficult history. During Communism, progressive artistic production was on the margins of official life in Poland. And then, being a contemporary artist during the time of transformation in the \u201990s and early 2000s was a matter of survival. There were no institutions, and no art market. All the elements of artistic life here appeared relatively recently.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe are coming from the roots of self-organized radical artistic communities, and in that frame, there is pressure to change the canon presented in more traditional museums like the National Museum of Warsaw. There is pressure to renegotiate the canon by adding female artists, showing different perspectives, thinking about colonialism and all the issues discussed in museums around the world. We can articulate this in a clear, straightforward way because it\u2019s easier for a new museum, because we are trying to find a place for ourselves. That makes it easier than when you are a museum with 100 years of tradition and a big collection of great male artists. For us, we just started, and our collection is building up right now. So renegotiating the canon is definitely part of our identity.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMaja Wirkus<\/p>\n

\n\tThe museum was founded in 2005 but didn\u2019t start collecting until 2011. What initiated that change?<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was no support before. When the government started this museum, there was no concept of collecting contemporary art for public museums at all. During Communism, there was no infrastructure for public institutions to buy contemporary art. By lobbying and putting pressure on the Ministry of Culture, we managed to negotiate a special grant program for four museums dealing with contemporary art\u2014for our museum, Muzeum Sztuki in \u0141odz, the Wroc\u0142aw Contemporary Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krak\u00f3w (MOCAK). The four museums apply every year for money for their collection from the Ministry of Culture, and a committee evaluates the applications. In the best years, our museum could get around \u20ac1 million (around $1.17 million). Then, during Populism in Poland [from 2015 through 2023], it was much less; in the worst year it was something like \u20ac30,000 ($35,100). But we have managed to buy work for the collection and, in almost 15 years, have collected around 1,000 works. Our current exhibition is showing some 150 of those works.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe concept for the first exhibition in the new building was to open with a deliberately fragmentary, differentiated show, to show different aspects of the collection. How did you arrive upon that idea?<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the opening show the challenge was how to talk to the very different publics, from experts and specialists and those who understand our evolution and what we stand for to those who will come to the museum for the first time. It\u2019s not easy to build a narrative with such a young collection, so that\u2019s why we decided not to make a chronological show or focus on the local art scene. We decided to show the dynamics we are working with. We are a local museum, but we are in touch with a global community of artists, and we are sharing a lot of points of view. We are part of a vivid and dynamic community that is extremely transnational. We were trying to share our experience of that along with our belief that such a community is possible, because that idea is obviously in danger today. We also tried to give space to each work of art and not to reduce their meaning. We divided our opening exhibition into four different takes on the collection to leave a lot of space for different interpretations.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cThe Impermanent: Works from the MSN Collection\u201d at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA. Szulc<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did you think about how to show the collection to viewers from Poland versus those looking from outside? How did you think about perceptions within Poland in relation to what you\u2019re projecting beyond?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a contradiction. It\u2019s completely different to talk to the \u201cinternational contemporary art public\u201d and the local public. By coincidence, the opening of the museum coincided with the campaign for the President of the Republic, and the mayor of Warsaw, who was in charge of the [museum-opening] process, was one of the candidates. So we were really in different worlds at the same time. We have always been part of the international art community on the activist side, but to build this building, we were very involved in local politics. We\u2019ve had a lot of programs dedicated to introducing change to the city. The museum has organized a festival called \u201cWarsaw Under Construction\u201d for 17 years now, and that is dedicated to lobbying politicians for what inhabitants of Warsaw could dream about. And we have been dealing with different issues in the city. For instance, eight years ago we did a show about immigration issues created together with Ukrainian colleagues, so we we\u2019ve had experience talking to the non-art-interested public. And we\u2019re hoping that in this new building with this new amazing view on the city square, we will attract new members to our community.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou mentioned that the museum was discussed in the recent election. How was it characterized and mischaracterized?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe right-wing candidate [Karol Nawrocki] and his whole campaign tried to create an image of the museum as an institution that cost a lot of money and is showing art that is disturbing for \u201cnormal\u201d people\u2014a lot of nudity, a lot of work dealing with the LGBT community, a lot of work representing sexual activity. That is not true, but it\u2019s the way it was described, and that makes it extremely difficult to discuss. The city of Warsaw built this museum\u2014it\u2019s a fully public project\u2014but the mayor tried not to mention this too much in the campaign because there\u2019s no language one can use to rationally discuss issues with the radical right wing at the moment. The mayor, in one of the last debates, mentioned that this is a very nice building but he\u2019s not in charge of the program, which is true.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis a big question for us because we stand, even more than usual for museums, for progressive ideas. But with such polarization, I don\u2019t know the most effective way of communicating nuances of our position. Maybe now, after the campaign, the situation will be a bit better, but campaigns are extremely brutal, and there\u2019s no space for discussion. Of course, that was only an election for the President, and Poland has a parliamentary system, so there won\u2019t necessarily be changes for institutions. Those changes can happen after the parliamentary election in 2027, depending on how that goes. But the pressure to change might happen because people can be afraid of the consequences if the parliament should also change. Hopefully we will see the wisdom of the people of Poland and the democratic system in the next election. But we don\u2019t know. In 2023, everybody thought because we elected democrats, we [as a country] were safe. But as we see, safety is never really granted.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cThe Impermanent: Works from the MSN Collection\u201d at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMaja Wirkus<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom 2015 to 2023, you navigated eight years of Populist rule as Poland was led by the right-wing Law and Justice Party. How did you balance trying to remain active and progressive as an institution while also avoiding political turmoil?<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring that time, we were still small. We could survive because we were not very visible. And when the Populist party started, they were not Populist all the time\u2014they were proper conservative. In the beginning they were testing what they could do. They were not immediately destroying everything. I was negotiating with the Ministry of Culture, and at the time we were not attractive to take over because we were in the process of construction, which is difficult and risky. There were not many people eager to take on that responsibility for no reason. But they were also different. They were not so aggressively, brutally ideological in the beginning. We could still negotiate with them.<\/p>\n

