Maria Pinińska-Bereś at the Kunstmuseum, Den Haag (8.03 – 17.08.2025)
From 8 March 2025, the Kunstmuseum in The Hague is showing works by the Polish artist Maria Pinińska-Bereś (1931 – 1999). There could hardly be a better date for the opening of this exhibition than International Women’s Day, which is being celebrated on this very day. Pinińska-Bereś went down in the history of twentieth-century art as a pioneer of feminism, an artist deeply involved in issues such as the place of women in society, their role of artists in the art world, female eroticism and relations with nature. She was certainly ahead of her time, and due to activities in the field of performance art, she is often compared to Marina Abramović.
Artistic path
Born in Poznań, she led her artistic life in Kraków, where she graduated in 1956 in sculpture, under the supervision of one of the most outstanding Polish modernist sculptors, Xawery Dunikowski. In the early 1960s, the artist abandoned sculptural materials traditionally considered noble – stone, concrete, metal, wood or clay. She replaced them with quilted fabrics, cushions, blankets, sponge, cotton wool and papier-mâché. With these unconventional, soft materials, she created objects that referred in form to everyday life, and critics often described them as ‘domesticated’. They commented on the status of women in the patriarchy, the role of women artists in the art world and provided a strong female artistic message of the time. In addition, the objects she created were lightweight, so they could be moved freely and independently, reinforcing a sense of agency and artistic independence. My sculptures were hand-stitched, stuffed, modelled and covered with colour. I am fulfilling the demand that I should be able to carry my sculptures myself. With my earlier works cast in concrete, I always had to rely on male help for transport. At the same time, she chose pink as her signature colour. Not coincidentally, pink is, after all, strongly associated with femininity in our visual culture.
On the art market
From time to time, works by Pinińska – Bereś pop up at art auctions, mainly in Poland, where they quickly find buyers, even though the auctioned prices consistently rise. In 2020, one of her installations, entitled Leda’s Dressing Room, was sold for a record-breaking sum of more than 45,000 euros.
Exhibition in The Hague
The exhibition in The Hague presents nearly 50 objects, including sculptures, installations, performance art props, film and photographic material from performances as well as series of works such as Rotundas(1960-63), Corsets (1965-67), lightweight works made of wooden or paper pulp, or the famous Small-Psycho-Furniture (1968-75) with biomorphic shapes alluding to male, female and androgynous sexuality.
This is Maria Pinińska-Bereś’s first monographic exhibition in the Netherlands but some of her works have already been shown here in 1979 as part of the group exhibition Feminist Art International, also at the Kunstmuseum. This year’s exhibition can be seen until 17 August 2025.
Monika Gimblett
