Revolutions 1968
16 Sept - 9 Nov 2008

Zacheta National Gallery of Art Warsaw, Poland


The Birth of Counter-Culture

The exhibition "Revolutions 1968" at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw presents works by international artists (pictures, video films, photographs) such as the German Joseph Beuys, the US John Baldessari, the Korean Nam June Paik, Richard Hamilton (UK), Hans Hollein (AT) ... who accompanied the changes in a - for the first time - global society along with archive visual materials and installations prepared specifically for this occasion.


fig.: Maria Pinińska-Bereś "The Machine of Love", 1967. Sculpture in wood, plywood, paper maché; collection of the National Museum in Wrocław, photo courtesy of Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw

Maria Pinińska-Bereś, born 1931 in Poznań, is one of the pioneers of feminist art in Poland. She strongly referred to the issue of woman’s social role and the stereotypes involved. For her figurative sculptures she has developed her own language. From the 1960s she used lightweight materials; at first papier-mâché, then stuffed textile forms.

From 1950 to 1956 she studied the art of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under Xawery Dunikowski. From 1979 Maria Pinińska-Bereś was member of the Grupa Krakowska. She died 1999 in Cracow.


Birth of Ecological Awareness

You will get an insight into the revolutionary times of the late 60ies, the rapid development of pop-culture, emancipation movements such as the fight for the civic rights of minorities and women, the birth of ecological awareness, utopian architectonic visions, the contestation of institutions, the changes on universities ...

Global Society

The curators Maria Brewińska and Hanna Wróblewska had different approaches to present the theme: historical pieces and documentary works, interpretations and re-interpretations of social problems and cultural phenomena characteristics of the late 60ies are the different perspectives from which you can view in this exhibition on the (for the first time!) worldwide revolutions in 1968. From Mexico and the U.S.A., through Germany, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia to as far as Japan protests took place. And for the first time the media had great influence that the movement becomes international.

The Media

In 1967 in France the book “The Spectacle Society” by Guy Debord was released. This book, which can be seen as prophesying the coming revolts was an unflinching diagnosis of a society alienated through the impact of media and systems of selling, a society for whom everything had simply become a selection of images passively desired and over which one has no control.

Catalogue: the accompanying reader offers essays dealing with the most significant phenomena of that time and historical original texts from Poland, Germany, France, Italy, the U.S.A., and the territories of the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia www.zacheta.art.pl.


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