The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw is the biggest and most prominent cultural institution dedicated to collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary art in Warsaw, Poland, and was established in 2005. The museum is currently using its temporary exhibition space (called “the Museum on the Vistula”) and a new building is now under construction. The new premises will open to the public in 2024.
MSN is a public institution inscribed in the development of Warsaw as a modern, multicultural metropolis, involved in social changes in Poland and worldwide and in the emancipation of successive groups. The museum’s expanding collection of contemporary art is a record of dynamic phenomena and processes, occurring both locally and globally.
Exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw are accompanied by an educational programme, which usually includes a series of lectures, debates and seminars. MSN also curates the Bródno sculpture park, an ever-evolving modern art exhibition, presented in Bródno park, outdoors and open to the public 24/7. The summer art festival takes place at the park every year. Since 2009, at the end of October and beginning of November each year, the museum hosts the Warsaw Under Construction city design festival. Each edition focuses on a different set of architecture and urban planning issues.
MSN’s mission is to initiate, support, disseminate, study and collect for present and future generations phenomena related to contemporary art and culture.
At MSN art is treated as a tool for communication, learning about the world and influencing reality. A work of art in the museum is not only for contemplation, it is also “used” and gives space to learn social responsibility, dialogue and critical thinking.
MSN works to support multiple and equal narratives and empathetic relationships among them. It sees contemporary culture – the sensitive voices of its creators able to transcend the limitations of perception – as an excellent tool for social change and understanding that transcends the lines of division and conflict. It creates a space for meetings, mutual inspiration and reflection, which go beyond the field of art but always find their source in it.
The museum is made of people: the audience, the artists and the team.
