Maria Pinińska-Bereś

Is a Woman a Human Being? The groundbreaking feminist artist Maria Pinińska-Bereś (1931-1999) was way ahead of her time with her soft yet powerful sculptures, progressive performances and installations. You could even call her the Polish precursor of Marina Abramović. Although isolated in communist Poland during the second wave of feminism in the West, she still managed to capture this zeitgeist in her work. Her signature colour was pink, which she appropriated as a symbol of women’s freedom. Her penetrating works explore the role of the female artist in a patriarchal world, power struggles, sexuality and political rebellion.

The Kunstmuseum included Pinińska-Bereś’s work in the group exhibition Feminist Art International in 1979, and is now presenting this extraordinary artist’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. A first for the Dutch public!

The exhibition is a cooperation between the National Museum Wroclaw in Poland, the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig in Germany and Kunstmuseum Den Haag. The exhibition is co-organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Poland.