| Dates: | born 1958
| | Biography: | 1958 Born in Warsaw.
Lives and works in Warsaw
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
1997 Selection, Museum for
Samtidskunst, Oslo
Revision 1986-1997, IVAM Centre del
Carme, Valencia
1995 Dawn, Tate Gallery, London
1994 37,1 (cont.), Lannan Foundation,
Los Angeles
Winterhilfsverein, Moderna Galerija,
Museum
of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Rampa, Museum Sztuki, Lodz
1993 37,1 (cont.), Polish Pavilion, La
Biennale
di Venezia, XLV Esposizione
Internazionale d'Arte, Venice
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1998 Displacements: Miroslaw Balka,
Doris Salcedo, Rachel Whiteread, Art
Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros.
Roteiros. Roteiros. Roteiros: XXIV Bienal
de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo Art and the
Environment, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Osaka
1996 Distemper: Dissonant Themes in
the Art of the 1990's, Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC
1995 Rites of Passage, Tate Gallery,
London
Carnegie International, The Carnegie
Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
1992 Documenta IX, Kassel
The Boundary Rider: 9th Biennale of
Sydney, Sydney
1990 XLIV Esposizione Internazionale
d'Arte, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
Possible Worlds, ICA and Serpentine
Gallery, London
FURTHER READING
36,6 (exh. cat.), The Renaissance
Society, Chicago and List Visual Arts
Center, Cambridge, MA 1992
37,1 (exh. cat.), Polish Pavilion, XLIV
Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte, La
Biennale di Venezia, Venice 1993
Dawn (exh. cat.), Tate Gallery, London
1995 Die Rampe (exh. cat.), Van
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and Museum
Sztuki, Lodz
1994 "Selection," Threshold 18, Museet
for Samtidskunst, Jan. 1997
| | | Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | | Date of source: | 1999 |
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| | Description: | Miroslaw Balka's installations transpose
the memory of one space into another.
Because their origins are personal and
autobiographical - the proportions of the
artist's body, the spaces of his
childhood - the installations are seldom
site-specific.
As a child Balka spent
many hours in his grandmother's house
outside Warsaw. He recalls playing
under the furniture and has a vivid
memory of the textures and topography
of the various rooms. The house is now
his studio, and in many of his sculptures
the artist re-works the dimensions and
spaces between objects that are so
deeply ingrained in his psyche.
His use of materials extends these
metaphors of the body and memory. Salt
appears as a residue in channels and on
slabs.
Warmth -generated by heating elements
contained in fabric and other materials -
suggests the presence of living bodies.
Reminiscent of hanging figures, these
modules create a dialogue between
human presence, architectural space,
and the time and space of memory.
In TRACE Balka has installed a soap
platform 770 cm square and a few
inches high. Over the window of the
exhibition space in the Tate Gallery he
has placed a metal grid with lumps of
soap wedged into it. Burnt drawings
hang on the walls surrounding the
platform. This work is both visual and
olfactory.
From a distance the soap
platform looks like a slab of marble, but
on closer inspec¬tion its softness and
soapy aroma reveal its true origins. The
bodily associations of soap link this
piece to Balka's preoccupation with the
body and memory. The burnt drawings
also have figurative and autobiographical
connotations. Their charred edges draw
our attention to the paper itself, while
hinting at some past tragedy.
The fragments of soap in the window
could be the remains of some dramatic
or explosive event. In fact the drawings
were accidentally burnt in a fire that
nearly gutted the artist's studio. In this
way they make a direct link back to the
actual history of his house of memories.
| | Description Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 1999 | | Type: | person |
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