Rafał Skoczek: Kino Drift

Swiss Institute (SI) is pleased to present Kino Drift, an off-site project by artist Rafał Skoczek. Conceived as a temporary exhibition space and venue for self-organized cultural activity, Kino Drift brings together film screenings, concerts, readings, publications, and artworks within an environment that continuously shifts over the course of its duration.

Skoczek’s practice moves between painting, exhibition-making, publishing, music, and collaborative programming, often taking shape through social and infrastructural forms. For Kino Drift, he transforms an artist studio into a site for gathering and exchange, drawing on a network of ongoing projects, friendships, and affinities. Part cinema, part library, part venue, the exhibition develops progressively throughout its duration, functioning less as a static presentation than as an evolving set of conditions.

The show will host a rotating program of screenings, performances, reading groups, and listening sessions. Artist film presentations will be organized by Skoczek and invited collaborators, including Filmclub Populaire, a Zurich-based collective. The reading room will feature independent publishers alongside secondhand books and printed matter gathered by the artist over time.

The space will also host meetings of NY Axiomatic Circle, a reading group organized by Sem Lala focused on the work of Alain Badiou, as well as a series of concerts presented under the name Czarnagora, an ongoing music program and label initiated by Skoczek and Lala. Chess Noise, a project first developed by Skoczek and Ilaria Vinci at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, stages chess matches in parallel with noise performances. Its New York iteration will be organized in collaboration with musician and chess teacher Jeff Witscher.

In response to the architecture and conditions of the space, Skoczek will produce a series of scenographic interventions, including paintings, furniture, and display structures, which establish both the atmosphere and infrastructure. These elements will remain mutable throughout the exhibition, accommodating programmed and spontaneous activity alike. Screens become windows, shelves become stages, seating becomes storage. The exhibition proceeds through use.

Kino Drift continues Skoczek’s interest in cultural production as a collective and contingent process, shaped as much by maintenance, hospitality, and repetition as by discrete objects or events. Located in an artist studio between occupancies, the project inhabits a temporary state of suspension, opening a responsive space for congregation.

Rafał Skoczek is an artist based in Zurich whose practice moves between installation, sculpture, painting, printmaking, sound, film, and self-organized cultural spaces. His work explores the relationship between urban centers and their peripheries, often focusing on displacement, collective life, infrastructure, and the social conditions embedded within everyday spaces. Skoczek’s work has been presented at Kunsthalle Zurich, Centre d’Art Neuchâtel, Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg, and XYZ Collective Tokyo. He is the co-founder of the former exhibition space UP STATE, the artist run project-space Chickentown, and the music label and concert series Czarnagora.

Presented at WSA, located at 161 Water Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10038.

Visitor hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 12–6pm

Public programs will take place throughout the exhibition on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Please visit the Swiss Institute website for the full program and calendar.

Kino Drift is generously supported by Helena Czernecka, Paul Judelson, and Carolina Nitsch. Institutional Partner support is provided by Pro Helvetia. Thank you to WSA for hosting the exhibition. 

The exhibition is curated by Alison Coplan, Chief Curator.