This exhibition presenting the pre-war history of the Warsaw Art Academy, from its foundation in 1904 through its culminant moment of becoming a state institution in 1922, together with the wide-ranging publication planned to accompany it constitutes a pioneering research undertaking. The exhibition is of a historical nature, based on exceptionally interesting though little known archive material, but one that is conceived in a very contemporary way and projected – in many instances – as an interactive space. Through its spectacular lay out, the exhibition underlines the thesis inscribed in the title “Art Everywhere” – in the home, in cinemas, in the theatre, in shops, in forms such as set design, shop windows, monuments, matchboxes, writing, ceremonial decorations, adverts...

A high point of the exhibition will be the the reconstruction of the Polish Pavilion at the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925 – an example of the international success of the academy, as well as the partial reconstruction of selected interiors from Polish ships that during that period made transatlantic voyages.

curator Maryla Sitkowska
curatorial co-operation: Agnieszka Szewczyk, Jola Gola
curatorial co-operation on the part of Zachęta Joanna Kordjak