biography
Miroslaw Balka was born in 1958 in Warsaw, Poland. He lives and works in Otwock, Poland and Oliva, Spain.
Comprising installation, sculpture, video, and drawing, Balka’s work has a bare and elegiac quality that is also underlined by the careful, minimalist placement of objects, as well as the gaps and pauses between them. Often using his own body as a “template” or first point of reference, Balka’s work might incorporate personal or self-referential substances such as ash, felt, salt, hairs and soap. Balka’s work deals with both personal and collective memories, especially as they relate to his Catholic upbringing and the collective experience of Poland’s fractured history. Through this investigation of domestic memories and public catastrophes, Balka explores how subjective traumas are translated into collective histories and vice versa. His materials are simple, everyday objects and things, often powerfully resonant of rituals and hidden memories.
Miroslaw Balka was born in 1958 in Warsaw, Poland. He lives and works in Otwock, Poland and Oliva, Spain.
Comprising installation, sculpture, video, and drawing, Balka’s work has a bare and elegiac quality that is also underlined by the careful, minimalist placement of objects, as well as the gaps and pauses between them. Often using his own body as a “template” or first point of reference, Balka’s work might incorporate personal or self-referential substances such as ash, felt, salt, hairs and soap. Balka’s work deals with both personal and collective memories, especially as they relate to his Catholic upbringing and the collective experience of Poland’s fractured history. Through this investigation of domestic memories and public catastrophes, Balka explores how subjective traumas are translated into collective histories and vice versa. His materials are simple, everyday objects and things, often powerfully resonant of rituals and hidden memories.
Selected solo shows include: nehtyM, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan (2022); Red Nerve, Castello di Ama, Siena (2019); 30/5780, DIE SPUREN, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen (2017); CROSSOVER/S, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2017); Nerve.Construction, Muzeum Sztuki MS1, Lodz (2015); Fragment, Akademie Der Kunste, Berlin and CCA Warsaw (2011); Between Honey & Ashes, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2011); Ctrl, Monasterio San Domingo de Silos, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2010); Topography, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2009); How It Is, Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern, London (2009); AAA + rauchsignale, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka (2007); Tristes Tropiques, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2007); Lichtzwang, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2006); Eclipse, Kröller- Müller Museum, Otterlo (2001).
Miroslaw Balka has participated in major exhibitions worldwide including: A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920 – 2020, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2022); Venice Biennale (1990, 2003, 2005, 2013; representing Poland in 1993); documenta IX, Kassel (1992); Sydney Biennale (1992, 2006), The Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1995), São 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 was published in 2012. In 2015 the artist created the stage design for Paweł Mykietyn’s Magic Mountain opera. 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 Todolí.
gallery exhibitions
images
public exhibitions
press
Desiderio, Gravità e Unione: Miroslaw Balka alla Galleria Raffaella Cortese
ATP Diary
October 30, 2022
Una conversazione con Miroslaw Balka per orientarsi nel "corpo della mostra" di Milano
Il Giornale dell'Arte
September 21, 2022
Miroslaw Balka
Pirelli HangarBicocca and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan, Italy
Frieze
June 29, 2017
publications

1/1/1/1/1
Op Enheim
Wrocław
2018

DIE SPÜREN
DISTANZ VERLAG
Berlin, Germany
2018

CROSSOVER/S
Mousse Publishing
Milan, Italy
2017

„[(.;,:?!–…)]”
Muzeum Śląskie
Katowice
2017

Wir sehen dich
Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg
Nürnberg
2010

Miroslaw Balka: How It Is
Tate Publishing
London
2009

Reflejos condicionados
Fundación Marcelino Botín
Santander
2007
video
Schule und Haus
2021
Artist talk with Mirosław Bałka and Julian Heynen Part of the program "Arbeit am Gedächtnis – Transforming Archives" at Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Contemporary Art and Contested Topics of the Past | Mirosław Bałka
2018
Moderated by Lizaveta German, Center for Urban History, Lviv, Ukraine
CROSSOVER/S
2017
Solo show by Miroslaw Balka at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
Miroslaw Balka in conversation with Joseph Rykwert: Memory and Responsibility
2016
Video of a conversation between the artist Miroslaw Balka and the architectural historian and critic Joseph Rykwert (University of Pennsylvania), chaired by Pippo Ciorra (MAXXI) at the British School in Rome.
