A new exhibition will open on 25 March 2022 in Munich, co-financed by the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, the National Museum in Warsaw, the National Museum in Kraków, the National Museum in Poznań and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The exhibition presents the Young Poland art movement, a period of great advances in painting, sculpture, literature and aesthetics.
The exhibition’s title Stille Rebellen: Polnischer Symbolismus um 1900 (Silent Rebels: Polish Symbolism Around 1900) can be interpreted on multiple levels. The silent rebellion in question manifested in many ways: a peaceful protest against Poland’s occupants through art, the development and cultivation of Polish culture as well as a rebellion of Young Poland’s members against the academic historical tradition cultivated by Jan Matejko and Wojciech Gerson, amongst others. The new generation questioned the patriotic duties of the past and sought to fulfil their artistic desires. The exhibition highlights the role of a Polish artist, and the changing approach to it in this time period, from duties to freedom, from Matejko to artists working at the turn of the century. The exhibition at the Kunsthalle also emphasises the post-Romantic tradition visible in Polish art after 1900, which cannot be properly understood without the political backdrop of post-partition rulers and the nation’s loss of freedom. The necessity of confronting the new political realities through art as well as the influences of modernist European movements created a unique visual language, where mythology weaves together with contemporary rural life, and literary motifs taken from Polish romanticism and local legends blend together with native landscapes. The exhibition also presents the international aspects of the Polish artistic movement, its influences, exchanges and migrations of artistic ideas.