The Family of Man in Poland: An Exhibition as a Democratic Space?
Citation
Leśniak, Kamila. “The Family of Man in Poland: An Exhibition as a Democratic Space?” Ikonotheka 26 (2017): 213–238. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0010.1679.
Tier justification
Tier 2: peer-reviewed article in Ikonotheka, the art history journal of the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw (ISSN 0860-5769), published by the University of Warsaw. The journal is a named academic-press venue equivalent in standing to other university-press art history journals. Author Kamila Leśniak is affiliated with the University of Warsaw Institute of Art History (affiliation confirmed in CrossRef author record).
Relevance
Examines The Family of Man’s reception in Poland, raising the question of whether the exhibition functioned as a “democratic space” in the context of Cold War Eastern Europe. The article appears to be the primary scholarly treatment of the Polish stop (or Polish reception) of the exhibition. Poland was a significant tour venue both in terms of the exhibition’s Cold War ideological reach and the visual-culture tradition of Warsaw’s post-war artistic life; this article joins src-james-2012-post-fascist (Germany) and src-sandeen-2015-guatemala (Guatemala) in the growing body of national-reception scholarship on the exhibition’s world tour.
Key excerpts / pages
- Title and DOI confirmed from CrossRef (fetched 2026-05-20): “The Family of Man in Poland: An Exhibition as a Democratic Space?” DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0010.1679.
- Author affiliation confirmed from CrossRef author record (fetched 2026-05-20): Kamila Leśniak, University of Warsaw Institute of Art History.
- Journal confirmed from CrossRef (fetched 2026-05-20): Ikonotheka, volume 26, pages 213–238, published 2017-06-26, ISSN 0860-5769, publisher: University of Warsaw.
- Semantic Scholar record (fetched 2026-05-20, https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/DOI:10.5604/01.3001.0010.1679): confirms title and year; abstract not available (elided by publisher).
Article body not consulted this round:
- The DOI redirects to
https://ikonotheka.pl/gicid/01.3001.0010.1679, which returned an ERR_TLS_CERT_ALTNAME_INVALID error when fetched directly (2026-05-20). CEEOL also blocked (CAPTCHA wall, 2026-05-20). No body-text quotations are recorded.
Notes
- Verified: false — DOI and CrossRef metadata confirmed; journal body not accessed due to TLS certificate error on journal server (2026-05-20). A future pass should retry via a library proxy or Wayback Machine snapshot.
- This article complements the existing national-reception series:
src-james-2012-post-fascist(Germany),src-sandeen-2015-guatemala(Guatemala),src-cordova-2013-mexico(Mexico),src-nakamori-graham-fom-tokyo(Japan). The Polish case is particularly significant given the exhibition’s ideological stakes in Cold War Eastern Europe. - The subtitle “An Exhibition as a Democratic Space?” echoes the exhibition’s own self-framing and resonates with Turner 2012’s “politics of attention” analysis (
src-turner-2012-politics-attention) and James 2012’s post-fascist humanism framing (src-james-2012-post-fascist). Whether Leśniak’s answer is affirmative or critical cannot be stated without reading the body text. - Perspective: art history / exhibition history / Cold War reception. Geographic focus: Poland.