WARSAW.- The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw has opened its long-awaited new home, designed by the New York architect Thomas Phifer. The inaugural evening of October 25 began in the museum forum, where a huge audience was greeted by Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski and MSN Warsaw director Joanna Mytkowska. On the first weekend alone, 50,000 people visited the new MSN Warsaw building at ul. Marszałkowska 103. After the first week of operation in the new building, the museum was visited by 130,000 visitors.
The opening program was kicked off by the Delegation of Slippery Affairs, a parade leading the audience from the museum’s previous headquarters at ul. Pańska 3 to the new building on Plac Defilad. From 8 pm onwards, thousands of guests began to tour the building. Hungarian artist Katalin Ladik began the artistic activities in the new building with a resounding performance piece on the staircase at the heart of the new MSN Warsaw. Kim Gordon, an icon of the American alternative music scene, gave a performance closing out the first evening.
Over the following days of the opening, audiences participated in numerous Polish and international performance pieces, ping-pong matches with the Service Team, breakfast served in the museum’s arcades, and more concerts by 700 Bliss and Hania Rani. Thomas Phifer, architect of the new MSN Warsaw building, inaugurated the museum’s public program with a lecture that received a standing ovation. From the museum’s first hours of operation, the staircase, bathed in natural light, became a magnet for audience encounters and the backdrop for hundreds of selfies. From there the audience dispersed to the exhibition galleries, the educational rooms, and the reading room.
Thousands of people viewed three exhibitions prepared by the museum’s curators. First, there was a presentation of several large-scale sculptures and installations by women artists from Poland and around the world. These works are part of the MSN Warsaw collection, gathered over the past 20 years—we will see a huge slice of the collection in an exhibition opening in February 2025. The audience paused many times to take in such historic works as Alina Szapocznikow’s Friendship and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Monumental Composition, as well as works by contemporary female artists of international standing, including Sandra Mujinga from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cecilia Vicuña, the Chilean icon of feminist art.
Visitors took part in a meeting with the curators of the 16th Warsaw Under Construction festival: The Museum Between the Square and the Palace: Fredi Fischli, Niels Olsen, Tomasz Fudala and Natalia Sielewicz. This year, the theme of the festival, which has been organized by MSN Warsaw since 2009, is the role of the museum and the site where the new MSN Warsaw building now stands, in the very center of Warsaw. The open family workshops accompanying the exhibition Primary Forms: The Museum as a School enjoyed huge popularity among the youngest visitors to the museum. A long line of moviegoers eagerly waited to enter the new cinema, where the Turnus Show lasted for several hours.
To mark the opening of MSN Warsaw, selected artists also presented specially prepared works. These included Karolina Jabłońska’s large-scale painting Jars (2024), displayed in the museum café. Another work that has been integrated into the new museum building was created by Wojciech Bąkowski—a sound installation in the building’s arcades, titled Bright Future, comprising jingles and commentaries composed by the artist. Finally, Zbigniew Libera created the work Invasion of the Museum via a public open photo session held in the new building prior to occupancy. It can be viewed in the museum bookstore.
The opening program for the new home of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw runs until November 10. In the following days, the first temporary exhibition, devoted to the MSN Warsaw collection, will begin to be installed in the exhibition galleries, and on November 10 the KINOMUZEUM cinema will begin regular operations. The exhibition accompanying the 16th Warsaw Under Construction festival will be on view until 5 January 2025. The museum’s ground floor will remain open to all visitors, featuring an extensive public and educational program, as well as Gallery A and the bookstore.
