EXHIBITIONS
March 18 – September 6 2026Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat: 11AM - 7PM Thu: 11Am - 8PM, Sun: 11AM - 6PM
20 PLN normal / 15 PLN reduced, Thursday 1 PLN
Aleksander Minorski. Photography as Intervention
A monographic exhibition opening the 90th anniversary year of the Museum of Warsaw
Can photography change reality? Can an image showing poverty or exhausting labor become a call for help and an impulse to improve living conditions?
Aleksander Minorski (1906–1982) believed that it could. A photographer, filmmaker, and writer—today we might also call him an activist—he treated photography above all as a tool for social engagement and real intervention.
This monographic exhibition dedicated to the artist opens the 90th anniversary year of the Museum of Warsaw and recalls a creator whose greatest concern was acting on behalf of people living in poverty and on the margins of society. Minorski’s work remains largely absent from public awareness today. The exhibition presents the artist’s photographs, films, and texts focused on the lives of excluded and marginalized people, and above all reveals the attitudes and beliefs behind them.
The year 2026, marking the 120th anniversary of Aleksander Minorski’s birth, provides an opportunity to re-examine his work—perhaps without the prejudices that for decades shaped the reception of artists with communist views.
“Unbeautiful districts”
The exhibition also tells the story of a rarely seen side of Warsaw: the working-class and impoverished city of the 1930s, as well as the city rebuilt after the war, full of new housing estates constructed in the 1960s and 1970s.
The exhibition traces Minorski’s biography and artistic output—from his first contacts with communist circles (including rarely exhibited works by artists associated with the Czapka Frygijska group) and an important commission documenting the dramatic housing conditions of workers in the early 1930s. These photographs reveal a picture of pre-war Warsaw far removed from sentimental visions—a city of deep social inequalities.
We see collapsing workers’ houses, ruined apartments of the unemployed, children playing in gutters, the hard labor of sand diggers on the Vistula River, but also efforts undertaken in the struggle for a better life—for example, the construction of the new housing estate in Koło.
Photography is political
An important theme of the exhibition is the political dimension of Minorski’s work. Special attention is given to the publication “Dola i niedola naszych dzieci” (The Fortune and Misfortune of Our Children) from 1938, which called for greater care for young people and improvements in their living conditions.
The publication was exceptional both in its graphic design and in its use of photography. It was interpreted as a criticism of the authorities, and almost the entire print run was destroyed.
After the war: continuity of vision
Minorski’s post-war films and photographs reveal the perspective of a creator who spent the period of the occupation and the first years of Poland’s reconstruction outside the country. In the 1960s and 1970s, he documented May Day parades and also returned to places he had photographed before the war, searching for traces of former poor housing.
He observed new housing estates in Moczydło, Szczęśliwice, Grochów, and Bródno, presenting them as the fulfillment of pre-war demands for better living conditions—a sign of photography’s power to inspire intervention.
A historical exhibition, contemporary questions
Although the exhibition is historical in character, in many areas it remains strikingly relevant. It addresses issues such as housing shortages, overwork, children’s rights, and—above all—the role and importance of photography in public debate.
For Minorski, photography was a way of telling the story of the everyday lives of marginalized people:
“I walked through the suburbs. People lived in the streets and in courtyards, escaping from cramped, suffocating apartments. I looked into gateways. Each one—especially in wooden houses—looked like a stage in a theater. Each was a new, separate world. Behind the dark recesses of the gates you could see women washing laundry. It dried in the sun, billowing in the wind. Children played with scraps. Men played cards and discussed their affairs,” he recalled.
Dialogue with the present
The exhibition includes nearly 300 objects, mainly from the collections of the Museum of Warsaw. Works borrowed from institutions including the Museum of Independence, the National Museum, and the Documentary and Feature Film Studio significantly enrich the narrative.
The exhibition also features works by contemporary artists invited into dialogue with Minorski’s work. The band Hańba! recorded pieces capturing the tense political atmosphere of the 1930s, based on poetry from the period.
In a separate room, a panoramic film installation by the Oscar-nominated duo Magdalena Hueckel and Tomasz Śliwiński is presented, inspired both by Minorski’s photographs and by his unrealized pre-war dream of making his own film.
Accessibility
One of the exhibition’s key goals is to address the accessibility needs of different audiences. Based on selected photographs by Minorski, tactile aids have been created for visitors with visual impairments. These help explain his work and introduce basic photographic concepts such as light, framing, perspective, and movement.
