Warsaw Gets an Expanded Look at Surrealism as Political Resistance
A major exhibition now open at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw argues that surrealism was never simply about dreams and the unconscious. It was, from its earliest years, a movement built on anti-fascist and anti-colonial convictions. "You Are at the Heart of Change: Surrealism and Anti-Fascism" runs from June 26, 2026 through January 10, 2027, giving visitors more than six months to engage with one of the most ambitious art exhibitions Poland has seen in recent years.
What the Exhibition Contains
The show brings together works by internationally recognized figures including Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Leonora Carrington, Dora Maar, René Magritte, and Remedios Varo, alongside less widely known artists such as Kurt Seligmann, Wolfgang Paalen, Eileen Agar, and Stanley William Hayter. A dedicated chapter, prepared by Paweł Polit of the Museum of Art in Łódź, examines the a.r. group, a Polish avant-garde collective that assembled works from leading surrealists for the Łódź museum beginning in 1931.
The exhibition also gives substantial attention to surrealist activity in former Czechoslovakia, featuring artists including Toyen, Jindřich Štyrský, Jindřich Heisler, and Mikuláš Medek. Polish-born artists who worked in Paris before the war and later scattered across the world, among them Franciszka and Stefan Themerson and Teresa Żarnower, appear in a separate section.
Structure and Argument
Arranged across 12 chapters, the show follows geography rather than strict chronology. It opens in Paris around 1930, moves through Prague in the 1930s and 1940s, and then traces surrealist networks across London, Cairo, Berlin, Marseille, New York, and beyond. One chapter focuses on artists who fled Germany under Adolf Hitler. Another, titled "Restless World," addresses postwar Central and Eastern Europe. A further section examines the Algerian war of independence as a reference point for surrealist art in the 1960s.
Curators Dorota Jarecka and Magda Lipska expanded the Warsaw presentation beyond its origins as an exhibition at Lenbachhaus in Munich, which ran from October 2024 to March 2025 under a different title. The Warsaw version deepens the research into Polish and East European surrealism specifically.
The curatorial argument rests on documented history. From the 1920s onward, surrealists opposed European colonialism, organized against fascist movements, participated in the Spanish Civil War, and joined resistance networks during World War II. Some had their work labeled "degenerate" by the Nazis; others were interned, persecuted, forced into exile, or killed. Their resistance moved across poetry, painting, photography, collage, and public exhibitions.
A statement by surrealist founder André Breton from 1935, quoted in the exhibition materials, captures the movement's dual ambition: "'Transform the world,' said Marx; 'change life,' said Rimbaud: for us these two aims are one."
Lipska has described the show as the first presentation in Poland on this scale to include internationally known surrealist works by Picasso, Carrington, Ernst, and Varo together.
Why It Matters for Hosts
An exhibition of this length and scope, running well into early 2027, creates a sustained draw for culturally motivated visitors to Warsaw. Independent accommodation operators and experience providers near the Museum of Modern Art can position themselves directly to this audience. Guests interested in 20th-century European history, political art, or avant-garde movements are likely to plan multi-day visits, especially given the exhibition's 12-chapter structure. Highlighting proximity to the museum in listings and guest communications, and offering practical logistics such as transport directions or nearby dining suggestions, can meaningfully improve the experience for this specific traveler profile.
Details about this exhibition were first reported by Polish Radio's English Section, citing PAP.
First reported by Warsaw Travel.