\n\tSelf-censorship can occur in this kind of situation, and while we didn\u2019t do that, we were very careful. We did a show on the passing of an extremely disappointing abortion law in Poland, and we focused on the history of how female artists have fought against that kind of regulation. We did it in a way that it was educational, so we could show what we wanted, but we were careful how it was described. So it influenced our program, but it didn\u2019t erase important positions from the program. We negotiated. That\u2019s how we survived. I also got the advice from experts, because talking with the Minister of Culture was not normal conversation. Different opinions were not welcome. So I was trained, like the way that political leaders are trained in how to talk with Donald Trump. You need certain skills. You never openly say \u201cno,\u201d and sometimes you should say nothing, because it makes no sense to fight with a wall. We learned this lesson, and I would be very interested to exchange our experience [with other institutions], because now many places we have this issue.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarta Ejsmont<\/p>\n

\n\tHave you been following what\u2019s been happening at some of the museums and institutions in the United States? What are your thoughts on that, from your perspective?<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom day one, we have kept telling our American friends, \u201cyou will have to fight.\u201d For us, we went through an eight-year resistance. And \u201cto fight\u201d meant to articulate our position and find a way to have a space for our position. It was a very complex process because we had to invent from scratch a sort of common agreement. In your case, in America, there has been a common agreement for centuries. In our case, we have been working on one for just the last 30 years. In Western Europe, it has been 70 years\u2014but democracies are not functioning right now.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can have different opinions and follow different ideologies. But there was a certain legal frame, and now this frame, at least in Poland, from what I experienced, is broken. In Poland the Populist government was not following the rules. They were interpreting the law in ways it cannot be interpreted with the rules we know, and that\u2019s a huge problem.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cThe Impermanent: Works from the MSN Collection\u201d at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA. Szulc<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the United States it\u2019s different, but we don\u2019t know. We want to make a show and have a working title: \u201cPolitical Art Under the First and Second Trump.\u201d It seems like there was much more protest the first time, and civil society was protecting itself. Now it looks like it\u2019s hopeless. We want to do that show but don\u2019t want to focus on Donald Trump\u2014he\u2019s just a metaphor. We want to see how civil society is changing. As long as people think civil society has value in itself, it can survive. But now it\u2019s hard to know. We have not seen so many protests in in United States. Or maybe I have a wrong impression\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tSo far you are correct. It seems like a lot of people are still just stunned.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Poland we have experience of self-organization, and we have experience with the state being against us during Communism. I can see how in America it must be shocking that the state is against its citizens, or at least certain groups of citizens. This is shocking. But if you don\u2019t protect your own institutions, it allows for pure craziness. I have no illusion that there is some other sort of big ideas behind it\u2014the idea is just to consume everything, all your freedom, all your rights, step by step. As much as you let it happen, it will happen. You need resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joanna Mytkowska is the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN Warsaw), which moved into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,115595,23488],"class_list":{"0":"post-200808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-msn-warsaw","14":"tag-newsmakers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}