Explore the exhibition plans of the National Museum in Szczecin for 2022!
Our daily lives and business activities have been facing serius obstacles due to the pandemic restrictions and related logistic issues for two years. That refers to culture as well, including the National Museum in Szczecin, which not only had to introduce numerous organizational changes including being temporarily closed, but, most of all, to frequently alter its exhibition schedule. We hope that the projects presented below, that have been planned for 2022, will succeed in full. However, due to changeable conditions, we reserve the right to introduce further changes.
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN SZCZECIN – THE MUSEUM OF REGIONAL TRADITIONS
The permanent exhibitions at the Landed Gentry House are an absorbing lesson of history of West Pomerania, former Griffins' Duchy. Before autumn 2022, this lesson will be even fuller. Opening of a new permanent exhibition, "The Dawn of Pomerania. Pomeranian Antiquities", has been scheduled for June. The exposition will contain over a thousand of archaeological exhibits which are a legacy of nearly fourteen thousand years of culture on the West-Pomeranian land, from the Stone Age to early Middle Ages. A wide range of relics will be presented: everyday use items, toys, weapons, body and garment decorations, findings related to religion and art. The exhibition is a part of INT65 "Common Heritage, Common Future – Central Pomeranian Museums Present History and Culture of Pomerania" project, financially supported by the European Union within INTERREG VA Mecklemburg-Vorpommern / Brandenburg / Poland, objective: "European Territorial Cooperation" of European Regional Development Fund. The exhibition is being arranged by the Department of Archaeology headed by Krzysztof Kowalski.
While visiting the permanent exhibitions, it is worth to see also our exceptional glass-roofed courtyard with precious sculptures by Johann Gottfried Schadow and Bernhard Bleeker. It is a space for temporary exhibitions (inlcuding large-sized ones), as well as for concerts, shows, video displays, meetings, conferences, debates and creative workshops.
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN SZCZECIN – THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
As many as five expositions have been planned for 2022 by the curators of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The first of them will replace "Women Power" and "Community" (available until January 16th), presented within Polish-Kenyan DUOS Festival, and will be open as early as in January. "Seeing Is (Not) Believing” is a wide presentation of works by Sladjan Nedeljkovic and Roland Schefferski, carried out in cooperation with Rostock Kunsthalle. Its narrative has been focused around the issues of contemporary visual culture. The artists independently arise a series of problems provoked by the processof intense mediatization of reality. They deal with what we see, with mechanisms of interpretation of what we perceive and with reflection on the influence of media information on our vision of the world. The exhibition was prepared by Magdalena Lewoc and Marlena Chybowska-Butler.
In April, an exposition "Portrait of Daughter, Portrait of Mother” will celebrate the jubilee of the 80th birthday and 55 years of artistic activity of Anna Paszkiewicz – a renown Szczecin sculptor, the author of, among others, "Maternity", "Prometheus" and "Duke Bogislaw X the Great and Anna Jagiellon”. The exhibition will also include works by her daughter, artist Blanka Sawicka. You will have an occasion to see several dozens of minor sculptures and large-sized photographs of the open-air works. Archive records of the unusual artistic carreer will also be presented. Curated by Joanna Łozowska.
As usually, in early spring the students of the Academy of Art in Szczecin will show their best graduation works in the Palace under the Heads this year as well.
Late June will bring shows, performance workshops and expositions by Alicja Korek – a Polish performer living in Lyon in France. She has participated in numerous performance festivals and meetings around the world. She is also the curator of this year's edition of International Festival of Performance Art on Martinique. Her artistic output refers to the philosophy of ecofeminism and to the relations with others. The project is carried out by Magdalena Lewoc.
In early September, the Palace under the Heads will house another international project. This time it will be the result of cooperation with the Georgian National Museum. The exhibition entitled "Henryk Hryniewski. Polish Painter in Georgia” will be the first Polish presentation of the works of this outstanding and versatile artist. Hryniewski was a talented graphic designer, painter, illustrator and architect. He is the author of the facade and the interior decoration of one of the most magnificent architectural monuments in Tbilisi – the seat of the National Library. He was also one of the founders of Georgian Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi and its lecturer. The exhibition is prepared by Piotr Rypson, PhD, in cooperation with Eka Kiknadze from the Georgian National Museum and Lech Karwowski and Marlena Chybowska-Butler from the National Museum in Szczecin.
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN SZCZECIN – THE SZCZECIN HISTORY MUSEUM
In May, the NMS Szczecin History Museum will continue the series of presentations of outstanding individuals who were crucial for the city. This time it will be an exhibition dedicated to a Polish architect, urban planner, painter and culture animator, Halina Kurcyuszowa, and her activities in the postwar Szczecin. The curators of the exposition are Anna Lew-Machniak, PhD and Małgorzata Peszko.
Years ago, in Poland October was called a month of saving money. This year it is going to be a month of the premiere presentation of the temporary exhibition entitled "Great Inflation in West Pomerania (1922–1923) – a Centenary of the Events”. The creators of the exhibition – Genowefa Horoszko and Mieszko Pawłowski – want to look at the crisis money at a greater perspective. Coins and banknotes are also artistic objects that relect the times of their creation. It is also important to pay attention to the content of seemingly meaningless composition of a seal. The exhibition follows transitions occurring in social and cultural life of Pomerania. The numismatic exhibits will be presented against the background of prints, paintings or artwork reproductions.
