Yet Another High-Profile Museum Director in Poland Has Been Fired From Her Post by the Local Right-Wing Government

As the battle in Poland over who gets to direct the country’s museums heats
up, the government in Katowice
has removed a director from her post.

Alicja Knast, the director of
the Silesian Museum since 2014, was dismissed on January 29 by the
Silesian Province Board, the local governmental body that co-runs
the public museum.

The dismissal stems from an
audit of the institution’s finances in which
irregularities—including “insufficient supervision” of the
disposal of dismantled exhibition remnants and a failure to publish
event-space rental rates—were allegedly
detected. The audit was
carried out by the Marshal’s
Office of the Silesian Region.

But according to reports in the Polish press, the minister of culture, Piotr
Gliński, stated in a letter to the regional Silesian government
that he did not consider the irregularities to be sufficient
grounds for dismissal. Yet Gliński still left the final
decision over what action should be taken to the local
government. Marcin Gwoździewicz, the province board’s culture
director, has been named acting head of the museum.

Knast did not immediately respond to Artnet News’s requests for
comment, but has told the Polish press that she plans to fight her
dismissal in court.

When the government first announced its intention to fire
Knast in late 2019, she held a press conference in which she
alleged that her proposed removal was the direct result of her
refusal to allow the ruling far-right Law and Justice party to hold
a convention at the museum.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who was then campaigning for
re-election, would have taken part in the convention.

Knast said she felt that direct political activity had no place
in the museum, but she eventually conceded and green-lit the event
when she received what she called an “ultimatum”: the museum’s future
depended on her approval of the convention. 

In December 2019, just weeks
before her dismissal by politicians of the very same ruling party,
Knast received a “Gloria Artis” medal from the deputy minister of
culture, Jarosław Sellin, for her contribution to culture in
Poland. 

Knast was appointed to helm the
museum in 2014 when it was about to lose crucial funding from the European
Union while delays plagued the construction
of a new subterranean
addition. She led the institution to its successful reopening in
June 2015, and the museum has since received architectural
awards, with some
crediting the institution with reviving cultural life in the
Katowice.

A seasoned curator and museum
director, Knast was involved in the establishment of two major
museums prior to her appointment to the Silesian
Museum: the Chopin
Museum in Warsaw, which opened in 2010; and the Polin Museum of the History of
Polish Jews, which opened in 2013.

The Polin Museum is currently
also in the throes of political interference with its leadership,
as the country’s culture minister has neglected to formally appoint
its chosen director, Dariusz Stola, since last February.

The post Yet Another High-Profile Museum Director in Poland
Has Been Fired From Her Post by the Local Right-Wing Government
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