Friends’ Art Prize
11.04.2025
The Friends’ Art Prize, funded by the Society of Friends of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, annually enriches the Museum’s collection with one or more works showcased in Warsaw galleries during the Constellations festival.
This year, the jury—composed of Board Member of the Friends’ Association Helena Czernecka, curator Julia Marchand, artist and last year’s laureate Nancy Lupo, as well as curators Szymon Maliborski and Natalia Sielewicz from the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw—awarded the prize to Iris Touliatou, a Greek visual artist whose work transcends disciplinary boundaries. Touliatou investigates the interplay between the personal and the institutional, the private and the public, while analyzing the social frameworks that shape our everyday lives.
The awarded work, untitled (still not over you), 2018-2023, presented by the Import/Export Gallery, will become part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. The installation consists of office lamps salvaged from defunct workplaces in Athens. The objects that comprise the piece exist in a state of suspension—neither fully functional nor entirely exhausted. The light they emit transcends mere energy; it serves as a gesture, a trace of presence, and a physical record of emotion, desire, and limitation. Touliatou’s installation explores themes of energy, time, and exhaustion, functioning as a manifesto of resistance in times of uncertainty.
Partners: dela.art collection, AUDI, Bistro Rumory, Cisowianka.