Galleria Raffaella Cortese is pleased to announce Miroslaw Balka’s fourth show in the gallery’s three exhibition spaces, at a time of great attention towards the Polish artist’s work thanks to his first Italian retrospective, curated by Vicente Todolí, currently on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, until July 30th.
Miroslaw Balka initiated his artistic research in the 80s and immediately began an intimate observation and investigation of the deep meaning of human existence, starting from himself and his own body, placing himself in relation to mankind and its history. The memory of his own experiences, from catholic rituals to family traditions, is intertwined with a highly evocative consciousness, suggestive of an intimate and social path that tells us of revelations and oblivion, of wounds and healing.
The materials used by Miroslaw Balka, wood, salt, ashes, iron, soap and wine, place themselves in a precarious balance between daily life and rituals; at the same time his body becomes a critical measure of his works.
The exhibition is conceived as a journey in stages spanning across three decades of Balka’s artistic production, from the works created in the 90s to those realized specifically for the gallery’s venues. The title of the show, In Bezug auf die Zeit, in German, is by no chance based on the definition of acceleration in physics, which is the increment of velocity in relation to a time interval. The artist extrapolates only the second part of the definition, which we can translate as “in relation to time”.
Installation views
