Due to the new sanitary restrictions Zachęta and the Zachęta Project Room will be closed until further notice. However, we are active online! Visit our virtual exhibitions and on-line tours.

The exhibition at the Polish Pavilion will be available from anywhere in the world. On the day of its inauguration, the digital version of the project will be launched at labiennale.art.pl.

During the finisage of Sculpture in Search of a Place, curator Anna Maria Leśniewska will show you around the exhibition, referring to the voices of researchers commenting on the show.

During the workshop we will look at how plants grow and what they need to be strong. We will also consider the role of plants in art and create mini sculptures. 

Maybe if people could see the Lady of the Trees among the boughs, they wouldn't dare to cut them down...

Video performance by an author famous for her oral performances – an analysis of the video medium.

Suuch a gallery invites me is a stop-motion animation inspired by a painting by Paweł Susid from the Zachęta collection.

A compelling story of genetics and biology, not only for art historians.

A children's guide to the exhibition, on the relationship between visual arts and sound.

We recall one summer in a city one summer and outdoor workshops conducted outside the gallery walls.

Can you interpret contemporary art yourself? Thanks to our harmonica-shaped guide —  yes, you can!

Kamila Pijanowska and Dorota Monkiewicz talk about the first painting purchased for the SEFA collection and about contemporary references.

Want to find out more about our long history? We recommend a selection of press clippings from our archives.

Zachęta, the Evangelical Augsburg Church and the Palace of Culture in the background –a dry-needle graphic from 1962.

And how does Zachęta's Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts operate today? See for yourselves!

The art collection of Zachęta includes an ascetic self-portrait of a painter/philosopher, professor at the Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts.

One of the films from the series in which the artist portrays a famous basketball player – Michael Jordan.

The artist's sculptural self-portrait consists of fragments of a hand: a thumb and a cut fingertip.

We recommend a curatorial tour with Michał Jachuła, through the exhibition of self-portraits from the Zachęta collection.

Houseworks during lockdowna and the M. Salamon Portrait Company. See the documentation of the exhibition at Zachęta Project Room.

To close this issue, we recall the poster for the first large-scale exhibition of the painter, performer and member of the legendary Gruppa (2008).

Art work from a series, where the artist presents everyday objects that are visibly modified – in this case dolls.

Another film from the series Zachęta TV  that presents the profile of one of the most important contemporary artists and his monographic exhibition from 2009.

Video clips made for the legendary punk band Moscow in 1986 by the legendary co-founder of the Film Form Workshop.

The monumental coal cross was the focal point of the artist's monographic exhibition. We recall the curatorial tour by Joanna Kordjak.

Artist's early work from her university years presents seven small sculptures of an anorectic body.

God father of Polish sculpture and his exhibition that took place at Zachęta in 1955.

"It is only possible to imagine nature if you are outside of it" – these are the words of the native Brazilian activist Ailton Krenak. 

The tale of Mata de Araucária was one of the performative actions during the exhibition Amor e ódio a Lygia Clark / I love and hate Lygia Clark.

Trees in a painterly vision of Dobkowski – painter, drawer, graphic artist, author of spatial forms.

We recall the recording of the meeting around the fourth volume of the series Architecture is the most important.

We recall the exhibition with the telling title Hiding people among people without contact with nature leads to perversions.

The film highlights drilling, which poses both a threat to the environment and to the people working on the oil platforms.

A glove, watercress and resin – this is one of the artworks from our collection present at the Sculpture in Search of a Place exhibition.

This exhibition is "waiting" for our visitors since late November. We invite you to visit it at Zachęta, but also to view the photographic documentation.

Only until February 7 you can view Living Storages: Artibus show. We invite you to the premiere of the accompanying films from the Stories about the Collection series.

At the Zachęta Project Room, Maciej Salamon showcases his Homework. We highly recommend a film with the artist's art class for children.

Antonisz, contemporary artists and a return to the beginnings of cinema. We recall the exhibition from 2013.

Althamer's Film was not a movie, but a fictional event that took place in Warsaw's Praga district. Enjoy the trailer!

For Views 2017 Branas combined, in one long shot, the history of Zachęta with a contemporary political event...

Kozyra's cinematic fairy tale quickly turns into a gore horror. Work from the series In Art Dreams Come True.

Non-camera animation that refers to the work of Antonisz. In it, the artist describes scenes seen from the window of a his apartment building.

