A collateral exhibition at the 2024 Venice Biennale, titled "Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990) Emballage Cricotage and Madame Jarema," brings together two towering figures of the Polish avant-garde: Tadeusz Kantor and Maria Jarema. Organized by the Starak Family Foundation at the Procuratie Vecchie, the show features over 60 works spanning paintings, monotypes, sculptures, theatre props, and costumes, culminating in a room dedicated to Kantor's seminal theatre piece "The Dead Class" (1975). Jarema's work was shown at the 1958 Venice Biennale, and Kantor exhibited in the Polish pavilion in 1960; the exhibition highlights their intertwined, interdisciplinary practice and their foundational role in post-war Polish avant-garde art.
This exhibition matters because it reasserts the significance of two artists who helped rebuild avant-garde language after World War II, while also elevating Jarema's profile, which has historically been overshadowed by Kantor's international acclaim. Curator Ania Muszyńska emphasizes Jarema's fundamental influence on Kantor, noting that she introduced him to pre-war avant-garde ideas. The show arrives amid growing attention to Jarema, with a concurrent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw placing her in dialogue with international peers, underscoring a broader re-evaluation of women artists in the avant-garde canon.