The exhibition depicted the world of living beings as seen through the eyes of Piotr Zawada and Maciej Kozlowski. Both studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań at the Faculty of Art Education. Zawada received his diploma in 2002 in the painting studio of Prof. Piotr C. Kowalski, Kozlowski graduated in 2001, in the painting studio of Prof. A. Lesnik and under the direction of Prof. Kubicki. The idea of the exhibition was described by its curator Piotr Bernatowicz as follows:

Darwin’s theory has left us convinced that we are a unique species, the most perfect link of evolution. The younger brother of the chimpanzee, which, having got rid of its thick fur, clothed itself in the tin body of cars, and replaced the jungle with a forest of concrete blocks. But have we really moved away from our ancestors?

The works in Piotr Zawada’s “Theory of Evolution of Species” series are paintings placed in transparent showcases on looms covered with animal skins, which the artist buys from slaughterhouses and abattoirs, they give the impression of exhibits from the Museum of Natural History. Maciej Kozlowski’s canvases alluded to English pop art. By compiling a register of our behavior, the artist posed the question of the reason for our being and our place in the network of social relations.

The “Changing the Guard” project received a lot of favorable reviews from critics as well as the public. It was an accurate and, it seems, a much-needed attempt to answer the question of what unites a generation of artists who carry in their memories the memories of the People’s Republic of Poland, while every day they clash with the merciless realities of marketing and commercialism. This is a generation suspended between fascination and desertion from consumer society.

The ambivalence of attitudes toward reality translates into a lack of radicalism in the artistic sphere. The young no longer want to uphold avant-garde values. They are skeptical of the thesis of the death of traditional artistic genres, just as they are skeptical of the slogans of the triumphant return of painting. They reach for a variety of techniques and draw on the tradition of art with postmodern freedom. In their works they pose questions rather than recite ready-made solutions. The ironic distance that appears in their work is a weapon against the nonsense of the world of mass media and politics, and at the same time a sign of artistic maturity.