Part two of Malinowski's mockumentary trilogy shows the arrival of Joan – the eponymous half-woman –  to Warsaw.

The works gathered at the exhibition inspired by the works of Krystiana Robb-Narbutt had a bittersweet look and meaning to them.

We invite you to listen to the recording of a conversation that reminisced about Krystiana Robb-Narbutt and Wisława Szymborska.

We rediscovered the artist's poetic painting style in 2018. However, we go back further and recommend the catalog from her first exhibition at Zachęta in 1966.

The exhibition at ZPR was a summary of a year-long project, during which the artist underwent a self-analysis and put the results into drawings.

Legendary curator of Zachęta tells the story of the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions era. In the picture: the heroine of the interview portrayed by Dwurnik (170 art politicians).

The artist's film that packs a punch premiered at Views 2019 and was later inducted into our collection with the help from the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. 

At the exhibition in 2008, curator Anna Maria Leśniewska showcased the extraordinary work of this Polish sculptor. Here is the curatorial text and documentation of this exhibition.

Have a look at the catalog accompanying the 2016 exhibition, with essays by Anna Maria Leśniewska, Gabriela Świtek and Dorota Szwarcman.

"Why towers? Just because, because they provoke, because they stick out"– what the artist wrote about her works in the 1990s.

The year was 1967. National Exhibition of Photography – women in the lenses of 45 female and male photographers. We recall the catalog of this exhibition.

In 2008, we showcased an exhibition of 50 Polish female photographers of the 20th century, who mainly dealt with documentary photography.

An exhibition of a politically and socially engaged German artist from the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

Joanna Piotrowska's exhibition through the lens of Magda Hueckel.

Photo presented at the artist's solo exhibition at Zachęta in 2014, which is a story about the author and his surroundings.

Maria Brewińska's 2009 exhibition focused on the animal world in art.

How did our grandparents arrange their "little cages" after the war? We recall the exhibition from 1952.

In Anna Baumgart's film, women act out gestures and actions accompanying self-mutilation, while the artist touches on social taboos.

Aleksandra Kubiak's exhibition presented a very personal film that combined video performance with a documentary.

Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Natalia LL and Ewa Partum – pioneers of women's art in Poland – were the protagonists of the exhibition. Here are the accompanying texts.

One of the most outstanding French artists, who created her most important works in the times of the feminist revolt. FInd out more!

We recall the exhibition of works from the ING collection through an audioguide recorded by the curators – Rafał Dominik and Szymon Żydek.

In 2015, an exhibition of works from our collection took place in the austere interiors of the renovated Raczyński's house – Zachęta's direct neighbour.

1978, Kordegarda Gallery and the collection of Jan Styczyński.

The 1968 exhibition was in line with the cultural policy of the minister André Malraux, who established a commission in charge of public procurement of works of art.

Have a look at the photo documentation of the newest exhibition at Zachęta!

Kossakowski's photos from the Polish Industry series were made in the 1960's for the Poland monthly.

Visualizations of sculptor's architectural designs based on Eustachy Kossakowski's photomontages.

‘Technological progress provides the artist with solutions unknown hitherto’ — wrote Michel Faré in 1964 in the exhibition catalog.

Monika Sosnowska's monumental Staircase was presented at the exhibition New Sculpture? in 2012.

The exhibition curated by Maria Brewińska took on the subject of the relationship between contemporary sculpture and modernism. Find out more from the folder accompanying the exhibition.

From our collection we present a work from the early 1970s by Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz – a great example of a metal sculpture.

‘An image of the country in which we live, which we build, improve and beautify’ –this is how the exhibition was announced in the press in 1969.

From an iridescent fountain to dance performances – we recall all the events accompanying the exhibition Plac Małachowskiego 3.

The first exhibition inspired by Zachęta's audience decelopment research that took place in 2011. We recommend reading the curators' texts.

The monumental pot, made by using an original mould preserved at the defunct workshop in Łysa Góra, decorated the entrance to the ZPR.

1957. In front of Zacheta Zachęta there was a "propaganda" spatial decoration designed by Wojciech Zamecznik.

A water pot from the 1960s stood in front of Zachęta in the summer of 2018. See what plants we planted with the support of the University of Warsaw Botanical Garden.

Przemysław Strożek's book presents Polish-Moroccan artistic relations in various art fields: from painting to film and conceptual practices.

The artist's main motifs were present at her solo exhibition, including processing personal stories or obsessively focusing on the issue of invisibility.

