Monika Sosnowska, Balustrade, 2010. Courtesy of the artist, Foksal Gallery Foundation, The Modern Institute, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Kurimanzutto, and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Thomas Mueller. Image © Monika Sosnowska
The sculptor presents her latest works at the American leisure resort, building upon her consistent investigations into the links between art and structure, aesthetics and form
Sosnowska's works are rooted in architecture - most recently referencing the ladders and fire escapes of mid-20th century architecture, but twisting these otherwise familiar forms beyond recognition. Her architectonic works create a setting in which, as she says, "architectural space begins to take on the characteristics of mental space", her twisted forms replicating the contortions of the human mind. As an artist who grew up in Poland in the 1970s and '80s in the midst of modernist functional architecture, she often refers to the post-war elements of the urban landscape. In 2007 she took the steel skeleton of a Communist-era housing block and crammed it inside the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The gargantuan scale and manipulated forms are awe-inspiring and even fearsome, particularly given the unnerving sense that these forms are to some extent quite well known to most city dwellers.
The current show revolves around three pieces that fill the main floor of the gallery - The Stair, The Window and I Profile. The towering structures in painted black or red steel stand out against the stark white walls of the space as they hang from the ceiling or rise up into the air. She takes a flight of stairs and tears away its purpose, leaving its form to stand alone, leading nowhere in particular.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated album that documents a decade's worth of Sosnowska's works, with essays by curator Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Adam Szymczyk, Director and Curator of Kunsthalle Basel and Maria Gough, Joseph Pulitzer Jr. Professor of Modern Art at Harvard University. On the 4th of April (6:00 p.m.) the museum is hosting a conversation with the exhibition's curator Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, a lighthearted look at Sosnowska's works.
Monika Sosnowska (born 1972 in Ryki) is one of most recognized Polish artists of her generation. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She has become known for her monumental sculptures and architectural interventions, in which she plays with scale and optical illusion to challenge the perception of space and destabilize conventional ideas. She has exhibited her works all over the world. In October 2012 her temporary exhibition Fir Tree was installed at the southest corner of Central Park in New York City (corner of 60th Street and Fifth Avenue), standing until mid-February.
Monika Sosnowska solo show at the Aspen Art Museum is on between the 15th of February - 21st of April 2013. For more information, see: www.aspenartmuseum.org
Editor: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Aspen Art Museum, aspendailynews.com