“Forms of Presence. Art of Lemkos/Carpatho-Rusyns” is the first exhibition in history to showcase the artistic achievements of this Carpathian community on such a wide scale. It features both renowned creators — like Andy Warhol, Epifaniusz Drowniak (Nikifor), and Jerzy Nowosielski — and artists who have so far been outside the main canon.

Lemkos, also known as Carpatho-Rusyns, are an ethnic group that has inhabited both the northern and southern slopes of the main ridge of the Carpathians for centuries. The exhibition restores visibility to their artistic heritage, which has remained marginalised in dominant narratives about European art for years. It demonstrates that the art of Lemkos/Carpatho-Rusyns is not a folkloric curiosity, but a living, autonomous, and multidimensional part of culture — capable of engaging in dialogue with both the spiritual heritage of the Carpathians and contemporary aesthetics.

An essential backdrop to this history includes the experiences of forced migrations, assimilation, the Talerhof internment camp, and Operation Vistula. Memories of these traumatic events resurface in the works of artists and in everyday objects originating from Lemko/Carpatho-Rusyn homes. Within the exhibition space, they become living witnesses of history and symbols of a community’s endurance which — despite scattering — has managed to preserve its language, identity, and memory.

The exhibition covers a wide geographical scope — from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Serbia, through the Czech Republic, Romania, Ukraine, and Croatia, to the diaspora in the United States. In this context, Andy Warhol’s famous words “I’m from nowhere” take on a new significance: they express an identity that endures beyond borders and changing locations.

The temporary exhibition “Forms of Presence. Art of Lemkos/Carpatho-Rusyns” breaks a long-standing silence, revealing the exclusions embedded in the institutional history of art. By restoring the voice to those who were denied it for decades, it shows that the heritage of Lemkos/Carpatho-Rusyns does not merely return but persistently endures, despite attempts to erase or assimilate it, as a living element of contemporary culture.

The exhibition at the State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw is available from 17.01.2026 to 30.06.2026.

More information: https://ethnomuseum.pl/en/wystawy-lista/forms-of-presence-art-of-lemkos-carpatho-rusyns/