Photographer and experimental artist. Born in Geneva, Switzerland on September 28, 1975. Resides permanently in Warsaw.
Nicolas Grospierre holds a Master's degree in Political Science from the Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris and in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies from the London School of Economics. He has settled in Warsaw but travels all over the world with his socially aware, critical works of art and photography, often created in collaboration with artists like Kobas Laksa and Olga Mokrzycka.
Adam Mazur of the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle counts Grospierre among the so-called New Documentalists group, established at the group show of the same name, curated by Mazur at the centre in 2006. The New Documentalists are a group of artists who have departed from the traditions of artistic photography and opted for documentary-style photography that is based on a cool analysis, rather than a sentimental gaze. Grospierre started out with several series of portraits which reflected certain aspects of society at large. In 2001 he created the Portraying Communities: Kamionka, comprising individual and group photographs of nearly all members of an alternative society of residents living in the town of Kamionka, just outside of Lublin. These are people who have abandoned a frenzied life in the city for the quiet, ecological lifestyle of the countryside. Although these photographs are rather like studies, they were taken in the homes of the subjects, in their personal surroundings. A similar technique was used in Grospierre's series of portraits depicting the prisoners and workers of the Podgórze jail outside of Kraków (2002–2003). The series was presented at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, accompanied by an audio installation that played typical sounds from the jail.
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Grospierre is very much concerned with the context in which his works are presented. In the case of The Library (2006) he set up a show of photos – based on the premise of visual illusion – into the space of an actual library and antique shop. The long stretches of photos depicting shelves stacked with books brought readers into the Borges-style library of Babel, which undermined the concept of a library as a complete, universal collection of archive materials by showing that there can always be more material. In 2007 he and Mokrzycka came together once again to put up a sort of photo-wallpaper depicting a museum hall filled with stuffed animals taken in the Mausoleum in Tbilisi, transforming the honorary tribune in front of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw into a virtual museum of taxonomy, referencing common associations with the structure and the images, such as the socio-realist space of the mausoleum at Moscow's Red Square.
In 2008 Grospierre was invited to show a series of photographs at the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Grzegorz Piątek and Jarosław Trybuś. This series was entitled Polonia Hotel – The Afterlife of Buildings, which was awarded the prestigious Golden Lion award. These charismatic photographs have a purist sensibility about them in their presentation of well-recognised contemporary buildings in Warsaw and other parts of Poland, such as the Rondo 1 and Metropolitan office buildings or the cathedral in Licheń. These images were combined with photo-montages by Kobas Laksa, who took these very timely structures a few decades into the future, predicting quite dire consequences as a result of poor economic conditions and paltry socio-political practices - such as transforming a sleek glass tower into a very exclusive cemetery. That year he was also part of a residency programme at Location One in New York, which was followed by an exhibition entitled The Bank in the Location One exhibition space.
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His 2009 Kunstkamera at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle can be considered a summing up of sorts. It refers to the traditions of collecting in the construction of an eight-walled room filled with photographs - including both earlier works, references to earlier works and found works as well. These photographs took on various meanings and contexts when placed in a particular arrangement. Adam Mazur said of the show:
In as much as the library takes into account a certain level of rationality and order in the form of a catalog of constantly shifting knowledge and publications, the office of a collector opens us up to a an aesthetic experience of randomness and unpredictability.
In November of 2010, Nicolas Grospierre was invited to Venice once again to create an installation within the iconic Palazzo Donà, headquarters of the Signum Foundation. The multimedia work was built around a film made by the artist on the very grounds of the Palace in the spring, this time presenting the mysterious interiors through a converse mirror, also known as an oeil de sorcière. The aim of the project is to explore the illustrious history of a landmark site, while still leaving something to the imagination, maintaining an air of secrecy and intrigue. The title of the work is TATTARRATTAT, referring to James Joyce's word for a knock on the door... a sound that can lead to any number of possibilities. In 2011 Grospierre won the prestigious 2011 Polityka Passport award. That same year various Polish and international galleries hosted exhibitions of his works, including The Bank, The Picture that Grows and Paper Planes.
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In 2019, Nicholas Grospierre's exhibition of photos from two series, Modern Forms and Modern Spaces, opened at the Fort Institute of Photography in Warsaw. The space was designed by the photographer in order to immerse the visitors. The pictures wereorganisedaccording to the form of individual buildings, not the place or time they were built. This is how the Subiektywny Atlas Architektury Modernistycznej / Subjective Atlas of Modern Architecture came about. The exhibition featured both iconic modernist buildings such as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, as well as marginal – even if equally interesting in their form – relicts such as the now demolished balneological hospital in Druskininkai. The photographs were taken in Europe, Asia, Americas, the Middle East and Australia.
