It is always juicy and green, like the grass on a football pitch. The opening of the new building of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw has been going on for a few days now. From the point of view of Łódź, it is time to return to the noble cultural and even sporting “rivalry” between ideas as immanent to both cities as Legia team on the one hand and ŁKS and Widzew football clubs on the other. Łódź does not stand a chance. Well, we wish our colleagues from the capital all the best and look forward to the opening whistle when the several days of celebrations are over.
Given the centrality of the country’s financial flows on Poland’s sandy, absorbent soil (not least because of that fatal split in its own identity, Bałuty semper contra Widzew), do you think this is too trivial a view of “high” culture? You’d be wrong: a lot of careful, seriously funded cultural research reveals a surprisingly strong relationship between the elitist, intellectual and talkative, and the egalitarian, emotional and rather quiet.
Art museums are a team game, requiring outstanding professionals almost as much as professional kickball. A supposedly slightly ludic, ritualised, predictable spectacle, while in the background, behind the veil of dressing rooms and exhibitions, a serious game of interests, big money, even bigger ambitions, no jokes. Art museums (even modern ones) are a graceful, eye-catching attribute for a favourable image of the City. For some obscure reason, we in Europe still look more warmly, more eagerly, at allegories of cities that play with such museum brilliance in a thoughtful, casual way.
The Warsaw Museum has developed from its origins within the Foksal Gallery Foundation. Similarly, the Foundation was established at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, derived from the Foksal Gallery. This information is as intriguing as the statistics of corner kicks versus the number of heads. However, for the general public, this may appear uninteresting. For those engaged in the field, such as statisticians and chroniclers of the sport, this information is invaluable. Nevertheless, the crucial aspect is the quality of the performance.
Pictured from left: Kim Gordon (2024), Julian Przyboś, Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro (ca. 1930).