Agnieszka
Kalinowska, Just A Little Bit More,
Sculpture Center,
New York, 2003, installation: paper streamers, confetti, cleaning machine
AGNIESZKA KALINOWSKA, born in
Warsaw in 1971, is one of the most versatile, prolific, and original artists of
the younger generation. She graduated in 1998 from the Painting Department of
the Academy of Fine Arts in
Poznan, Poland. She paints, makes inflatable objects from synthetics, and makes
videos, installations, and sculptures from atypical materials (like rubber
bands, confetti, paper streamers). She has been shown widely in group shows
throughout
Europe,
and was selected for a residency at
Civitella Rainieri
Center,
Italy. Her one-person shows include Just a Little Bit More at the
Center for
Contemporary Art,
Warsaw
(2002). This haunting environment of hanging streamers that suggests the
aftermath of a New Year’s Eve party and only gradually reveals, in clumps of
streamers on the floor, what looks like expiring party-goers, was later
presented in a major exhibition of Polish women artists called
Architectures of
Gender
at the
SculptureCenter
in New York
in 2003. “Curled into fetal positions or slouched
against the wall, Kalinowska’s figures, shaped like Louise Bourgeois’s recent
rag doll sculptures, might be sleeping or they might be dead, but they are
undeniably beautiful in their vulnerable material and spiritual state.” -
Megan Heuer, “Architectures of Gender: Contemporary Women’s Art in
Poland”, The Brooklyn Rail, June-July 2003. In February 2004 she showed
video installations under the title Personal Doping at the
Arizona State University Art Museum
in
Tempe in her first solo exhibition
in the
United States. In May 2004 she had a solo exhibition at
the
Zacheta National
Art Gallery
in Warsaw,
and two of her videos (Personal Doping,
2003, and I’m Here on Business, 2004), were presented in
Brooklyn
EUphoria’s
collage of European video art, curated by Alun Williams of Parker's Box Gallery.
In 2006
she participated in the exhibition Videodyssey at the
Parker’s Box
in
Williamsburg, New York,
and at
Galerie Anne Barrault
in Paris,
with her new video
Well...That is What Everybody Thinks About Us Militaries...
Together with Artur Zmijewski she was featured in a two-person exhibition
Safe at the
Goodnight Tower
in Karlskrona, Sweden in
2005.
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Agnieszka
Kalinowska, beware insulation!, Novart. Festival of
Young Art, Krakow, 2002, installation
Agnieszka Kalinowska writes:
“All my projects essentially consist of observing
human behavior in extreme situations. I try to freeze very short moments of
extreme physical and mental tension. Decisions made under such pressure have
strategic impact not only on our nearest future but also might influence our
whole lives. Under pressure we expand our self-consciousness and therefore
intensify the next choices we make in our lives. That’s why, during those short
moments, we are able to mobilize our whole potential and let go of an energy we
never dreamed we might possess.”
Agnieszka Kalinowska, Regal box,
2002, video, 5 min
Other group
shows include Blind Date, Sector Reforma Gallery, Guadalajara
(curated by Alejandro Perez Tamayo, 2005); Beyond the Red Horizon. New Art
from Poland and Russia, National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
(2005); Center for Contemporary Art “Zamek Ujazdowski”, Warsaw (2004);
Wrong Expectation, Darmstadt Kunsthalle (curated by Peter Joch, 2005);
Far West Near East, Forum Kunst & Architektur, Essen (curated by
Jaroslaw Suchan); Rendez-vous Nova Polska, CCA, Roubaix;
Blind Date. Polish & Mexican Artists, CCA “Zamek Ujazdowski”, Warsaw (curated
by Alejandro Perez Tamayo, Marcin Krasny); Nuit Blanche, Paris (curated
by Hou Hanru); Palimpsest, I Lodz Biennale (curated by Aneta
Szylak); Health &Safety, Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk (curated
by Aneta Szylak); Videoformes 2004, Clermont-Ferrand, (curated by
Gabriel Soucheyre, Eric Deneuville); Under Red and White Flag. New Art
from Poland, Estonian Art Museum, Tallinn; CCA Vilnius; National Center
of Contemporary Art, Moscow; CCA Niznyj Nowgorod; CCA Niznyj Tagil (curated by
Magda Kardasz, Irina Gorlowa, Mikhail Mindin) (all in 2004); The Young Are
Realists, Really, CCA “Zamek Ujazdowski”, Warsaw (curated by Stach
Szablowski, Ewa Gorzadek); Novart. Festival of Young Art,
Krzysztofory Gallery,
Krakow (curated by Jaroslaw Suchan) (both in 2002).
Agnieszka
Kalinowska, I'm Here on Business, 2004, video and sound installation
(1:1)
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