Rhizopolis is a city of roots created underground beneath the forest by refugees from the Earth’s surface. The idea of Joanna Rajkowska, it is a set design for an imagined futuristic film that introduces us to a hypothetical future world of humankind, after the anticipated great catastrophe that will end the current Anthropocene epoch. The scenario outlined by the artist is a vision of radical dependence, in which hitherto-dominated nature turns rescuer in all its unshakable duration, providing the necessities to support human life. In the exhibition, we enter the area of both artistic installation and scenography for a film in which we play ourselves, and in which we can act our own scripts.

The exhibition Sculpture in Search of a Place is yet another one in a series of cross-sectional thematic exhibitions at the Zachęta, devoted each year to a different artistic medium. It tackles the subject of the identity of Polish sculpture over the last sixty years — not so much as a chronology of artistic activity, but as a presentation of the phenomena and creative attitudes that have been essential for its development.

The latest presentation of the collection in the Raczyński tenement building on Małachowski Square, just opposite Zachęta is entitled TRUTH BEAUTY GOODNESS.

The exhibition presented in Zachęta, “Progress and Hygiene”, is devoted to the pitfalls of modernization in the context of the idealistic faith in progress and the possibilities of “betterment” common to both art and science at the beginning of the 20th century. It was conceived as an essay which critically analyses such phenomena as genetic engineering, eugenics or research into the purity of races, also drawing attention to their continued impact on today’s world.

The exhibition, Warsaw ENcourages, presents selected works from the Zachęta’s collection. The present  collection has been systematically built up since the 1990s and mainly comprises works by Polish contemporary artists who have exhibitions at the gallery as well as works co-produced by Zachęta as part of its projects. Zachęta National Gallery of Art as part of the project Art Gallery at Warsaw Chopin Airport.

The compilation of video presented in ursula blikle lounge is a selection of works from the Zachęta video collection. The programme of the thematic screenings of videos is a spectrum, in other words a certain organized selection of phenomena and concepts analysed by the films’ authors. It is a presentation of works of the newest video art in Poland, created by outstanding artists of the young and middle generation. The screenings that comprise the project Spectrum have been divided into the following thematic blocks: sound, gender, social portrait and roles. The selection made was dictated in part by the technical conditions of the place of presentation – the videos selected were one channel projections, whose theme and aesthetics made them appropriate to be shown in the proposed form. The choice of these works was also an attempt to underline the range of themes that Polish video artists engage with. It shows both a cross-section and the spectrum of problems relevant today in Polish art. This should not be treated as a full picture, but rather as an overview of Polish video art of the last two decades.