monika sosnowska
1972, Ryki, Poland
Monika Sosnowska, best known for her enormous skeletal architectural forms, exploits the engineering gifts of these elements and the imperceptible grace of their designs. Her sculptures of mutilated building elements are not creative approximations of architecture: they are fabricated building elements distorted and reassembled. Sosnowska’s structures crumple like paper, bend and contort to the demands of historical time and the force of an ideological gravity. The artist shows her ability to sublimate the traces of destruction, like an urban archeologist seeking pages of history. Structures of support are malleable and flimsy when removed from their context: ungrounded and unhinged, they become purposeless. Intended to enclose, protect and assist us, they are the most telling when they fail. A broken step doesn’t go unnoticed. But something animates these truncated forms; something ghostly resonates from the cold industrial material. The works are reminiscent of something familiar, something known, but only in memory - or perhaps constructed out of it. Sosnowska explores the shift in viewers' understanding of a work: the moment when reality gives way to another space, psychic or historical.
Monika Sosnowska studied at the University of the Arts Poznan (UAP) in Poland. In 1998 she completed her postgraduate studies at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. In 2003, she was awarded the Baloise Art Prize and Paszport Polityki in visual arts. The artist was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize in 2012 and has participated in artistic residencies at the Atelier Calder in Saché, France (2014) and S-AIR in Sapporo, Japan (2002).
Monika Sosnowska lives and works in Warsaw, Poland.
corridor, 2013
plaster board, glass, metal, plastic, paint, fluorescent light
94.5 x 383.5 x 9.8 in.
installation view at australian centre for contemporary art, melbourne, 2013
wall, 2013
concrete, paint
94.5 x 104.3 x 120 in. overall
installation view at australian centre for contemporary art, melbourne, 2013
wall, 2013
concrete, paint
94.5 x 104.3 x 120 inches overall
installation view at australian centre for contemporary art, melbourne, 2013
the ruin, 2005
osb board, iron sheet, white emulsion paint, green gloss enamel paint
variable dimensions
installation view at villa manin, passariano udine, 2005
the tired room, 2005
painted mdf
installation view at sigmund freud museum, vienna, 2005
untitled, 2005
mixed media construction
installation view at opa, guadalajara, mexico, 2005
untitled, 2005
mixed media construction
installation view at opa, guadalajara, mexico, 2005
untitled, 2006
steel and enamel paint
94.5 x 98.4 x 102.4 in.
installation view at sprengel museum, hannover, 2006
untitled, 2006
steel and enamel paint
94.5 x 98.4 x 102.4 in.
installation view at sprengel museum, hannover, 2006
rubble, 2006-2008
wood and emulsion paint
variable dimensions
rubble, 2006-2008
wood and emulsion paint
variable dimensions
rubble, 2006-2008
wood and emulsion paint
variable dimensions
rubble, 2006-2008
wood and emulsion paint
variable dimensions
1:1, 2007
steel
275.5 x 551.1 x 236.2 in. approx.
installation view at the at the 52nd venice bienniale, 2007
1:1, 2007
steel
275.5 x 551.1 x 236.2 in. approx.
installation view at the at the 52nd venice bienniale, 2007
concrete ball, 2008
concrete and rebar
86.6 in. diameter
stairway, 2010
metal, pvc handrail
222.4 x 98.4 in.
installation view at capitain petzel, berlin, 2014
stairway, 2010
metal, pvc handrail
222.4 x 98.4 in.
installation view at capitain petzel, berlin, 2014
the ladder (from "the fire escape"), 2010
enamel and steel
76 x 85 x 44 in.
the ladder (from "the fire escape"), 2010
enamel and steel
101 x 66 x 50 in.
the deck (from “the fire escape”), 2010
enamel and steel
79 x 51 x 58 in.
burglarproof, 2011
painted steel
66.93 x 31.5 x 33.46 in.
the fire escape, 2011
enamel and steel
236.22 x 157.48 x 157.48 in.
the fence 2, 2011
painted rebar
91.34 x 100.79 x 74.8 in.
the fence 2, 2011
painted rebar
91.34 x 100.79 x 74.8 in.
the flower rack, 2011
painted steel, concrete, rebar
66.93 x 78.74 x 75.59 in.
the balustrade, 2011
painted wood
220. 47 x 129.13 x 2.95 in. installed
the stairs, 2011
painted steel
140.94 x 181.1 x 98.43 in.
the pipes, 2011
painted steel
53.74 x 36.42 x 41.34 in.
the fence 1, 2011
painted rebar
66.14 x 164.96 x 102.36 in.
the seedlings, 2011
rubber, concrete, rebar, plastic
variable dimensions
window, 2013
painted steel
63 x 122 x 106.3 in.
installation view at aspen art museum, aspen, 2013
stairs, 2013
painted steel
124.4 x 268 x 19.7 in.
installation view at aspen art museum, united states, 2013
installation view of monika sosnowska, the contemporary art gallery, vancouver, 2013
the gate, 2010
painted metal, concrete
78.7 x 27.55 x 19.69 in.
Recent major solo exhibitions include: Exercises in construction, bending, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2020); Monika Sosnowska, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, United Kingdom (2019); Urban Flowers, Gisela Capitain, Cologne, Germany (2018); Monika Sosnowska, Muzeum Susch, Engadin, Switzerland (2017); Habitat, The Contemporary Austin, United States (2016); Architectonisation, Serralves Foundation – Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal (2015); Monika Sosnowska, Ginza Maison Hermès, Tokyo (2015); Monika Sosnowska, Atelier Calder, Saché, France (2014); Regional Modernities, Australian Center for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne, Australia (2013); Project Gallery: Monika Sosnowska, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), United States (2013); Monika Sosnowska: Fir Tree, commissioned by Public Art Fund for the Doris C. Freedman Plaza at Central Park, New York (2012); The Fire Escape, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); The Stairway, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2010); Monika Sosnowska, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland (2008); Projects 83: Monika Sosnowska, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006).
Her work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions, such as: Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2020); Experience Traps, Middelheimmuseum, Antwerp, Belgium (2018); Living Cities, Tate Modern, London (2017); La memoria finalmente. Arte in Polonia: 1989-2016, Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy (2016); Ten Rooms, Three Loggias and a Hall, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany (2105); Buildering: Misbehaving the City, Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2013) and Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, United States (2014); El ojo en el tiempo, obras de la Colección Adrastus, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2014); New Sculpture, Zachęta – Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw, Poland (2012); Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity, MCA- The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, United States (2012); elles@centrepompidou, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); STAY FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER, South London Gallery (2007), among others.
Sosnowska represented Poland at the 52th Venice Biennial in 2007; and has also participated in biennials such as: Glasgow International 2016 and 2018, Scotland; 2017 Canadian Biennial; Sharjah Biennial 13, Tamawuj, United Arab Emirates (2017); 9th Shanghai Biennale, China (2012), and 54th Venice Biennial (2011).
