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
237 × 23 × 23 / NowHereWe, 2022
Brass, steel, fabric
237 × 23 × 23 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
A Body, 2021
Rubber, steel
77 × 42 × 44 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Afrodyta Knidos, 2021
Charcoal, pencil on cardboard
200 × 140 cm; 216 × 156 × 5 cm framed
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Head of Niobe, 2021
Charcoal, pencil on cardboard
200 × 140 cm; 216 × 156 × 5 cm framed
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
85 kg, 2019
Concrete: 26 elements
19 × 90 × 73 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
250 x 14 x 13, 2017
Granite, steel, glass, red wine
250 × 14 × 13 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
250 x 14 x 13, 2017 (detail)
Granite, steel, glass, red wine
250 × 14 × 13 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
24 x 30 x 32, 2017
Terrazzo, plastic
20 × 30 × 31 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
24 x 30 x 32, 2017 (detail)
Terrazzo, plastic
20 × 30 × 31 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
71 x 65 x 21, 2017
Terrazzo, steel, salt rock, plastic
71 × 65 × 21 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
50 x 50 x 91 (pain relief), 2012
Concrete, 3 x Bayer aspirin pills
91 × 50 × 50 cm
50 x 50 x 91 (pain relief), 2012
Concrete, 3 x Bayer aspirin pills
91 × 50 × 50 cm
200 x 100 x 200 (wardrobe muzzle), 2012
Plastic strips, steel staples
200 × 100 × 150 cm
157 x 31 x 23 (chew me out), 2011
Wood, steel, carpet, plastic, chewing gum
157 × 31 × 23 cm
157 x 31 x 23 (chew me out), 2011 (detail)
Wood, steel, carpet, plastic, chewing gum
157 × 31 × 23 cm
107 x 42 x 38, 2010
Steel and terrazzo
107 × 42 × 38 cm
AAA/Rauchsignales + 186 x 138 x 2 + 26 x 25 x 45, 2007
Video, steel, mdf
Duration: 2' 22"
2 x (250 x 200 x 100) + Irma, 2006
Two boards and the photo of Irma Grese with skin coloured cosmetic - steel, MDF + Photo, paper
250 × 200 × 100 cm each board
61 x 59 x 31 / Sereno è, 2006/2017
Audio by Drupi, steel, loudspeaker, cable
61 × 59 × 31 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Installation view of In Bezug auf Die Zeit, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, via Stradella 4, Milan, 2017
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
15 x 22 x 19 (hard skull), 2006
Plastic, MDF
15 × 22 × 19 cm
15 x 16 x 5, 2006
Concrete
15 × 16 × 5 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Black Madonna Rocamadour, 2015
Ink on paper
21 × 15 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Tokyo 1940, 2015
Ink on paper
21 × 15 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
3 in 1, 2008
ink on paper
21 × 15 cm; 41 × 40 cm framed
Ian Curtis, 2007
Ink on paper
20,8 × 14,7 cm
Two chimmeys, 2007
Ink on paper
20,8 × 15,7 cm
Listen to me please, 2007
Ink on paper
20,8 × 14,7 cm
public exhibitions
Kunstmuseen Krefeld
Krefeld, Germany
Humans Nature Politics. Joseph Beuys in the Context of the Collection
8.10.2021 – 27.2.2022
Photo: Dirk Rose
Wawel Royal Castle
Kraków, Poland
All the King’s Tapestries: Homecomings 2021–1961–1921
18.3 – 31.10.2021
© Wawel Royal Castle, photo: Anna Stankiewicz
Centro Botin
Santander, Spain
Architecture into Art: a Dialogue
10.10.2020 – 14.3.2021
Photo: Vicente Paredes
Galeria Labirynt
Lublin, Poland
Miroslaw Balka-30/5780
28.11.2019 – 8.3.2020
Photo: Wojciech Pacewicz
Muzeum Sztuki
Łódź
Poland
Nerve. Construction
27.11.2015 – 16.3.2016
Photo: Bartosz Gorka
Muzeum Sztuki
Łódź
Poland
Nerve. Construction
27.11.2015 – 16.3.2016
Photo: Bartosz Gorka
Muzeum Sztuki
Łódź
Poland
Nerve. Construction
27.11.2015 – 16.3.2016
Photo: Bartosz Gorka
press
Le dolcezze del peccato di Miroslaw Balka al Museo del Fiore Sardo di Gavoi
ATP Diary
June 30, 2019
Miroslaw Balka
Pirelli HangarBicocca and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan, Italy
Frieze
June 29, 2017
publications
DIE SPUREN
DISTANZ VERLAG
Berlin
2018
CROSSOVER/S
Mousse Publishing
Milan
2017
NERVE. CONSTRUCTION
Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi
Lodz
2017
„[(.;,:?!–…)]”
Muzeum Śląskie, Katowice
2017
Wir sehen dich
Verlag für moderne Kunst
Nürnberg
2010
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.
