As one of the most renowned contemporary Polish sculptors, Mirosław Bałka is known throughout the world for his installations, sculptures and video works. Counted among the classics of contemporary art, he has been represented at such events as the Venice Biennale, the Documenta in Kassel and recently at the Tate Modern in London and the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. According to critics, Bałka's film installations and sculptures often return to a history and memory of the dark experiences and lives of Poles, crimes committed against humanity in the twentieth century, which tug the mind in all sorts of directions. His works, recall the tragedies of European history such as the Holocaust, although never in an overtly literal way, memorialise events through symbolic abstraction rather than distinct monument. Their message is universal.
In the September 2011 edition of Frieze Magazine, Mark Prince wrote
Balka’s materials traverse the line between found objects and neutral sculptural media. The aura of silence he imparts to his work is distilled from noise and static, like a valve selectively opened.
Fragment at Berlin's Akademie der Künste presents film installations from the last twelve years of Bałka's activities, from the oldest, from 1998 to the latest, from 2010, presented for the first time to the public. Due to the artist's recent departure from video art, it also comprises a review of his work in the medium.
The exhibition includes Winterreise (2003), composed of the films Bambi and Pond, Carrousel (2004), which was acquired in 2010 by the Tate Modern for its collection, as well as BlueGasEyes (2004). But lesser-known works are also on display, as are entirely new creations, notably Bottom (1999/2003), Narayama (2002), Michelangelo Buonarotti Reading (2004), Flagellare A,B,C (2009) and Apple T.(2009/2010).
One of the pieces is the video BlueGasEyes (2004). The video shows the circles formed by a fire burning gas stove. Gas burners are projected onto more shallow steel boxes on the floor filled with table salt. Salt, here, becomes the equivalent of dried tears. The soft blue flames tremor is almost have a hypnotic effect. The beauty of this image is mixed but with a hiss of gas, which from the perspective of the history of the twentieth century, it is no longer something innocent.
Many of the video footage presents recorded fragments of reality. But they do not meet the requirements which could be formulated into a documentary film. They contain a mysterious and poetic element. From small, elements formed are images of great intensity, which are the subject of basic human experiences, fears and hopes. As the artist's sculptures these works also show the crucial role of the history in which they arose.
The exhibition was prepared in cooperation with the Ujazdowski Castle and the city of Warsaw on the occasion of the Polish EU Presidency in 2011. The exhibition is a slightly modified version of the exhibition presented at the beginning of 2011 in the CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw.
The exhibition includes a book release, Mirosław Bałka. Fragment, containing essays by Zygmunt Bauman, Julian Heynen and Mark Goździewski, among others, published by the CCA Ujazdowski Castle and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Fragment by Mirosław Bałka opens on the 28th ofOctober 2011 at 19:00 in the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.
The project was made possible with the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland and the Polish Cultural Institute in Berlin.
The exhibition opens the 28th of October and runs until the 8th of January 2012.
Akademie der Künste
Pariser Platz 4
10117 Berlin
Source: press releases, www.adk.de