Małgorzata Mirga-Tas - The Whitworth - Review

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ 

I am, once again, in the Whitworth, finding it a midpoint on my commute home – the perfect opportunity to check out their new exhibition after work. Replacing the Shirley Craven exhibition – a personal favourite of mine – we now have the chance to see a handful of works by Malgorzata Mirga-Tas. Though the exhibition makes some peculiar choices, it reinforces the Whitworths position as a key venue for the presentation and preservation of textile art.

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, a Romani-Polish artist, presents a selection of their body of work. The exhibition is curated by Tate St Ives Director Anne Barlow, alongside The Whitworth’s Modern Contemporary curator Valentin Diakonov and Textiles Assistant Curator Victoria Hartley. Together, they have hung an oddly discontinuous exhibition which nevertheless uses the space well, allowing for a partially successful destigmatising, personalising and reclamatory show.

Certain artworks by Mirga-Tas take often negative depictions of Romani people in historical art, and remake them, using the patterns and textures of fabrics to re-introduce a level of agency and personhood to the depicted figures. The Whitworth makes good use of its height to display such works. The shift in scale – from what are usually smaller illustrations to these gargantuan tapestries –further re-addresses the contents of the images. By making the artworks grand in scale, they become celebratory, rather than persecutory.

At least this is the concept behind these works. Whether it functions in practice, it is hard to say. In a sense, by retaining composition and subject matter, there is a world in which Mirga-Tas’s artworks only re-iterate the exoticism and depersonalisation of the original works. I believe she sidesteps this potential pitfall, partially because of her positionality, and partly the aforementioned change in scale, but it does raise the question of whether the agency of the depicted can ever be introduced if it was never there to begin with.

On the topic of agency, her other works are more immediate successes. Further down we find a series entitled ‘Siukar Manusia’ : ‘wonderful people’. Each of these portraits, emerging from a deep blue background, are composed from photographic records, in collaboration with those who were close with the depicted, or – on occasion – the depicted themselves. Yet, again, there is the question of agency of image, since the artworks reproduce photographs, not original impressions of the sitters. To what extent is Mirga-Tas constructing an image of someone or for someone? Irrespective, these are great pieces, and their spacing allows for individual consideration of each and every one of them. The people are all from Nowa Huta – a suburb of Krakow – and together paint a picture of a multifaceted and proud community.

     

The gallery starts with wall text explaining both the artist and a very brief history of the Roma. After establishing Mirga-Tas’s mission of reclaiming Romani people’s images, the text goes on to illuminate historical and ongoing discrimination. This text does something interesting in that, while engaging in destigmatisation, it almost circles back to a form of race essentialism. By this, I mean that it manages to de-vilify and highlight persecution, but only through cementation of the idea of the Other or the Out Group. I’m highly conscious that I am writing from a position of privilege myself, as unmistakably part of the In Group. I only wonder who wrote this text, and how collaborative it was with Romani people’s input. Another indication of a potentially outside voice can be seen in the acknowledgement of many variations of Romani language, yet no presence of Romani language within the gallery text or artwork labels, besides for Mirga-Tas’s original titles.

The most peculiar aspect of this exhibition is its discontinuous use of space. The artworks are split between Gallery 5 and the Project Space. These are separated by a hallway, but no signs are present to indicate where the second space is. It is almost as if these are two separate exhibitions that share an artist. In fact, despite being quite familiar with the Whitworth, I took a wrong turn, falsely remembering the mezzanine floor as the Project Space. Then again, it had been a long day at work.

When I arrived at the Project space, I was greeted by the same text explaining Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, but not the text on Romani History. Instead, this room was framed around the dual ideas of Journey and Community. The space was very pleasingly co-ordinated, inviting – but not demanding – a circular flow. Here, we see more reclamations of previously derogatory works, as well as a pair of works from a series on Romani people from Andalucia.

Similar to the Nowa Huta portraits, these depict specific individuals, this time on top of a deep red background. My stand out piece from the exhibition is ‘Herminia Borja’ (2023), which combines two different images of the same woman, showcasing a really profound range of personality. It acts almost as a collage of personhood, as we get to see this flamenco vocalist both in full swing, and in a more  stoic phase. It is a fun work and a brilliant success of portraiture.

Yet, my biggest contention with this exhibition can be found in this room. Alongside Mirga-Tas’s work, we find two ornamental rugs and a patchwork coverlet. They are not by Mirga-Tas. The coverlet is by Mary Beatman and comes from 1811. It’s inclusion is justified in that “patchwork is a component of Malgorzata Mirga-Tas’s artistic method, and though the fabrics used in this coverlet date from a much earlier period, they can be imagined as part of contemporary Romani attire”

Isn’t this essentialising and exoticising? Who is doing the imagining? Is this an outside imposition? And, if so, is the inclusion of this coverlet disrespectful to the intentions of Mirga-Tas? It is very unclear whether this coverlet is here as a choice by the artists, or by the curators.

Similarly, the two rugs come from Qashqa’i culture – and are explained as a sort of parallel to Romani culture. This parallel, however, is weak, as Romani nomadism is often because of forced expulsion, compared to the active nomadism of Qashqa’i people. Is this parallel a form of orientalism? Oriental rugs and their visual similarity to Mirga-Tas’s fabrics?

The gallery text states that “For Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, the inclusion of these objects is an homage to the Eastern European custom of installing carpets on walls of social housing for insulation purposes”. Perhaps their inclusion in the exhibition is to repurpose the galley space, transforming it into a social setting. If this is the intention, it is admirable. But it is unclear… Part of me suspects that the rugs and coverlet are purely to fill wall space. If anyone has any other ideas, I would love to hear them.

Overall, Mirga-Tas’s works are impressive and thematically consistent and coherent. Their presentation is, for the most part, fun – especially the use of height in Gallery 5. However, the discontinuous space and the inclusion of rugs not made by the artist make the entire exhibition a touch peculiar. While this is worth a visit – as is everything at the Whitworth – I question whether the curatorial choices properly align with the stated purpose of reintroducing agency to Romani people in art.

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas is on display at The Whitworth between 11 April and 7 September 2025. Admission is free

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