SUPERORGANISM. THE AVANT-GARDE AND THE EXPERIENCE OF NATURE

Superorganism. The Avant-Garde and the Experience of Nature was the first in a series of exhibitions organised by the Muzeum Sztuki in 2017 as part of the centenary of the avant-garde in Poland, aimed at examining its legacy from the contemporary perspective.

The exhibition showed how the shift in the relationship between man and the environment that took place at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century was reflected in art. The title’s metaphor of the superorganism was an allusion to the expansiveness of mankind, which has brought about civilisational progress, but also degradation of the Earth. Modernity is a point in the history of Homo sapiens when the environment is intensively transformed by developing industry, ongoing urbanisation, and the colonisation of successive parts of the world.

The attitudes that we encounter in avant-garde art comprise an intriguing mosaic of human fascinations, anxieties, reflections, and effects that we experience in relation to nature and which, due to their universality and the enduring character of the experience, remain invariably topical.

The exhibition consisted of the following parts: Postnatural Landscape, Biophilia, Embodied Vision, Fourth Dimension, Microcosm and macrocosm, and Evolution.

The exhibition displayed around 150 works on loan from public and private collections, among others: Tate in London, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The State Museum of Contemporary Art - Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue in two language versions: Polish and English. The publication was divided into two parts. One was connected with the show focusing on its themes.The second part featured essays by the renowned researchers Fae Brauer, Iwona Luba, Jacob Wamberg, and Isabelle Wünsche, who wrote about new ways of interpreting the relationship between the avant-garde, technology, and nature.

Artists: Ansel Adams, Eileen Agar, Jean (Hans) Arp, Alexander Archipenko, Janusz Maria Brzeski, Alexander Calder, Le Corbusier, Robert Delaunay, Boris Ender, Max Ernst, Naum Gabo, Karol Hiller, Vasily Kandinsky, György Kepes, Paul Klee, Ivan Kliun, Katarzyna Kobro, Len Lye, Mikhail Larionov, Kazimir Malevich, Franz Marc, Mikhail Matyushin, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch, Lyubov Popova, Man Ray,  László Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko, Kurt Schwitters, Anton Stankowski, Alfred Stieglitz, Władysław Strzemiński, Wacław Szpakowski and others.

Curators: Aleksandra Jach, Paulina Kurc-Maj
Coordinators: Katarzyna Mróz, Monika Wesołowska
Exhibition architecture: Piotr Bujas, Małgorzata Burkot (BADR - Bureau of Architecture, Design- Research)

Exhibition was presented in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of Polish avant-garde.

Honorary Patron: the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Under the auspices of:

Exhibition was presented in conjunction with the Centenary of Independence Restoration.