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.
Solo exhibitions include: Weight of Matter, South London Gallery, London (2026); Monika Sosnowska, Saarlandmuseum Moderne Galerie, Saarbrücken, Germany (2025); Museum, Princess Estelle Sculpture Park, Stockholm, Sweden (2025); An Order Apart, Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA), Finland (2024); Monika Sosnowska, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland (2023); Fatigue, Kunstraum Dornbirn, Austria (2022); Monika Sosnowska, Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw, Poland (2020); Façade, Galeria Labirynt, Lublin, Poland (2020); Exercises in Construction, Bending, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2020); wall, kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2017); Habitat, The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2016); Architectonisation, Serralves Foundation – Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal (2015); Gate, Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum, Tokyo (2015); Monika Sosnowska, Atelier Calder, Saché, France (2014); Market, Pérez Art Museum Miami (2013); Regional Modernities, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne, Australia (2013); Fir Tree, commissioned by Public Art Fund for Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park, New York (2012); el jardín, kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2011); The Fire Escape, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); Stairway, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel (2010); Display, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (2007); Projects 83: Monika Sosnowska, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (2006), among others.
Group exhibitions include: POWER LINES, organized by Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Merlin Theater, Budapest, Hungary (2026); The Impermanent: Four Takes on the Collection, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland (2025); Radio Luxembourg: Echoes across borders, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (2025); Save Land. United for Land, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany (2024); En el jardín: Colección Isabel y Agustín Coppel, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico (2023); TODOS JUNTOS (All Together), kurimanzutto, New York (2022); City Limits, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2022); RESSENTIMENT / RISENTIMENTO, Kunst Meran Merano Arte, Italy (2020); Experience Traps, Middelheimmuseum, Antwerp, Belgium (2018); La déchirure (Tear), Atlas Sztuki, Łódź, Poland (2016); Buildering: Misbehaving the City, Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Cincinnati, Ohio (2014); traveled to Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, Texas (2014); El ojo en el tiempo: obras de la Colección Adrastus, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2013); Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA Chicago) (2012); Nowa rzeźba?, Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw, Poland (2012); Museum of Desires, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (mumok), Vienna, Austria (2011); Stay Forever and Ever and Ever, South London Gallery, London (2007), among others.
Sosnowska has participated in many international biennials, including: Fabric of Life, Beaufort24, Zeebrugge, Belgium (2024); Sarab, Desert X AlUla 2022, Saudi Arabia (2022); Seismic Movements, Dhaka Art Summit 2020, Bangladesh (2020); Tamawuj, Sharjah Biennial 13, United Arab Emirates (2017); Glasgow International, Scotland, United Kingdom (2016); Reactivation, 9th Shanghai Biennale, China (2012); ILLUMInations, 54th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2011); 1:1, Polish Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer, 50th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2003), among others.
kunstraum dornbirn presents fatigue
Read full article on Monika Sosnowska's new studio in Wawsaw in dezeen.
