The Temporary Exhibition “Animals of All Worlds” Opens Tomorrow at the Palace of the Commonwealth
Unicorns, butterflies, dragons, wolverines, sea monsters, sharks and many other creatures from the oldest zoological atlases, maps and the finest animal prints await visitors to “Animals of All Worlds”, an exhibition at the Palace of the Commonwealth.
The exhibition features works by Jan Jonston, Maria Sibylla Merian, Ulisse Aldrovandi, Conrad Gessner and other naturalists of the early modern period. The pages of the books on display will be turned regularly, so the exhibition itself will keep changing, revealing different animals each time. Their extraordinary variety offers a glimpse into the vast scope of the erudite natural history of centuries past.
Leaping, crawling, flying and swimming out of beautifully illustrated books and into the palace interiors, fantastical creatures take shape in sculptures by Dawid Korzeniewski, creating a distinct ecosystem in each of the exhibition spaces. Here we encounter the enormous bodies of sea monsters, giraffes, a rhinoceros and the legendary unicorn, alongside tiny, shimmering insects taken from the prints of Maria Sibylla Merian. They are suspended in spaces transformed by the scenography and refined lighting of Aleksandr Prowaliński. Yet this interpretation is far removed from the traditional natural history museum, with its specimens displayed in cabinets of curiosities among oak furnishings. Instead, it offers a pure vision, foregrounding the imaginative dimension of the erudite study of the animal world – and certainly a surprising one.
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Animals are at once real and unreal. They roam freely through our language, associations and imagination. They inhabit worlds of stereotypes, fables and fairy tales, myths, symbols and allegories, as well as unverified knowledge and speculation.
Early modern science explored all these worlds in its search for animals. At the time, natural history meant much more than what we understand today as the natural sciences. What mattered was not merely an animal's description, appearance, habitat or reproduction. Its symbolism, emblems, proverbs, sounds, significance in dreams, and presence in miracles and prophecies were equally important. Animals were thus surrounded by the products of language and culture. They lived not only in nature, but also within the contexts of human imagination and thought.
Early modern naturalists built zoological knowledge through erudition: searching for references to individual animals in every available source. What mattered was not what they had seen, but what they had read. In the mid-seventeenth century, Jan Jonston, a physician and naturalist from Leszno, fulfilled the greatest ambition of early modern naturalists: to catalogue, name, describe and depict everything that lives. The great artist, entomologist and botanist Maria Sibylla Merian, who grew up in the publishing house where the engravings for Jonston's “Natural History” were produced, demonstrated that this ambition was, nevertheless, impossible to fulfil. New species are still being discovered – both among animals living today and those that went extinct millions of years ago. And we continue to invent animal characters, populating one world after another with them.
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On 5 November, the first day of the exhibition, visitors are also invited to join a curator-led tour with Dr Łukasz Kozak, offering an opportunity to explore the works on display, learn about historical perceptions of the animal world and discover the concept behind the exhibition.
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Curator: Dr Łukasz Kozak
Graphic design: Hanna Dudkowiak
Sculptures: Dawid Korzeniewski
3D models: Dawid Korzeniewski, Szymon Zwoliński
Relief sculpture Garden: Aleksandr Prowaliński, vacuum-metallised by Staniax
Exhibition design and lighting: Aleksandr Prowaliński
Assistant: Alexander Adamau
Animation: Joanna Nagel
Production: Artpath
The exhibition opens on 5 November 2026. Visitors are welcome daily, except Tuesdays and other days when the Palace is closed to visitors, from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm.
ADMISSION FREE
Palace of the Commonwealth
Plac Krasińskich 3/5
Warsaw