Miroslaw Balka (born 16 December 1958) is a Polish

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and video artist.

Life and career

Miroslaw Balka is a sculptor also active in the field of experimental video and drawing, born in

Warsaw, Poland Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at 1.86 million residents within a grea ...

. In 1985 he graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts,'The Shadow of Life's Mechanisms: A Conversation with Miroslaw Balka'
''Sculpture magazine'', November 2004. where since 2011 he has run the Studio of Spatial Activities in the Faculty of Media Art. Professor nominated by President of Poland in 2012. Between 1986 and 1989 together with Miroslaw Filonik and Marek Kijewski he established the artistic group Consciousness Neue Bieremiennost. He is a member of

Akademie der Künste The Academy of Arts () is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The academy's predecessor organization was founded in 1696 by Elector F ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. He was the 1991 winner of the

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect, academic, and interior designer. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. He is regarded as one of the pionee ...

Stipendium from the Kunstmuseum

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

. In 2009, Balka installed ''How It Is'', the 10th

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

Series commission for the Turbine Hall at

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, which opened on 13 October of that year. He lives and works in Otwock, Poland, and Oliva, Spain.

Work

The work of Mirosław Bałka is interdisciplinary but centres around

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and installation. The sculptor's work is influenced by family background: his grandfather was a gravestone cutter while his father engraved names on tombstones. The themes of many works revolve around historical traumatic events and memories, particularly the memory of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Initially Bałka created figurative works; later the artist shifted towards more abstract, monumental forms. These remained related to the subject of the human existence - the body in life, death and decay, personal and collective memory. The artist frequently uses steel, cement, salt, foam rubber and felt in his sculptures. Miroslaw Balka has participated in major exhibitions worldwide including: Venice Biennale (1990, 2003, 2005, 2013; representing Poland in 1993), documenta IX, Kassel (1992), Sydney Biennale (1992, 2006), The Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1995), Sao Paulo Biennale (1998), Liverpool Biennial (1999), Santa Fe Biennale (2006). In 2009 he presented the special project ''How It Is'' for the Unilever Series, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London. He is the author of the Memorial to the Victims of the Estonia Ferry Disaster in Stockholm (1997), and numerous spatial works including ''AUSCHWITZWIELICZKA'', Cracow (2010), and ''HEAL'', University of California, San Francisco (2009). A series of conversations between Miroslaw Balka and professor Zygmunt Bauman were published in 2013. He has participated in panel discussions with many distinguished speakers including Juan Vicente Aliaga, Julian Heynen, Anda Rottenberg, Kasia Redzisz, Anja Rubik, Joseph Rykwert and Vicente Todoli. He designed the scenery for

Paweł Mykietyn Paweł Jan Mykietyn (Polish pronunciation: ; born 20 May 1971) is a Polish award-winning composer and clarinetist. By the year 2012, Mykietyn had written two symphonies, cello, piano and violin concertos, St. Marc Passions for soprano, narrator ...

's composition: ''The Magic Mountain'' (opera, 2015) and ''Herr Thaddäus'' (2017).

Collections

* Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC * Moderna Galerija, Ljubliana * Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York *Museu Serralves, Porto * Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź * SFMOMA, San Francisco *

, London *

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

The Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...

, Jerusalem *The National Museum of Art, Osaka * Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven *Center of Contemporary Art, Warsaw *

Tel Aviv Museum of Art The Tel Aviv Museum of Art ( ''Muzeon Tel Aviv Leomanut'') is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of modern and contemporary art both from Israel and around the world. History The Tel Aviv ...

* National Museum, Wrocław * Eyes of Purification at the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb The Museum of Contemporary Art (, often abbreviated to MSU) is a contemporary art art museum, museum located on Dubrovnik Avenue in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest and most modern museum in the country. Vesna Meštrić is current director of MS ...

Selected solo exhibitions

*2019 – Random Access Memory, White Cube, London *2017 – DIE SPUREN, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen *2017 – CROSSOVER/S, Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan *2015 – NERW. KONSTRUKCJA, Muzeum Sztuki MS1, Łódź *2014 – DIE TRAUMDEUTUNG 75,32m AMSL, Freud Museum, London *2014 – Fragment, Galeria Labirynt, Lublin *2013 – Fragment, Centre for Contemporary Art / Vinzavod, Moscow *2011 – Fragment, Akademie der Künste, Berlin and Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej, Warsaw *2010 – ctrl, Monasterio San Domingo de Silos / Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid *2010 – Wir Sehen Dich, Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe *2009 – Topography, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford *2009 – How It Is, Turbine Hall, Unilever Series, Tate Modern, London *2007 – Cruzamento, Museo de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro *2006 – Lichtzwang, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen K21, Düsseldorf *2004 – Bon voyage, Musée d’Art Moderne at Contemporain, Strasbourg *2001 – Around 21°15′00″E 52°06′17″N +GO-GO (1985–2001), SMAK, Gent 5and Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw *2000 – Between meals, The National Museum of Art, Osaka *1997 – Selection, Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo *1995 – Dawn, Tate Britain, London *1994 – 37.1, The Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles *1994 – Laadplatform + 7 werken (Die Rampe), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven *1994 – Rampa, Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź *1992 – 36,6, The Renaissance Society, Chicago

References

External links

Official web site
*Miroslaw Balka's solo exhibition at White Cube Mason's Yard London, review by art critic Kostas Prapoglo
for Aesthetica Magazine
May 2014 {{DEFAULTSORT:Balka, Miroslaw 1958 births Polish contemporary artists Artists from Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw alumni 20th-century Polish sculptors Polish male sculptors 20th-century Polish male artists 21st-century Polish male artists Living people