Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art

Agnieszka Kalinowska is one of the most interesting Polish artists that debuted after the year 2000. She graduated from The Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. She has staged both solo and group exhibitions ever since. The artist lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. The work of Agnieszka Kalinowska can be defined as an indicator of the condition of modern society. The artist analyses the mechanisms ruling the world and the individuals that live in it. She focuses on the individual suspended altogether with his emotions in today’s geopolitical context. While analysing the present-day ”here and now” the artist makes a generalization revealing the primeval patterns organizing each individual’s reality. One of the social emotions that attract her is the permanent state of insecurity and utopian attempts to tame that fear. Her works analyse the problems related to assignment and securing a territory, politics that preserves atavistic rituals of power giving a false sense of protection to an individual.

Heavy White, 2; 2008, paper string, 30 x 90 x 150 cm, courtesy Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna photo: Przemo Wojciechowski

An important element of work of Agnieszka Kalinowska is the process of conceiving a piece of art. Her video art is often a result of a social experiment. While sculpting she makes use of primitive and raw materials as grey paper, straw, rope and more recently – branches barked by wild animals. Her weaving technique reaveals affinity to folk art while the painting one seems naive but is very rigorous in its limitations when it comes to pasting straw in a determined place. Her works are emotionally challenging for the viewer. Kalinowska analyses the marginalised problems and reveals subconscious fears. The materials used complement each other, none of them is dominant, together form a multi-layered narrative ready to be read by the imagination of the viewer. ”Watering hole” exhibition in Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art features mostly new works of the artist and focuses on the questions of freedom and subjugation.

Agnieszka Kalinowska, Watering Hole, 2016, sculpture installation

: branches bark striped by wild animals, covered with fake gold leafs, linien string, stones and video, sound. Main sculpture: 350 cm x 600 cm x 30 cm. foto: Przemo Wojciechowski

Solo exhibitions:
• ”Ściana wschodnia” (East Wall), BWA Warsaw, 2013
• ”Draughty House”, MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung, Ludwig, Vienna Museum, 2009
• ”Nocna projekcja” (Nocturnal screening), Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, 2008
• ”Before It Will Get Hot”, Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna, 2006

Group exhibitions:
• ”The State of Life: Contemporary Polish Art within the Global Circumstance”, National Art Museum of China, Beijin, 2015
• Biennale of Sydney, 2014
• ”Life? Biomorphic Forms in Sculpture”, Kunsthaus Graz, 2008
• ”Beyond the Red

Horizon: New Art from Poland and Russia”, National Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, 2004
• ”Architectures of Gender: Contemporary Women’s Art in Poland”, Sculpture Center, New York, 2003

BIP

Municipal Institution of Culture