Grospierre's specific vision exceeded the established conventions for the presentation of modernist architecture and attracted observers. The exhibition presented a selection of the most interesting threads from the over 20-year-old archive of photography, comprising of thousands of images. Sequences of large-format pictures expanded on Grospierre’s earlier concepts known to his Tumblr fans, and by exposing detail and juxtaposing facades along with interiors, he created a composition that is richer just an image from a book or a picture of a building. In Grospierre’s vision, form is not a derivative of the function, but rather precedes it.
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That same year the Pole Magnetyczne Gallery opened an exhibition featuring Nelly Agassi and Nicolas Grospierre's works as part of the Warsaw Gallery Weekend. For the exhibition entitled Longue Durée / The Long Run. The artists developed a visual dialogue about time, architecture and the physical absence of light. The project focused on long-term observation and slow, seemingly imperceptible changes and their consequences. In a new series of works –Heliography – the photographer used one of his favourite topics, architecture, to deliver works that could be seen as the antithesis of Cartier Bressons's concept of ‘decisive moment’. Long perspective is essential to Heliography – these pictures/paintings could be described as photography without film, a camera or even paper. Abstract, geometric patterns ‘drawn’ by the sun on colourful velvet canvases are the result of a five-month-long exposure period.
Nelly Agassi is a multidisciplinary artist born in Tel Aviv. In Longue Durée she dealt with the history of building housing the Pola Magnetyczne Gallery. Plein-Air, one of her minimalist interventions, revived architectural elements, which were once an integral part of the building, and are now gone: the windows of the gallery space. Marking the absence of these windows allowed her to connect with the biography of the house and explore erasure, preservation, and architecture’s capacity to change and repurpose by time and by its users. At the same time it echoed Grospierre’s Heliography, by referring to the absence/presence of light which the window allowed, and which is fundamental in Grospierre’s works.
Selected individual exhibitions:
- 2019 – Longue Durée (with Nelly Agassi) as part of the Warsaw Gallery Weekend, Pola Magnetyczne Gallery, Warsaw; Nicolas Grospierre: Subiektywny Atlas Architektury Modernistycznej / Nicolas Grospierre:A Subjective Atlas of Modern Architecture, Fort Institute of Photography, Warsaw
- 2018 – The City Which Does Not Exist, Peresvetov Pereulok Gallery, Moscow
- 2017 – Heliosophia, Alarcon Criado Gallery, Seville; Krystian Jarnuszkiewicz – To My Dearest Mikołaj, PolaMagnetyczne Gallery, Warsaw; Modern Forms: A Subjective Atlas of 20th Century Architecture, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
- 2016 – Modern Forms: A Subjective Atlas of 20th Century Architecture, Architecture Association, London; TodoPalidece Ante el Libro, Centro de Arte Alcobendas, Madrid
- 2015 – Lost in Architecture, Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Słupsk; Viewfinder, Signum Foundation, Poznań
- 2014 – Szkiełko w Oku / A Glass Shard In The Eye (with Olga Mokrzycka), BWA Warszawa, Warsaw; The Oval Offices, Maison de la Photographie, Lille; Typologies, Alarcon CriadoGaleria, Seville
- 2013 – The Embassy, Platan Gallery, Budapest; Owalne Gabinety / The Oval Offices, Presidential Palace, Warsaw; Owalne Gabinety / The Oval Offices, State Gallery of Art, Sopot
- 2012 – Axonometria, Galeria Alarcon Criado, Seville; The Bank, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev; Miasto, Które Nie Istnieje/ The City Which Does Not Exist, Bunkier Sztuki, Kraków
- 2011 – Lost in Architecture, 1000 Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu; Modern Tales, Polish Cultural Institute, Foto Espana 2011, Madrid; One Thousand Doors, No Exit, Graham Foundation, Chicago; Paper Planes, Phase 2, ARUP, London; The Bank, BWA Warszawa; The Picture that Grows, Warsaw; K Pool & Co, Pf Gallery, Poznan
- 2010 – TATTARRATTAT, Signum Foundation's Palazzo Donà, Venice
- 2009 – Kunstkamera, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw; Bank / The Bank (with Kaeko Mizukoshi), Location One, New York
- 2008 – Disco Zachęta, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Hotel Polonia - Budynków Życie Po Życiu / Polonia Hotel - The Afterlife of Buildings (with Kobas Laksa), Polish Pavilion, Biennale of Architecture, Venice
- 2007 – Mauzoleum / Mausoleum (with Olga Mokrzycka), Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw
- 2006 – Biblioteka / The Library, Old Book Palace, Warsaw
