Fall 2012 Talks: Monika Sosnowska

Monika Sosnowska’s site-specific interventions and large-scale sculptures utilize scale, optical illusion, and existing architectural forms to challenge our perceptions and expectations of architectural space. For more than ten years, she has created increasingly complex installations, including a series of doors that shrink in size until viewers are unable to move through them (Entrance, Sculpture Center, 2003); a scale model of a communist housing block crushed to fit into the Polish Pavilion for the Venice Biennale (1:1, 2007); and an external staircase, as found in Poland’s Socialist housing, oversized, twisted and leading nowhere (Staircase, Dusseldorf, 2010).

Fall 2012 Talks at The New School: Between Art and Architecture
The built environment has long been a source of inspiration to contemporary artists. From Gordon Matta-Clark’s abandoned building “cuts” to Doris Salcedo’s site-specific interventions and Dan Graham’s Pavilions, artists have utilized architecture as a means to engage the public. This fall, Public Art Fund presents a series of talks by a new generation of artists whose work engages the built environment as both a point of departure and source of inspiration. Drawing on elements of architectural and design history—including Modernism, Brutalism, and even DIY construction—these artists address the psychological, social, and cultural significance of the urban landscape.

Public Art Fund Talks at The New School are organized by the Public Art Fund in collaboration with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School.

This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Sosnowska (b. 1972 in Ryki, Poland) lives in Warsaw. She studied at the Schola Posnaniensis (1992-93) and the AcademyofFineArtsin Poznan (1993-98), and she completed a post-graduate program at the RijksakademievanBeeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1999-2000). In addition to representing Poland in the Venice Biennale (2007) she has twice been invited to present her work in the Biennale’s Arsenale exhibition (2011, 2003). Select solo exhibitions include: Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2011); Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Mexico (2011); 2011Kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2011); Licthof/Atrium Project 1, K21 Düsseldorf (2010); Artpace, San Antonio, TX (2010); Herzliya Museum Tel Aviv, Israel (2010); Schaulager, Basel (2008); and Museum of Modern Art, Projects Series (2006).