This part of the exhibition also helps answer the question: What is photography?—a particularly meaningful topic in a year marking the 200th anniversary of the first photograph in history.
Warning: Strong sensory stimuli in the exhibition:
Light, images, sound
The exhibition features rapidly changing images and loud, unsettling music.
Visiting with children
The exhibition offers activity sheets for children aged 10+ and teenagers, available in English.
Visitors simply need to pick up an activity sheet and something to write with to solve tasks together, explore the exhibition, and enjoy the experience.
Kolofon
Curator: Karolina Puchała-Rojek
Producer: Katarzyna Jolanta Górska
Exhibition design: MatosekNiezgoda
Graphic design of the exhibition: Alina Rybacka-Gruszczyńska
The FORTUNE-MIS-FORTUNE film: Magdalena Hueckel & Tomasz Śliwiński, AI animation and compositing: Anna Skoczeń, music: Stefan Wesołowski, sound: Michał Korzeniowski
Soundtrack: Hańba! group, consisting of: Andrzej Zamenhof (Andrzej Zagajewski), Tadeusz Król (Wojciech Wędzicha), Antoni Skwarło (Sebastian Kaszyca), Ignacy Woland (Jakub Lewicki)
Multimedia presentations: Wojciech Zahaczewski, Ludwika Białkowska, Rafał Starościński (Modeon), Radek Pater, Paweł Wolski (Eidotech)
Tactile objects: Adrianna Lau, Jan Godzimirski (Wielozmysły)
Project manager, providing support in organising the collection: Katarzyna Adamska
Identification of locations, iconographic reaserch: Piotr Głogowski
Text editing and proofreading: Ewa Kiedio
English translation: Aleksandra Szymczyk
Inventory and re-inventory of the collection: Aneta Matuszewska, Sebastian Pierścieniak, Katarzyna Reszka (koordynacja / coordinator)
Conservation of prints: Julia Kłosińska
Conservation of negatives: Julia Kłosińska, Katarzyna Szymczuk
Conservation of archival materials: Igor Nowak
Digitisation: Adrian Czechowski, Michał Matyjaszewski, Anna Sulej
Post-production: Eliza Kowalska-Małek
Digitisation coordinator: Mikołaj Kalina
Pre-press: Maciej Chodziński
External loans: Janusz Kurczak
In-house loans: Tomasz Lewandowski, Dorota Parszewska, Zuzanna Sieroszewska-Rolewicz
Framing: Marta Bulińska (IDoArt), Zofia Cur, Ksenia Góreczna, Ewa Lenczewska, Katarzyna Radecka, Piotr Popławski, Katarzyna Szymczuk (oprawa konserwatorska / conservation framing)
Implementation: Michał Bogumił, Marta Galewska, Paweł Grochowalski, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, Piotr Lipiński, Monika Mazurek, Artur Miniewicz, Ewa Nowak-Mitura, Katarzyna Radecka, Tomasz Raubo, Leszek Sokołowski, Michał Tański, Filip Wielechowski-Olszak, Adam Wrzosek, Aleksandra Złotowska
Pracownia Tryktrak – Jakub Kamiński
Public programme: Dorota Stolarska-Kultys
Educational programme accompanying the exhibition: Anna Lorek-Maciejuk, Krystyna Stroynowska, Marta Zdanowska
Accessibility coordinator, author of audio description: Karolina Sawicka
Accessibility Consultations: Kamila Albin
Communications: Anna Dobrowolska-Balcerzak, Anna Ładna, Olga Gaertner, Magdalena Nazimek, Nela Sobieszczańska, Martyna Sowińska Pasek vel Paszkowska, Maria Alicja Włodarska
Visual identification of promotional materials: Joanna Bębenek
Typography system for exhibitions of the Museum of Warsaw: Anna Światłowska
arketing: Małgorzata Czajkowska, Karina Dąbska, Agata Fijałkowska, Agata Fronczyk, Dagmara Jędrzejewska, Jowita Purzycka
External funding: Marzena Michałek-Dąbrowska
External rentals: National Museum in Warsaw, Museum of Independence in Warsaw, Documentary and Feature Film Studio / National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute, University of Warsaw Archive, University of Warsaw Library, Library of the Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw, private collectors