Ania Witkowska and Adam Witkowski in their project sought to answer the question: to what extent does them being a family unit affects their work.

Daniel Kotowski talks about the vision of exhibition's curator – Maria Brewińska and the ideas behind the presented films. (in Polish)

The project presented in 2011 presented photos of Chongqing – one of many developing Chinese cities, growing at an impressive and alarming pace.

Recording of a discussion accompanying the exhibition Weeds by Karolina Grzywnowicz – a project about plants that are a record of social and political history.

The exhibition presented the symbolic "starting point" of the People's Republic of Poland, presenting photos of Warsaw's ruins, taken just after the liberation of the city.

'Waterbull (1945), a Pollock painting owned by the Stedelijk since 1950, was sent to Warsaw. The work constituted the artist’s answer to Picasso’s Guernica, travelling around the US from 1939' 

The artist's very personal, poetic work is positioned within the limits of broadly understood surrealism. Vital, organic forms and color patches characterize her work from the 1960s.

How to look after contemporary works of art? We recommend the book accompanying an unusual display from the Zachęta collection (This is not an exhibition, 2008).

Karolina Zychowicz writes about the legendary director of the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions Zachęta (1954–1969).

Hansen's Open Form and Linear Continuous System, as well as an analysis of the "visual contamination" and a critique of Urbanowicz's urban monoculture – a Venetian presentation at CBWA in 1977.

A historic building in which Tyrmand wrote The Man With White Eyes, through the gaze of Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga.

Can a building be as dynamic as the climate? This and other questions are answered in the publication accompanying the exhibition in the Polish Pavilion at the 2018 Architecture Biennale.

A panel accompanying the Impossible Figures exhibition (2014) showed the connections between architecture and power, both in a historical and contemporary context.

First extensive exhibition of naïve art at the CBWA took place in 1958. Gabriela Świtek writes about the show and its reception.

The theme of children appears in many of Deskur's works. The artist's nephews are the protagonists of the presented series.

The first exhibition prepared for and by children took place at Zachęta in 2003. Here is the catalog accompanying this exhibition!

What should a good illustrated children's book look like? Our panelists tried to answer this question.

Karolina Vyšata presents a handful of ideas for how to watch art together with your children.

The films by Olaf and Konstanty Brzeski were presented at the exhibition Two Arts Are Better than One. See how to stimulate children's creativity.

"For the first time we have the opportunity to get more closely acquainted with drawings, prints and watercolours from the U.S" — wrote an art critique in 1958. Read Petra Skorypsky's research paper.

By combining and modifying objects the artist created a completely new item — a visual idea of ​​things.

The first exhibition at Zachęta dedicated to music and visual arts took place in 2009. See the poster and read about this international show.

Dróżdż's painting from the Zachęta collection inspired middle school students to create their musical interpretations of this work. Listen to the Musical Image and get inspired yourself!

100 Works from Futurism to the Present Day Depicting the Italian Contribution to European Avant-garde in the 20th Century – CBWA, year 1968. 

How to you depict passage of time? Pawlak presents it on a canvas with the help of clippings, past mementos and pictograms.

Three episodes, connected by the theme of disaster and inspired by Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds.

Ceramic architectural decorations from the 60s, and contemporary artists. Listen to the exhibition’s curator.

For a ten-year-old, what is “looking for lost time”? Listen to audio description of the work by Tymon Rogalski and his parents.

How does time and change of space affect an artwork? We recall Konrad Smoleński’s project and the accompanying folder.

The first comprehensive showcase of Soviet socialist realism took place at Zachęta in 1951. About its ideological dimension, among others, writes dr hab. Iwona Luba.

Romani Alphabet Boards are a series of graphics by Dorota Podlaska, with which the artist introduces a culture, which is close to us.

Paintings and drawings by Witkacy, at an exhibition arranged by Tadeusz Kantor himself. We are going back in time to 1967.

Ewa Zarzycka – performer and  conceptual artist. Here are her drawings from our collections.

Prof. Andrzej Pieńkos writes about the exhibition of young Danish artists, presented at Zachęta in 1968.

Duchamp and a bicycle badge – in other words, appropriation art carried out by one of the most pawky Polish artists.

Joanna Malinowska & Christian Tomaszewski inspired by the Soviet space program.

Do you remember this extraordinary exhibition of Julian Antoniszczak? Accompanying poster was designed by Jakub de Barbaro.