Autumn’24

Hot autumn!

Regardless of more or less optimistic forecasts, we can expect a hot autumn – after all, it is the start of the theatre season, a time of festivals and events, which both institutions and the audience are entering with fresh energy. And Kraków has a lot to boast about!

16 stories about Kraków

One of these things is cheerfulness – the beginning of September sees the return of the exceptionally cheerful (and long!) Dachshund Parade. When it comes to music, a few strong items have been added to the calendar alongside usual highlights: Unsound and Sacrum Profanum festivals, which are well-known but still able to surprise with their programmes. Organised by the Kraków Philharmonic at the beginning of the artistic season, the increasingly important Szymanowski / Poland / World Festival goes beyond the repertoire of its eminent patron and offers fresh perspectives on the works presented. The organiser of the Opera Rara Kraków Festival – Capella Cracoviensis – consistently extends its earlier winter formula, offering us an original programme and an imaginative culmination of this part of the cycle during the celebration of World Opera Day in October.

If we add Kraków Jazz Week with the Zbigniew Seifert competition and the eagerly awaited programme of the Jazz Juniors competition, as well as Audio Art experimenting with sound and image, the panorama of autumn sounds spans the full musical scale. And we should not forget the concerts at Tauron Arena Kraków, where Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds or Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo will perform.

The new is also coming in theatre!

In addition to fresh and stirring premieres, we should note a new festival organised by the KTO Theatre under the intriguing title Body and Time, which focuses not only on performances but also educational activities and meetings with artists. The Opening Festival – International Theatre is an initiative of the Ludowy Theatre using the potential of the Theatre Institute for Young People, which, as you can easily guess, focuses on the most interesting productions for young people that do not shy away from experimentation and the use of new technologies.

The apogee of the literary events of the year is the Conrad Festival – for the first time under new management – which remembers to celebrate the Miłosz Year and is co-ordinated in time with the hugely popular Book Fair in Kraków. The motto of this year’s Conrad Festival will be ‘Authenticity’. However, the literary autumn already begins in mid-September with the events of the Futurological Congress, which not only refers to the works and visions of Stanisław Lem but also provides an opportunity for a meeting of the broadly understood book industry.

The award-winning Etiuda&Anima Film Festival…

…the original Patchlab Digital Art Festival experimenting at the intersection of art and technology in urban and virtual spaces, or the A Thing for Art – Design in Kraków project presenting Kraków’s most interesting design initiatives – complete the picture of the festival autumn. And there is also Open Eyes Art Festival 2024 – once created as an artistic setting for the Open Eyes Economy Summit congress, it has gradually taken on an autonomous character and has become a multi-faceted presentation of art in various parts of Kraków, this time under the theme ‘The Soul of Europe’.

And so we have arrived at the exhibition proposals – here, too, the variety of events will fuel our curiosity. Be sure to visit the Palace of Art, which houses the jubilee exhibition of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Kraków to see works by Wyspiański, Malczewski, Mehoffer or Wyczółkowski, and the Wawel Castle to visit this year’s leading exhibition Long Live the King! Coronations of Saxon Wettins at Wawel, designed and prepared with originality and flair. The Kraków Museum will tell the story of the most eminent women from Kraków (Strong Women), the National Museum offers a retrospective look at one of the artistic groups that exerted an enormous influence on the image of Polish contemporary art (One Hundred Years with the Capists!), while the International Cultural Centre, which addresses issues of difficult heritage, presents Social Modernism. Architecture in Central Europe During the Cold War.

If you are tired, visit the Bunker of Art, where Olga Pawłowska will encourage us to slow down the hectic rhythm of our life in a solo exhibition with the telling title 30 Beats per Minute. And do not forget about photo exhibitions: Disappear on the Vistula River recalls the figure and works of Konrad Pustoła (1976-2015), a renowned Polish photographer who draws our attention to the impact of social and economic issues on the Polish landscape, and the World Press Photo exhibition at the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre shows us the difficult problems of today through the lens of the best photojournalists from around the world.

Let us get going!

To find your way around through all the regular and celebratory events in Kraków visit on karnet.krakowculture.pl.

Kraków`Culture Team