Can Red Be Trusted

New work by Róża Litwa at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art: paintings, spatial works and animations made for this show and built around one question, trust. On view 24 October 2026 to 28 February 2027, with the opening on Friday 23 October at 19:00. Curated by Ewa Gorządek.

Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art on the exhibition:

For her exhibition at Ujazdowski Castle, Róża Litwa has created new works that develop themes long present in her practice: reflections on the human condition and human feelings, on being with others and on a reality that is changing at speed.

Trust, as announced in the title, is the leading theme. What does it mean to place one’s trust - in systems, in other people, in oneself - when everything around us seems ever more blurred, fragile and uncertain?

Róża Litwa’s paintings, spatial works and animations invite reflection on the individual and social dimensions of trust. At a time when distrust in institutions is growing and digital media puncture the contours of the familiar world, calling our sense of reality into question, art - thanks to its expressive power and resistance to all kinds of simplifications - allows articulating these mounting anxieties with true acuity.

The artist has developed a distinctive visual language built on minimalist, timeless metaphors, symbols and signs. Through motifs that are instantly recognisable and at the same time rich in ambiguity, Róża Litwa gives voice to the full range of experiences and emotions that shape people today. In doing so, she brings autobiographical threads together with a broader, systemic and sociological reflection. A perceptive and sensitive observer, the artist points to literature as one of her most important inspirations, the one that sets her entire creative process in motion. It comes as no surprise, then, that the red of the title alludes to Anne Carson’s verse novel Autobiography of Red.

What to expect

Painting, spatial works and animation, all of it new and made for this exhibition. This is not a career survey but a fresh chapter in which the artist returns to her standing subjects: the human condition, feelings, and how we live alongside other people. Ewa Gorządek is the curator and Katarzyna Kaczorowska the coordinator; both names come from the exhibition’s colophon.

The theme is spelled out in the title and in the museum’s text: trust in systems, in other people and in oneself, at a time when distrust in institutions is growing. The red of the title is a literary reference to Anne Carson’s book, not just a colour.

What the museum does not give: the number of works, their titles or formats, or the running time of the animations. No catalogue has been announced.

Both shows opening at the Castle on 24 October circle around red. The title of Anna Baumgart’s “HAEM” names the part of the blood that makes it red; here the red comes from literature. They are worth seeing one after the other.

Context

Róża Litwa was born in 1982. She graduated with distinction in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 2008, in the studio of the painter Jarosław Modzelewski. In 2011 she received the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation award for young artists, in the edition hosted by MOCAK in Kraków. She works with the Warsaw gallery Monopol.

Her signature is the human figure reduced almost to a pictogram, broken down into single mouths, eyes or spines, or joined into ornamental patterns. She usually paints on smooth paper with a thin layer of diluted oil paint, often in shades of a single colour; the Polish critic Stach Szabłowski compared her rust-red tones to traces of dried blood. Paper soaks up the paint at once and allows no corrections, so every gesture is final, as the artist herself describes it.

Anne Carson, born in Toronto in 1950, is a Canadian poet trained as a classicist. “Autobiography of Red” (1998) is a novel in verse that brings into the present the Greek myth of Geryon, the red-winged monster killed by Heracles, known from fragments by the poet Stesichorus. A Polish translation came out in 2022, published by Ossolineum.

Tickets and time

• Exhibition tickets: 30 PLN regular, 20 PLN reduced (also for Large Family Card holders), 45 PLN family for two adults and two children under 18, each further child 5 PLN. Children and students up to 26 pay 5 PLN with a valid student ID; children under 7 and Warsaw Pass holders enter free.
• There is no separate ticket for this show. The museum runs one price list for its exhibitions and names no surcharge for a particular one.
• Thursday is free. The museum states that admission to all exhibitions is free every Thursday, so that includes this one.
• Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 11:00-19:00 (11 AM - 7 PM), Thursday until 20:00 (8 PM). Closed on Mondays. Last visitors are admitted 30 minutes before closing.
• Booking: the museum mentions neither advance booking nor timed entry slots. Tickets are sold online at bilety.u-jazdowski.pl and at the ticket desk in the main hall.
• How long: allow 45-60 minutes. That is our estimate; the museum has published neither a works count nor the length of the animations.
• Three shows on one ticket: from 24 October 2026 to 7 February 2027 the Castle runs “Can Red Be Trusted”, Anna Baumgart’s “HAEM” and Aneta Grzeszykowska’s “Almost Everything” at the same time. For all three, set aside two and a half to three hours.
• Visitor card: 100 PLN, valid for a year, good for two free exhibition tickets a day. It suits residents who come back several times, not short-stay visitors.
• Groups of 10 to 25 people are booked by e-mail: with a guide at edukacja@u-jazdowski.pl, without one at info@u-jazdowski.pl.
• The cloakroom is temporarily closed (museum information, as of 28 September 2026). The show runs through the winter, so expect to carry your coat.
• Access: the west entrance is at ground level, ramps lead into the courtyard, and the upper floor is reached by stairs with handrails or a lift. There is an accessible toilet on level +1 and two disabled parking bays in the car park.
• English on site: the museum publishes the full exhibition page and the artist’s biography in English but does not say whether wall texts are bilingual. It announces no audio guide and no English-language tours; a group tour in English can be requested through the education address above.
• Getting there: Jazdów 2, on the escarpment beside Łazienki Park. Buses 116, 180 and 195 from the Nowy Świat area and bus 188 straight from Chopin Airport stop at Plac Na Rozdrożu, five minutes’ walk away.

Who it is for: people who like quiet, pared-back painting, and readers of Anne Carson curious to see what her book can become in a picture. It is also a good counterweight to the Castle’s two other shows, both centred on the body.

Who should not make a special trip: if you are crossing the city for this show alone and do not know the artist, combine it with “HAEM” and “Almost Everything”. The museum has not said how many works there are, so it is unclear whether this one fills a visit on its own. On the free Thursday, expect a crowd.

Events

• 23.10.2026, 19:00 - opening at Ujazdowski Castle. The museum warns that the opening will be photographed and filmed; it does not state admission terms or whether registration is needed. The museum opens Anna Baumgart’s “HAEM” on the same evening at the same hour.

Beyond the opening, the museum has not yet announced curator-led tours or talks around this exhibition.

What the press says

There are no reviews yet: the show opens on 24 October 2026. So far there is one preview, in Polish:

• Magazyn SZUM (31.08.2026, the editors): the Polish art magazine’s round-up of the most interesting exhibitions of autumn 2026 lists Róża Litwa’s show among the six autumn shows at Ujazdowski Castle, still without a title, and announces paintings and sculptures built on repeating the human figure stripped of individual features - round-up

See also

• HAEM - Anna Baumgart’s show opening the same day in the same building; the red of blood rather than the red of literature.
• Almost Everything - Aneta Grzeszykowska’s retrospective at the Castle until 7 February 2027; identity and absence in photography, on the same ticket.
• Edward Dwurnik. Pride and Shame - at the Museum of Modern Art until 28 February 2027; very different painting about Polish society and its emotions, closing on the same day.
• Józef Czapski - L’Humanité / Humanity - at the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum until 29 November 2026; drawings and paintings by a painter who was also a writer, from the museum’s own collection.

Museum profile: Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art.