- 2005 – Hydroklinika / Hydroclinic, Union of Polish Architects' Pavilion, Warsaw; Artists' House, Jerusalem (2008); ECCO, Brasilia (2008)
- 2004 – Litewskie Przystanki Autobusowe / Lithuanian Bus Stops, Academia Theatre, Warsaw; Rebell Minds Gallery, Berlin; ARCO '05, Madrid; Portrety Społeczności: Podgórze / Portraying Communities: Podgórze, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw
- 2003 – Portrety Społeczności: Kamionka / Portraying Communities: Kamionka, Academia Theatre, Warsaw; Moritzhof Gallery, Magdeburg; German-French Cultural Institute, Aachen (2004)
- 2001 – Othello, National Theatre, Warsaw; Zamek Cultural Centre, Poznań (2002)
- 2000 – Lot / Flight, Szpilka Gallery, Warsaw
Selected group exhibitions:
- 2019 – Fiction and Fabrication, MAAT, Lisbon
- 2018 – The Best Possible City, ARCHITEKTURGALERIE MÜNCHEN im BUNKER, Munich
- 2017 – #biblioteka / #Library, Centrum Kultury Zamek, Poznań; Późna Polskość: Formy Narodowej Tożsamości Po 1989 Roku / Late Polishness: Forms of National Identity After 1989, Centre for Contemporary Arts Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw;Życie. Instrukcja. Wystawa Inspirowana Twórczością Georges'a Pereca / Life. A Manual. Exhibition Inspired By The Work of Georges Perec, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art; O Potrzebie Tworzenia Widzeń / The Urge to Create Visions, Centre for Polish Sculpture, Orońsko; WHITE MEMORY, Art in Malta and Poland 1989 – 2018, Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta
- 2016 – Bogactwo /Money to Burn, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; La Memoria Finalmente, GaleriaCivica de Modena, Modena; Salon Nowej Fotografii / Salon of New Photography, Galeria Raster, Warsaw; Warszawa w Budowie 8 / Warsaw Under Construction 8, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Young Poland – Afterimages of Reality, Ludwig Museum, Budapest
- 2015 – Archi-sculpture, Fondation Villa Datris, L’ilsesur la Sorgue; Emulsion, Archaeology of Photography Foundation, Warsaw; KURZ / DUST /غبار , CCA ZamekUjazdowski, Warsaw; Procedures for the Head/ Polish Art Today, Kunsthalle Bratislava; State of Life: Polish Contemporary Art within a Global Circumstance, National Art Museum of China, Beijing
- 2014 – Polityka Kuchenna / Kitchen Politics, NowyTeatr, Warsaw; SURVIVAK KIT 6 Contemporary Art Festival, Riga; Granice Globalizacji / The Limits of Globalisation, 4. Mediations Biennale, Poznań
- 2013 –Architecturein Opposition, CzytelniaSztuki, Bytom; Artloop Festival, Sopot; Katalog, Entropia Gallery, Wrocław; Polityko: Nie Lubię Cię, Ale To Ty Mnie Kochasz / Politics: I Do Not Like It, But It Likes Me, ŁAŹNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdańsk; Warsaw, The Day After...,Vartai Gallery, Vilnius; Homemade: Konstruowanie Światów Zastęczych / Homemade: Constructing Substitute Worlds, ŁAŹNIA Centre for Contemporary Arts, Gdańsk
- 2012 – Fotodizajn 2: (Miasto) Masa. Maszyna. / Photo-design 2: City. Mass. Machine.,Galeria Asymetria, Warsaw
- 2011 – Skontrum, Krolikarnia National Gallery, Warsaw
- 2010 – Fitting in Space, Zico House, Beirut; 98 Weeks Research Project Space, Beirut; Modernización - PhotoEspaña, Cuenca; NineteenEightyFour, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York
- 2009 – Przypadkowe Przyjemności / Unexpected Pleasures, BWA Gallery, Katowice; Take a Look at Me Now, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich
- 2008 – Bloody Beautiful, Ron Mandos Gallery, Amsterdam; W Sprzecznym Mieście / In a Contradictory City, Manhattan Gallery, Łódź; Efekt Czerwonych Oczu / Red Eye Effect, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw; Where the East Ends, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden
- 2007 – Betonowe Dziedzictwo / Concrete Legacy, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw; Antyfotografie / Anti-photographs, Arsenał Municipal Gallery, Poznań
- 2006 – Nowi Dokumentaliści / The New Documentalists, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazowski Castle, Warsaw; 2xP, Yours Gallery, Warsaw
- 2003 – BRONorblin, Norblin Museum, Warsaw; 2B, Norblin Museum, Warsaw; Sąsiedzi dla Sąsiadów / Neighbours for Neighbours, Academia Theatre, Warsaw
- 2002 – Blok-Osiedle-Mieszkanie / Block-Neighbourhood-Apartment, Działań Gallery, Warsaw; Raster Gallery, Warsaw
Awards and Honours:
- 2011 – Polityka Passport Award
- 2009 – Prize of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland
- 2008 – Golden Lion at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale for Best National Participation
For more information on the artist, see: www.grospierre.art.pl
Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, December 2008. Updated by HSz, July 2020.
