Elżbieta Jabłońska (born 1970) is a Polish contemporary visual artist, and professor. She has served as the Chair of Drawing and has taught art at

Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń or NCU (, UMK) is located in Toruń, Poland. It is named after Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born in Toruń in 1473. History The beginnings of higher education in Toruń The first institution of higher ...

since 1996. Jablonska is known for photography, film, installation art, and performance art. Her artwork engages with Polish stereotypes and myths of women, mothers, and the Catholicism. She lives in

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz is a city in northern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Kuyavia. Straddling the confluence of the Vistula River and its bank (geography), left-bank tributary, the Brda (river), Brda, the strategic location of Byd ...

in northern Poland, in a farming cooperative.

Early life, education, and family

Elżbieta Jabłońska was born in 1970 in

Olsztyn Olsztyn ( , ) is a city on the Łyna River in northern Poland. It is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, and is a city with powiat rights, city with county rights. The population of the city was estimated at 169,793 residents Olsz ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. She studied at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where she graduated with a MA degree in 1995. She is the widow of Polish musician (1966–2006), who co-founded the Mózg Club in Bydgoszcz. Together they have a son that is a noted musician and the subject of many of her photographs, Antoni (Antek) Majewski.

Career

Her artwork deals with clichés of femininity found in Catholicism, as artists, and in motherhood in Poland, as well as various types of social exclusion. Jablonska's most famous work is a self-portrait of the artist dressed as Superman with her son Antek on her lap, in the pose of

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

with the baby; from the "Supermatka" (English: ''Supermother'') (2002) photo series. Her photo series "Przypadkowa Przyjemność" (English: ''Accidental Pleasure'') (2006) documented the food remains of the artist's culinary activities. Her public artwork "Nowe Zycie" (English: ''New Life'') (2014) is an oversized neon sign mounted on an Agricultural Production Cooperative found in the village

Trzeciewiec Trzeciewiec is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Dobrcz, within Bydgoszcz County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. It lies east of Dobrcz and north-east of Bydgoszcz. Near Trzeciewiec, there is a 320 met ...

in Poland. From May to June 2002, her work "Gry Domowe" (English: ''Household Games'') was presented as part of the AMS Outdoor Gallery, a project shown on 400 billboards in the largest Polish cities and led by Marek Krajewski, Dorota Grobelna, and Lechosław Olszewski. Jablonska's work was recognized through its inclusion in a major international surveys, including the ''7th'' '' Construction in Process'' (2000) held at the

Regional Museum, Bydgoszcz The Leon Wyczółkowski Regional Museum () is an ensemble of cultural institutions which have been first created in 1923 in the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland. Location The seat of the museum is located at 4, Gdańska Street, in downtown district. Th ...

in Bydgoszcz; and ''

Global Feminisms ''Global Feminisms'' was a feminist art exhibition that originally premiered at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, New York City, United States, in March 2007. The exhibition was co-curated by Maura Reilly and ...

'' (2007) held at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, and curated by

Maura Reilly Maura Reilly is the director of the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, and previously served as the founding curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Reilly is also known for developing the concept of 'curatorial act ...

and

Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art hi ...

. Her work was also part of the group exhibitions "Architectures Of Gender: Contemporary Women’s Art In Poland" at

SculptureCenter SculptureCenter is a not-for-profit, contemporary art museum located in Long Island City, Queens, New York City. It was founded in 1928 as "The Clay Club" by Dorothea Denslow. In 2013, SculptureCentre attracted around 13,000 visitors.Randy Kenned ...

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

; "Hero Mother: Contemporary Art by Post-Communist Women Rethinking Heroism" (2016) at MOMENTUM Berlin in Berlin, curated by Bojana Pejic and Rachel Rits-Volloch; and "Part 2: Maternality" (2020) at Richard Saltoun Gallery in London. Jablonska's artwork is part of public museum collections including the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, and ING Polish Art Foundation.

References

External links

Official website

Profile
at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń {{DEFAULTSORT:Jabłońska, Elżbieta 1970 births Living people 20th-century Polish women artists 21st-century Polish women artists 21st-century Polish artists Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń alumni Academic staff of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń Polish women photographers People from Olsztyn People from Bydgoszcz 20th-century Polish photographers 21st-century Polish photographers