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN SZCZECIN AT WAŁY CHROBREGO
The popular "Stettin/Szczecin – One History. Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Collection of the National Museum in Szczecin" exhibition will be presented as long as until the end of 2022. Its creators' basic objective has been meeting the need for a story about one Stettin/Szczecin – pre- and postwar, merging Polish and German history of the city into one, although composed of countless experiences, unity. To do this, a selection of German and Polish works of art was used. It is a good representation of the Szczecin collection, as it covers the circumstances that reflect the key moments in the history of the city and, consequently, of the museum. The exposition is a depcition of the way leading towards the agreement to think about Szczecin as a Polish city with German past (and the present). The exhibition is a draft of a prospective permanent Gallery of European Painting of the National Museum in Szczecin.
With the exhibition "A Tale of Cold Weapons in Asia", Michał Pozorski from the NMS Department of Non-European Cultures will show that the said weapons are not only warfare items, but also carriers of knowledge on history and culture of a particular civilisation. The exposition will be divided into geographical sections to show various types of weapons, including Japanese katana, Malaysian kris or Chinese dao swords. The vernissage has been scheduled for early April 2022.
In October, Katarzyna Findlik-Gawron will invite to an exhibition entitled "Joy of Life. Folk Art of Mexico”, presenting private collection of Stanisław Kasprzyk. Patterns derived from great pre-Columbian civilisations and motifs of Spanish origin may be found in Mexican art. The exhibits will include wonderful pictures made on so-called amaté paper from Xilitla, board paintings, animalitos made of clay, wool and wood with great artism, imagination and extraordinary ornamentation; you will also see papier-mâché alebrijes – colourful fantasy creatures.
The leitmotif of an exhibition prepared by Iwona Karwowska from the Department of Ethnography of Pomerania is wood. The exposition entitled "As It Was with Wood" will show tools used for wood processing and the variety of its uses in traditional culture. The exhibits will include items related to obtaining wood (saws, axes, drawknives), carpentry tools (planes, chisels, bar clamps etc.), goods made of wood with examples of woodcarving and inlaid work, barrel-making tools and products and objects related to other rural crafts. The use of wood for folk art, e.g. sculpture, will also be shown, along with a set of carving tools of Zygmunt Skrętowicz, presented for the first time. The vernissage is to be held in September 2022.
As every year, Krystyna Milewska from the NMS Department of Education will prepare a series of exhibitions. We will see popular and well-known results of the competitions "Mathematics in Focus" (June), "Everything is a Number" (August) and "Letters to Santa Claus” (December).
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM IN SZCZECIN – THE DIALOGUE CENTRE UPHEAVALS
The newest history of Szczecin and West Pomerania is an extremely interesting ands popular subject. Temporary projects carried out in the Dialogue Space, the Education Hall / Open Storage and at the Plac Solidarności square are supplement to the multimedia narrative of the permanent exhibition entitled "City of Objection – City of Protest”. An interesting solution are interventions in the already-existent exposition.
At the turn of February and March 2022, an exhibition "Life of a Human is a Journey" will be opened, which has to be an event accompanying the sixth birthday of the Dialogue Centre Upheavals. Paula Sendra, the curator of the exposition, says: "history is composed of upheaval events. They arrange the human's chronology and let us refer to the past. History, however, may be viewed from various points. People's memories are subjective. Each single person creates their own vision of the past years. You may show the upheavals from the point of view of those who were involved in the events. Those, who contributed to grat transitions. Among the society, however, the majority are always the spectators, not the heroes. This exhibition shows the life viewed by them. Each exhibition case will present a different aspect of the Poles' lives, from birth to death. The stories shown will refer to the everyday life from World War II to the fall of the communist system in Poland.”
In May 2022, Agnieszka Kuchcińska-Kurcz in cooperation with Prof. Radosław Skrycki and his students from the Institute of History of the University of Szczecin will invite us to see an open-air exposition entitled "Forced Labourers in West Pomerania during World War II". Large-sized boards will show unique photographs and documents or written memories of the witnesses of history – slaves of the Nazi Reich.
The sixth DCU anniversary will also be enriched by "Treasures of the Time of the Pandemic" exhibition, prepared by Agnieszka Kuchcińska-Kurcz, showing the newest acquisitions obtained from our donors and witnesses of history.
Another interesting NMS-DCU open-air project, "History in an Envelope", is an exhibition of letters. We will be able to see dramatic correspondence sent from camps, prisons, internment places or read even... criminals' secret messages smuggled out of prison. The exhibition is curated by Paula Sendra and Adriana Rybicka-Bąk.
Curators Agnieszka Kuchcińska-Kurcz and Tomasz Ślepowroński, PhD, will take charge of the history of Polish western border from the end of World War II to entering the Schengen area. We will learn about events related to the shaping of the border, numerous crises, attempts to cross it illegally and everyday lives of the borderland residents. The vernissage of "The Border" has been scheduled for September 2022.
Another offer of the Dialogue Centre Upheavals is "Our Times", an exhibition of works by renown photographer Cezary Dubiel. The artist will show collages, the majority of which will be dedicated to the current afairs, being further upheavals (?), that is, among others, the burdens of the pandemic or social and political protests. The exposition is curated by the Manager of the NMS-DCU.
The last item proposed by the Dialogue Centre Upheavals is... "The Final of the Century", an exhibition of artifacts from the collections of West-Pomeranian soldiers of Józef Piłsudski. It will be an epilogue of the Centerary of Polish independence, which actually has been celebrated for several years. The exhibition is prepared by Agnieszka Kuchcińska-Kurcz and Bogdan Ronin-Walknowski.
By: Daniel Źródlewski, Bartosz Zasieczny