Cornerhouse in Manchester presents a Major Survey of Artur Zmijewski

Written by Rosie Farrel Friday, 10 September 2010 23:34

Manchester, UK - Artur Zmijewski (b.1966) is an artist based in Warsaw, Poland. His solo show If It Happened Only Once It’s As If It Never Happened was at Kunsthalle Basel in 2005, the same year in which he represented Poland at the 50th Venice Biennale. He has shown in Documenta 12 (2007), and Manifesta 4 (2002); Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2005); National Gallery of Art Zacheta, Warsaw (2005); Kunstwerke, Berlin (2004); CAC, Vilnius (2004); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999). Earlier this year he presented Democracies at Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw; and is making new work for The Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York as part of their Projects’ Series in September 2009.

Zmijewski has exhibited throughout the world and is a highly acclaimed artist. He represented Poland at the 2005 Venice Biennale and was the highlight of Documenta12 in 2007. He has never had a major solo exhibition in the UK, nor been commissioned to work in a British context.

Artur Zmijewski trained as a sculptor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw in the now famous studio of Grzegorz Kowalski, from which emerged several other well-known Polish artists, including Pawel Althamer and Kartarzyna Kozyra. The Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw holds Zmijewski’s degree show from 1995, entitled 40 Drawers, which is an archival structure housing photographic works concerned with sculpture as a “language, a productive and moving means of communication”.

Subsequently, Zmijewski wrote for his masters thesis “An art object is not a final product and, though working with art has an aim, it is not exclusively the production of an object, but a specific organisation of the consciousness of viewer and artist through the creative process or through the work of art.” This statement signalled Zmijewski’s move from making discrete sculptures to working with video installation.

Artur Zmijewski received increasing recognition and interest since representing Poland at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Group shows in 2008 included: Double Agent at the ICA, London and The Impossible Prison at Nottingham Contemporary. Them (2007), was also shown at the Collective Gallery, Edinburgh in 2008. Zmijewski was part of Arrivals: Poland along with Pawel Althamer at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford in 2005. The exhibition at Cornerhouse will be his first major solo show in England.

CORNERHOUSE
(Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd)
70 Oxford Street , Manchester, M1 5NH
www.cornerhouse.org