Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

Monika Sosnowska
July 24–October 25, 2020

Joanna Piotrowska. Frowst
September 18–December 6, 2020

Sculpture in Search of a Place
November 27, 2020–February 21, 2021

Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
Plac Małachowskiego 3
00-916 Warsaw
Poland

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Zachęta — National Gallery of Art in Warsaw presents three exhibitions: Monika Sosnowska, Joanna Piotrowska. Frowst and Sculpture in Search of a Place.

Monika Sosnowska
Monika Sosnowska has become famous for her large scale sculptures inspired by early and post-war architectural modernism. Exhibition prepared specially for the Zachęta is the first such large monographic presentation of the artist’s oeuvre in Poland.

In her works Monika Sosnowska sometimes refers to iconic projects, such as Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe, in Tower, but first of all explores the architecture of socmodernism—the construction projects created in Poland in the 1960s and 1970s. The topography of modernism that she examines is expanding: her recent works are an expression of her fascination with Russian engineering architecture by Vladimir Shukhov and her interest in post-war modernism in Asia.

According to architect Tom Emerson, Monika Sosnowska’s art presents intriguing architectural references from psychologising interiors, through utopian and political ideas of socmodernism, to purely structural and basic construction elements. It also reveals a potential "architectural failure" by exposing things that architects unconsciously fear as they design structures that are supposed to outlive us all.

Monika Sosnowska—one of the leading contemporary sculptors; winner of the prestigious Baloise Art Prize and the Polityka Passport award. She represented Poland at the 52nd Venice Biennale. She has shown extensively over the last two decades, with solo and group exhibitions at major museums and galleries in the world.

Curator: Maria Brewińska / cooperation: Michał Kubiak


Joanna Piotrowska. Frowst
Joanna Piotrowska’s first comprehensive monographic exhibition in Poland presents a selection of her works from the past few years. The title of the exhibition—Frowst—was taken from one of Piotrowska’s first photographic series, which brought her international recognition.

Frowst brings to mind the dense air of an unaired-out apartment, saturated with complicated family relationships. The series was inspired by the pseudo-scientific, manipulative method of “organising tangled and broken family ties” developed by German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger. Based on the observation of body positions and gestures, the tense, staged photographs showing family systems of dependencies were created. The exhibition feature also works influenced by the American feminist and psychologist Carol Gilligan, who dealt with the issues of women’s voice and resistance. Subject of power and violence appears also in the latest series of photographs documenting cages and animal enclosures arranged in a pattern of human dwellings.

Joanna Piotrowska—visual artist, photographer, born in 1985 in Warsaw. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and the Royal College of Art in London. Her works have been presented, among others, at the MoMA in New York, at the 10th Berlin Biennale, at Tate Britain in London and at a solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel in Switzerland.

Curator: Magdalena Komornicka

Sculpture in Search of a Place
The exhibition presents works of nearly a hundred polish visual artists including Tadeusz Kantor, Alina Szapocznikow, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Katarzyna Kozyra, Mirosław Bałka, Paweł Althamer, Władysław Hasior and Xawery Dunikowski.

Sculpture in search of a place tackles the subject of the identity of Polish sculpture over the last 60 years—not so much as a chronology of artistic activity, but as a presentation of the phenomena and creative attitudes that have been essential for its development. It is also the result of the deep fascination and many years of research of its curator, Anna Maria Leśniewska, who has managed to collect the works of nearly a hundred visual artists, including a dozen or so film makers, and present them in the form of an original visual essay. The exhibition covers a very vast area—both in terms of its historical and thematic approach, as well as the way it presents the very phenomenon of sculpture: from a compact solid to space, from classic to modern forms of expression. It is also an opportunity for the visitors to look at the phenomenon of sculpture going beyond lexical definitions, revealing its links with other areas of art: music, theatre, photography, performance and an autonomous film work.

Curator: Anna Maria Leśniewska / cooperation (Zachęta): Julia Leopold / exhibition design: Robert Rumas / exhibition Partner: Film School in Łódź

Contact information: Olga Gawerska, rzecznik [​at​] zacheta.art.pl, T +48 22 556 96 55, T +48 603 510 112