by Nadia Egan // Oct. 1, 2026
We have been sleeping on Warsaw’s art scene. It’s not like I went in with low expectations, but I was well and truly surprised by the quality of what I saw there: the content, the production, the way the shows were introduced. Coming directly out of Berlin Art Week, I was already exhausted and wondering how I might muster up the enthusiasm for more rounds of gallery visits and art-centered conversations. But as soon as I entered the first gallery on my city-wide tour, this “problem” became obsolete. I was on a tight and rigorous schedule, which makes sense when you learn that there are around 60 exhibitions opening across the city, not to mention the additional peripheral events and customary art world mixers. The 16th edition of Warsaw Gallery Weekend, which ran from September 18th to 20th, didn’t go easy on us, with event organizers proudly proclaiming to have outdone themselves compared to previous years.
Warsaw Gallery Weekend has been running since 2011. It’s an annual showcase of contemporary art organized by leading private galleries from Warsaw and other Polish cities, mixing shows by established names with emerging artists, as well as artist talks, performances, concerts and discussions. The WGW+ section, now in its second year, widens the frame to include foundations, artist-run spaces, ephemeral galleries and independent initiatives. Below, I’ve compiled some of my top picks from the weekend.
Gunia Nowik Gallery
Sana Shahmuradova Tanska: ‘Who Promised It Was Going to Be Alright? We Never Did. Indeed (History Knows No “If”)’
Exhibition: Sept. 18–Nov. 7, 2026
gunianowikgallery.com
Bracka 20A, 00-028 Warsaw, Poland, click here for map
I first came across Sana Shahmuradova Tanska’s work during EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial in Limerick in 2023, where I fell in love with the way her brush strokes dance across the canvas. For paintings that have such breathtaking grace and movement to them, they’re inspired by much darker contexts. For the current presentation, titled ‘Who Promised It Was Going to Be Alright? We Never Did. Indeed (History Knows No “If”),’ a new body of works reflects on broken promises, inherited histories and the fragile space between prophecy and political reality, imagining what persists after certainty collapses. Talking to us about the exhibition, the artist told us that the title stems from the insistence of her Kyiv studio building’s administration that she should still pay rent, despite the fact that the space had been severely damaged by a missile strike. She laughs about it now, but the anecdote highlights on a microcosmic level the feeling of being abandoned by someone or something we put our trust in. Myth plays a large role in her response to these things, which is clear through her visual language: otherworldly landscapes, ritualistic compositions, figures swirling across the canvas and blending with a supernatural light.
Sana Shahmuradova Tanska: ‘Who Promised It Was Going to Be Alright? We Never Did. Indeed (History Knows No “If”),’ 2026, installation view at Gunia Nowik Gallery, Warsaw, Poland // Photo by Katarzyna Legendź, courtesy of the artist and Gunia Nowik Gallery
bliss gallery
Magdalena Lazar: ‘What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth’
Exhibition: Sept. 18–Oct. 24, 2026
blissgallery.pl
Szpitalna 5 lok. 7 | IV Floor, 00-031 Warsaw, Poland, click here for map
The space was not easy to find—a fact we also heard recounted from other gallery-goers over the weekend—but it was worth persevering for. In a large, bright apartment gallery, Magdalena Lazar presents sculptural installations inspired by the mining region of Upper Silesia, where she originally comes from. ‘What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth’ is deeply influenced not only by her personal experience, but also by family memory. Using various media, such as metal, textiles, sand, glass and found objects, Lazar presents something both beautifully delicate and profoundly heavy on the soul. One work that particularly touched me was ‘At My Most Nostalgic,’ in which a swarm of steel keys flows out from discarded, uniquely etched Soviet door handles, no longer needed after the switch to modern, automatic doors. The keys symbolize frequent moves, the loss of a family home and the shifting dwellings that define our lives. It was a stark reminder of the fact that displacement and migration, either forced or chosen, doesn’t discriminate when it comes to geographical and cultural boundaries.
Magdalena Lazar: ‘At My Most Nostalgic V,’ 2026, vintage door handle, steel, 116 x 80 x 20 cm, detail // Photo by bliss gallery
Foksal Gallery Foundation
Paulina Ołowska: ‘Three Colours’
Exhibition: Sept. 18–Nov. 7, 2026
foksalgalleryfoundation.com
Wojciecha Górskiego 1A, 00-033 Warsaw, Poland, click here for map
Whether the show is intentionally fun or Ołowska’s visual imagery just directs that way, I couldn’t definitively say. In ‘Three Colours,’ Ołowska draws on Krzysztof Kieślowski’s film trilogy ‘Trois Couleurs’ (1993-94) and its resonance with her own visual imagery. The exhibition uses a mix of visual storytelling to explore how female identity is performed, and how lifestyle acts as a cultural code—one shaped by history, but never fixed. The exhibition claims that paintings and moving images are accorded equal status, but the two films screening on each of the gallery’s floors clearly stole the show, so much so that I could have easily overlooked everything else. The two floors were drenched in blue and red light, respectively, sucking you into what was being shown on the projector, and the audio was excessively loud. But it wasn’t just the colors and noise that held my attention, it was also the weird, surreal action taking place on the screen. The blue room was the most bizarre one: ‘Aphaia’ is a narrative involving an old man dressed in ragged clothing, a boat’s captain, a fortune teller-like woman, a mermaid and a human-fish hybrid acting out a music video reinterpretation of the myth of the eponymous nymph, set on the Greek island of Aegina, all to the music of LCD Soundsystem.
Paulina Ołowska: ‘Aphaia,’ film still, 2026 // Courtesy of the artist and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw
lokal_30
Maria Anto: ‘Courageous Sluggard’
Exhibition: Sept. 18–Dec. 18, 2026
lokal30.pl
Wilcza 29a/12, 00-538 Warsaw, Poland, click here for map
While many of the shows I saw seemed to be coming from relatively young talent, it’s worth noting that not all shows during the weekend were from living, contemporary artists. At lokal_30, a retrospective of Maria Anto presents the oeuvre of the late Polish painter who worked on the border of surrealism, fantasy and art brut. Anto was inspired from what she saw in her dreams, and her allegorical scenes against the backdrop of exotic and fantastic landscapes, were an escape from the reality in which she lived and worked. She participated in over 200 exhibitions in Poland and abroad during her lifetime, an impressive number considering she still remains little known or celebrated, with lokal_30 gallery director Agnieszka Rayzacher even having been questioned by other art professionals about her choice to show Anto’s work. Looking at her unexpected juxtapositions, uncanny familiarity or realistic renderings of impossible scenes, it seems unbelievable to me that Anto had not already been canonized alongside other well-known surrealist artists.
Maria Anto: ‘Untitled,’ 1958, oil on canvas, 67,00 x 89,00 cm // Courtesy of lokal_30
