Wawel Royal Castle opens the exhibition “Or maybe something else? Contemporary at Wawel” – an exhibition of Polish contemporary painting showing a little-known chapter of the museum’s collection. The exhibition can be seen until 15 March 2026. How was the exhibition created? Whose works can be seen? Curator Lidia Brzyska talks about the details.
The Wawel Royal Castle is known for its preservation and presentation of historical treasures, but its collections also include less obvious works. These include paintings created after 1945, representing a variety of 20th and 21st century trends. The opening exhibition ‘How about something different? Modernity at Wawel” reveals this layer of the collection and poses the provocative question of the place of modern art in the former residence of kings.
The exhibition shows that Wawel Castle had been actively reaching out to new artistic voices since the 1960s and 1970s, collaborating with interior designers and architects and organising shows featuring living artists. At that time, the museum began to consciously form a collection of contemporary paintings, acquiring stylistically diverse works that make unobvious references to the royal residence and dialogue with the historical objects in the collection.
The works on display come from artists who have made their mark in the history of Polish art of the 20th and 21st centuries. They include paintings by Jerzy Nowosielski, Jonasz Stern, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Edward Dwurnik and Marcin Maciejowski. The collection, although small in number, shows a broad spectrum of painterly languages. The collection is almost unknown, both to specialists and the general public. Its display within the historic walls invites the question: should contemporary art find a permanent place in a royal residence whose greatest treasure is the past?
The prologue to the exhibition opens with Marcin Maciejowski’s painting ‘A Visit to Wawel’, which leads to the provocative title question: would it not be worthwhile to find ‘something else’ at the royal castle. Throughout the successive rooms, the exhibition leads from the documentation of the museum’s post-war initiatives, through touches of the 1960s and 1970s, to later acquisitions – including works by Edward Dwurnik or Łukasz Stokłosa. The epilogue is created by a work by Magdalena Miłoś, inspired by the Wawel tapestries, which symbolically links the past with the present. The last part of the exhibition functions as a space for dialogue; the audience is invited to express its own opinion on the presence of contemporary art at Wawel Castle.
Kamil Białas: The main part of the exhibition is the presentation of works purchased for the Gallery of Polish Painting of the 19th and 20th Centuries. How were the works selected for this gallery and why are they being shown only now?
Lidia Brzyska: Eleven paintings by contemporary Polish artists were acquired for the Wawel collection in the 1980s. These works were to enrich the permanent exhibition planned since the end of the 1970s in the castle in Sucha Beskidzka – then a branch of the PZS (PZS – State Art Collections at Wawel, now the Royal Castle at Wawel – State Art Collections – editor’s note).
It is difficult to determine the exact criteria of selection due to the lack of precise documentation, but the position of individual artists certainly played an important role – attention was then focused on well-known artists presenting a high artistic level. The focus was mainly on artists associated with the Kraków community; against this backdrop – among works by Maria Jarema, Jerzy Nowosielski or Jonasz Stern – a painting by Eugeniusz Geppert stands out, who, although educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, after the war was associated with the Wrocław community.
The planned painting gallery unfortunately never came into being, and Suski Castle ceased to be a branch of PZS in the 1990s. At that time there were no other exhibition spaces where contemporary painting could be presented, and as a result the paintings ended up in museum storerooms. One could say that they were waiting for their time, which finally came.
What guided you when you created the exhibition scenario, was chronology important, or perhaps the themes of the individual works? Or perhaps some other aspect?
At the core of the exhibition was the desire to present the aforementioned group of paintings purchased for the gallery in Sucha Beskidzka. In the course of working on the script, it turned out that during the period when Jerzy Szablowski was director, there were many more Wawel initiatives related to contemporary art. One could mention, for example, the permanent cooperation with the designer and arranger, but also visual artist Adam Młodzianowski (from the 1950s), the furnishing of administrative interiors with furniture designed by interior designer and set designer Marian Sigmund (1960s), or the exhibitions of contemporary art organised in the 1970s, after which the most interesting works were acquired for the collection. The exhibition recalls these major undertakings step by step, and the selected exhibits – at least I hope so – show the great variety of activities undertaken.
Further on, the exhibition moves into the 21st century, presenting the paintings of contemporary artists that have found their way into the Wawel collections in recent years. The exhibition closes with a painting by Magdalena Miłoś – although it does not belong to the museum’s collection, but being a personal interpretation of the Sigismund tapestries, it refers to artistic interventions which were present at the Castle in 2024 – thus it is yet another element-transformation of the present day at Wawel, about which the whole exhibition is about.
What role does the confrontation of modern design projects with the castle’s Renaissance architecture play in the exhibition’s narrative?
The works of Adam Młodzianowski presented at the exhibition (above all the designs of the exhibitions themselves, but also the materials accompanying them) or the furniture designed by Marian Sigmund were based on the trends present in particular fields of art at the time, where modernism reigned, but also referred with great respect to the existing architecture, emphasising its qualities. They are also a manifestation of the holistic thinking about the castle and exhibition activity that characterised the management of the PZS at the time – in constant collaboration with Młodzianowski, they strove to “create their own exhibition style”, which was to harmoniously combine historical architecture with modern requirements, not only in terms of display, but also aesthetics.
In the context of the presented exhibition, we were also keen to achieve this – the etalage designed by the ‘new motif’ studio, on the one hand makes use of modern and sometimes surprising forms, and on the other does not cover up the historic structure of Wawel castle, which constitutes the uniqueness of this place.
What is your vision for the continued collection of contemporary art at Wawel Castle after this exhibition, and are you considering creating a permanent contemporary gallery?
Personally, I very much like the idea present at Wawel Castle in the 1970s of organising exhibitions and acquiring the most interesting works of art presented in them, thematically related to Wawel Hill and the museum itself. These objects complemented the rich collections of Wawel iconography, documenting the art trends of the time, which is now of historical value.
The Royal Castle has been enriched by several works of recent art in recent years, and I hope that this trend will continue. Cultural works are very often a dialogue with earlier eras, and we should also encourage this dialogue.
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At the end of the exhibition, an interactive section is planned – a special place where visitors will be able to answer the question “What next for contemporary art in the Wawel collection?”. This is not an add-on, but a planned element of the exhibition from the outset, through which the Museum wants to involve the public in a further narrative about the role of contemporary painting at the Castle. The organisers are hoping for a broad response, while at the same time extending the discussion through further curatorial interventions: upon leaving the exhibition, visitors will see two paintings by Roman Opałka and a unique juxtaposition of Sigismund tapestries with abacanas by Magdalena Abakanowicz – sets that are meant to provoke reflection and help answer the question posed by the exhibition.
Exhibition: Or maybe something else? Contemporary at Wawel
Curator: Lidia Brzyska
Time: 17 October 2025 – 15 March 2026
Place: Wawel Royal Castle – State Art Collections
31-001 Kraków, Wawel 5
source: editorial
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