Edward Dwurnik. Pride and Shame

A retrospective of Edward Dwurnik’s painting focused on the 1970s and 1980s, built around two of his main series: Sportsmen and Workers. The museum reads these paintings as a record of social advancement in Poland and the emotions that came with it - pride and shame. A separate intervention by Patryk Różycki runs alongside it.

Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej on the exhibition:

The exhibition focuses on the artist’s work from the 1970s and 1980s - presenting two of his main painting series, titled Sportsmen and Workers. The exhibition’s starting point was the desire to reconstruct Dwurnik’s original artistic stance, which was formed at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s.

This stance was characterized by a rejection of art’s elitism, connections with outsider art, and the concept of painting as a document of social life. Dwurnik believed in realistic painting that participated in life, and he treated it as an egalitarian language that helped communicate with the people portrayed in his paintings. He believed in painting that helped express and build community. Beyond being a retrospective of Dwurnik’s painting work, the exhibition at the Museum will also serve as a starting point to address a theme crucial to Polish identity in the last half-century: the experience of social advancement and profound class transformations.

Dwurnik appears as an artist who, with his characteristic perceptiveness and irony, explored the identity-related, cultural, and psychological consequences of this leap, which he himself also underwent. Thus, the exhibition Edward Dwurnik. Pride and Shame proposes an interpretation of the artist’s work from the perspective of the history of social emotions in Poland in the second half of the 20th century. Especially the constant clash of two affects organizing the experience of class structure transformation: pride and shame. These emotions extend far beyond the sphere of private experiences, as they regulate belonging, recognition, and place in the social hierarchy; they even determine the sense of worth or worthlessness of one’s own existence and identity. In Dwurnik’s paintings from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, both these emotions constantly reappear, present in events, stories, and images of figures striving for recognition. Without recognizing this emotional genealogy of social life, it is difficult to understand the sources of resentments and conflicts that shape contemporary Polish political imagination and constitute the sources of contemporary populisms. The Edward Dwurnik exhibition is accompanied by an artistic intervention by Patryk Różycki titled Transformation. This is a selection of his works from 2021-2024. The series of paintings concerns the artist’s childhood and maturation in the countryside amidst economic and social exclusion related to the transformation of the 1990s.

What to expect

The core of the show is Dwurnik’s painting from the 1970s and 1980s, and specifically the two series the whole argument rests on: Sportsmen and Workers. The curators’ starting point was reconstructing the artistic stance Dwurnik formed at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s: a rejection of art’s elitism, a closeness to outsider art, and the conviction that painting is a document of social life. He treated realistic painting as an egalitarian language, a way of communicating with the people he portrayed and a tool for building community.

The second layer is thematic. The museum proposes reading these paintings through the history of social emotions in Poland in the second half of the 20th century, and specifically through the clash of pride and shame - the two affects that organised the experience of social advancement and class transformation. Dwurnik went through that leap himself and looked at its consequences with irony. In his work from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s both emotions keep returning, present in the events, stories and images of figures striving for recognition.

Shown separately is an artistic intervention by Patryk Różycki titled Transformation, a selection of his works from 2021-2024. It is a series of paintings about childhood and growing up in the countryside, amid the economic and social exclusion tied to the transformation of the 1990s. The exhibition runs from 31 July 2026 to 28 February 2027.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Museum of Modern Art website.

Museum profile: Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej.