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Miroslaw Balka
Comprising installation, sculpture and video, Miroslaw Balka’s work has a bare and elegiac quality that is underlined by the careful, minimalist placement of objects, as well as the gaps and pauses between them.
Often using his own body and his studio as a template or first point of reference, Balka’s work might incorporate personal or self-referential substances such as ash, felt, salt, hair 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 catastrophe, Balka explores how subjective traumas are translated into collective histories and vice versa. His materials are simple, everyday objects and things, but also powerfully resonant of ritual, hidden memories and the history of Nazi occupation in Poland.
Miroslaw Balka was born in 1958 in Ottwock, Poland where he continues to work. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2005, 1993 and 1990) and Documenta IX (1992). Solo exhibitions include K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2006), Museum of Contemporary Art, Strasbourg (2004), Kroller - Muller Museum, Otterlo (2001)Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland (2002) and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuelle Kunst (SMAK), Gent (2001).
More on Miroslaw Balka
| Artworks | |
 | II 4 Images |
 | III 4 Images |
 | IV 3 Images |
 | V 4 Images |
 | VI 4 Images |
 | Related Texts |
| CV | |
| Bibliography | |
| Lightworks by Julian Heynen | |
| Text by John Hutchinson | |
| Exhibitions | |
| Nothere 9 Dec—7 Feb 2009 | |
| Karma 4 Mar—8 Apr 2004 | |
| Quit 7 Apr—29 Apr 2000 | |
| Artist's Publications | |
| Beyond 2007 | |
| Lichtzwang 2006 | |
| Artist's Publications Available in the Bookshop |
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| 17 x 23,5 x 1,6 2008 | |
| News | |
| Miroslaw Balka at the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern 13 Oct 2009 | |
 | Related Links |
| http://www.tate.org.uk/mode... Tate Online | |
| http://www.icaphila.org/exh... Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania | |
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