This Cat Was Drawn During the War

Curated by Anna Łazar and Lada Nakonechna, this group show at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art ran from 21 March to 13 September 2026 and brought together more than twenty artists working on art made in the face of war.

The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art on the exhibition:

The power of art - as opposed to propaganda - lies, among other things, in its ability to unsettle our habitual ways of perceiving reality and to reveal doubts. It is precisely within the field of contemporary art that meanings important to the community are negotiated. When looking at an artwork, it is worth asking questions both about its message and the means employed, as well as about the sources from which its formal solutions derive. By interpreting and provoking reality, artists expose the dominant discourses of visual politics.

Does war change art? Yes, just as it changes human life. Most existing problems intensify, and new ones arise.

The exhibition title This Cat Was Painted During the War only appears to be a simple statement. First of all, this is not a cat (“ceci n’est pas une pipe” - “this is not a pipe”), although it evokes associations with the dopamine-driven pleasure of looking at pictures on the internet. The sentence was spoken by the artist Kateryna Libkind, emphasising that war provides an inescapable frame for every situation.

Secondly, the verb “painted” plays with the widespread belief that art is created by drawing, painting or, alternatively, sculpting. Meanwhile, the exhibition presents works created using other strategies.

Thirdly, we are confronted with a fundamental question about the direction of our own actions in times of total crisis. Is there still room for critical reflection during wartime?

Thus, the exhibition addresses art created in the face of war. Issues related to the long-lasting imagery of the Second World War and the war in the former Yugoslavia return, and above all the war closest to us in time and geography - the war against Ukraine, whose struggle for freedom and life we support. It is from the experience of this war that our exhibition grows.

The presented works were selected in response to questions we asked ourselves as curators. Is art effective? What can we expect from it in times of crisis? How does it address important issues in public debate, including the experience of war, European identity, women’s rights, or decolonisation from the perspective of countries of the former socialist bloc? How does war affect our sensitivity when documentation from sites of crimes coexists on computer screens with pop culture and AI-generated images? And can art help us imagine the world differently from the ways suggested by dominant narratives?

What to expect

This was a group show with more than twenty artists from Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Mexico, France and Palestine, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Among the names given by the museum were Katya Buchatska, Wojciech Fangor, Agnieszka Kalinowska, Tarik Kiswanson, Zbigniew Libera and Darek Foks, Katya Libkind, Lada Nakonechna, Olaf Nicolai, Monika Sosnowska and Zbigniew Warpechowski.

The museum warned that the exhibition dealt with armed conflict, war and death, and left the decision about bringing children to the guardians.

The full artist list and the public programme remain on the exhibition page on the museum’s website.

After the show

Two Polish reviews covered the show: in the art magazine SZUM (29.05.2026, Mariia Varlygina), the critic read it through Ilona Németh’s grandstand installation and found that the works put familiar images of peace and war to the test - review. Miej Miejsce (22.06.2026, Sylwia Hejno) described an exhibition that avoided the literal and linked historical memory to what is happening now - review.

Three temporary shows are still on at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art:

• Neither Water Nor Land (Nie woda nie ziemia) - a group show on peat bogs as an archive of violence and a hiding place for people who had to vanish, until 27 September 2026.
• She’s Touching Her Forehead, She Can Feel It Burning, She Probably Has a Fever - Karolina Breguła’s solo show about a society gripped by fear, until 20 September 2026.
• All of Us or None (Nikt albo wszyscy) - Imran Perretta’s first solo show in Poland, on power, surveillance and exclusion, until 4 October 2026.

Other Warsaw museums currently show war, and art facing political violence:

• A Photojournalist at War. 36 Frames - Warsaw Uprising press photographs hung on the railings of the Royal Łazienki Museum along Aleje Ujazdowskie, free, until 30 September 2026.
• Warsaw - September 1939. Woodcuts by Eugeniusz Pichell - a portfolio of prints of the besieged city, shown inside the former Gestapo jail at the Mausoleum of Struggle and Martyrdom.
• Jesteś w sercu zmian. Surrealizm i antyfaszyzm (In the Very Bowels of Changes: Surrealism and Antifascism) - a show at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw on the surrealists who stood against fascism and colonialism, until 10 January 2027.