Opening of ’Erna Rosenstein. Malarstwo‘ (Erna Rosenstein. Painting), CBWA (Central Bureau for Art Exhibitions, today Zachęta National Gallery of Art) Warsaw, 1967. © The Estate of Erna Rosenstein / Adam Sandauer

Exhibition Walkthrough: ‘Erna Rosenstein. Once Upon a Time’

  • Sat 11 December 2021
  • 1 pm

On the occasion of ‘Erna Rosenstein. Once Upon a Time,’ please join us for a walkthrough of the exhibition with curator Alison M. Gingeras along with curator and art historian Barbara Piwowarska. The walkthrough will highlight Rosenstein's Cabinet, one of the pivotal works of the exhibition, and a central work in Rosenstein's life and work.

This is a free event, but must be booked in advance. Limited tickets are available.

Click here to register.

In accordance with local guidelines and to ensure the health and safety of all our guests and staff, masks are required inside the gallery, as well as proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

About the Exhibition

‘Erna Rosenstein. Once Upon a Time’ is the first monographic exhibition outside of Poland devoted to Erna Rosenstein (1913 – 2004). One of the key figures of the Polish avant-garde, Rosenstein’s wartime survival, commitment to Surrealism, and lifelong adherence to leftist ideologies course through a remarkable array of paintings, drawings, and assemblage sculptures, as well as poems, diaristic writings, and deceptively whimsical children’s stories.

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About Alison M. Gingeras A curator and writer, Alison M. Gingeras has been recognized for her scholarly yet anarchic approach to art history. She has held curatorial positions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the National Museum of Modern Art, Paris, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Francois Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi, Venice. Gingeras serves as Adjunct Curator of Dallas Contemporary and Guest Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami.

She has organized groundbreaking exhibitions such as Dear Painter, Paint Me: Painting the Figure Since Late Picabia (2002) at the Centre Pompidou; Pop Life (2009) which she co-curated at Tate Modern; Black Sheep Feminism: The Art of Sexual Politics (2016) and My Life as a Man: John Currin (2019) at Dallas Contemporary; Sex Work: Feminist Art & Radical Politics (2017) at Frieze London and New Images of Man (2020) at Blum & Poe. Her essays regularly appear in periodicals including Artforum, Spike, Mousse Playboy, and Tate Etc., and in scores of art historical volumes. In 2021, Gingeras organized the first ever monographic exhibition and publication on the Polish Surrealist Erna Rosenstein outside of Eastern Europe at Hauser and Wirth in New York.

About Barbara Piwowarska Barbara Piwowarska is a curator and art historian who lives and works in Porto and Warsaw.

Between 2011 and 2014, she co-curated a sequel of three survey exhibitions of Erna Rosenstein: I Can Repeat Only Unconsciously at Foksal Gallery Foundation and Edward Krasiński Studio in Warsaw; Organism at Art Stations in Poznań; and Superimposition at Królikarnia/National Museum in Warsaw, together with Dorota Jarecka with whom she also co-authored the book Erna Rosenstein: I Can Repeat Only Unconsciously (2014). Previously she authored numerous publications about Jadwiga Maziarska, Rosenstein’s best friend, publishing in 2005 Maziarska’s correspondence, which was collected over years by Rosenstein and kept in her famous cabinet. In 2017 Piwowarska curated the Polish Pavilion for the 57th Venice Biennale, with Little Review by Sharon Lockhart. Since 2019, she is the Artistic Director of Casa São Roque in Porto, where she curated Ana Jotta Inventória, Footnote 14: Angel of History (subsequent iteration of the Footnote project she is running since 2010) and, on view until May 2022: Jean-Luc Moulène Técnico Libertário.

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