Performances, films and sound recordings as elements of an installation built in the centre of the monumental staircase of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. MSN's latest exhibition, titled Republic of Cynics - Parade Square, is a continuation of its collaboration with Vienna's Kontakt Collection. The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive performance and cinema programme. The exhibition, curated by French essayist and performance art historian Pierre Bal-Blanc.

On a tower constructed from scaffolding, the public will see video works from Vienna's Kontakt Collection and the MSN's Filmoteka - a collection of nearly 900 films created by Polish artists in the field of visual arts in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Museum visitors will discover successive works as they ascend or descend the stairs, thus joining in the performative act.

- The installation explores the concept of a society of control, as presented by Michel Foucault in his work To Supervise and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. The book, written shortly after the philosopher's stay in Warsaw in 1958, in the shadow of the Palace of Culture, deals with the internalisation of social norms and rules, and takes panoptic architecture - the model of which is also realised by the building given to the city by Stalin - as a metaphor for disciplining power, explains curator Pier Bal-Blanc. - In Republic of Cynics - Parade Square, the works are presented on a temporary structure, a scaffolding set up in the heart of the Museum, in the context of the Palace of Culture adjacent to the MSN. The artists challenge established collective norms and - consciously or not - resurrect the principles of ancient Cynic philosophy that resonate with contemporary social and climatic challenges.