Miroslaw Balka born 1958, Warsaw, Poland where he lives and works.
Comprising installation, sculpture and video, 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. 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 the 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. The artist brings the viewer into a position of experience and absorption and as less of an observer and more of a witness. He create spaces where it is pertinent to acknowledge what it means to remember.
Bałka had numerous solo exhibitions. Among others, he exhibited in Pirelli HangarBicocca (Milano), Tate Modern (London), Collection Lambert (Avignon), NCCA (Moscow), AdK - Akademie der Künste (Berlin), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), Museo de Arte Moderna (Rio de Janeiro). He was part of various group exhibitions, including in AdK - Akademie der Künste (Berlin), MOCAK (Krakow), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Tel Aviv), National Museum of Art (Osaka), Weserburg | Museum für moderne Kunst (Bremen), Mumok (Vienna), NAMOC (Beijing). His works are in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum (Washington D.C.), Israel Museum (Jerusalem), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), mumok (Vienna), and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), among others.
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SCHLAFBROCKEN,
Miroslaw Balka 8 Dec - 15 Jan 2022 ParisMiroslaw Balka continues his investigation of both personal and collective me-mories, especially as they relate to his Catholic upbringing and the collective experience of Poland’s fractured history. Through this investigation...Read more -
Black Milk
Armando Andrade Tudela, Boris Mikhailov, Dor Guez, Miroslaw Balka, Pavel Wolberg 11 Jun - 7 Jul 2022 Brussels -
Croque-morts
Ariel Schlesinger, Douglas Gordon, Jonathan Monk, Latifa Echakhch, Mircea Cantor, Miri Segal, Miroslaw Balka, Naama Tsabar, Pavel Wolberg 2 Jun - 16 Jul 2022 Paris -
Espèces d’espaces
Adel Abdessemed, Ariel Schlesinger, David Maljkovic, Dor Guez, Douglas Gordon, Florian Pumhösl, Gustav Metzger, Jonathan Monk, Marianne Berenhaut, Mircea Cantor, Miroslaw Balka, Naama Tsabar, Simon Fujiwara, Yudith Levin 7 Apr - 26 May 2022 Paris« L’espace de notre vie n’est ni continu, ni infini, ni homogène, ni isotrope […]. Le problème n’est pas d’inventer l’espace, encore moins de le réinventer […], mais de l’interroger,...Read more -
Conversation
Miroslaw Balka, Yudith Levin 8 Jan - 19 Feb 2022 BrusselsDvir Gallery is proud to present ‘Conversation’, a duo exhibition of historical works by Miroslaw Balka and Yudith Levin. Although the ouvre of the two artists look very different, there...Read more
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Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is Showed Me the Way Out of My Own Darkness
Pragya Agarwal, Elephant , October 19, 2021 -
The Romantic Manifesto ad. 2021
Anna Walewska, Contemporary Lynx, April 21, 2021 -
Hot topic: Mirosław Bałka on putting Trump-style walls in a gallery heated to 45C
Andrew Dickson , The Guardian , January 24, 2019
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Artist Talk: Miroslaw Balka
Villa Mautner-Jäger in Vienna October 30, 2023Dvir gallery has the pleasure to invite you for a talk with Miroslaw Balka, Marie-Ève Lafontaine from Eva Kahan Foundation and art historian and curator...Read more -
GROUP SHOW: BET ALPHA
Villa Mautner-Jäger, Vienna, Austria September 20, 2023Dvir Gallery is happy to share the upcoming exhibition BET ALPHA featuring works of Mirosław Bałka, Marianne Berenhaut, Douglas Gordon and Miri Segal Bet Alpha...Read more -
MIROSLAW BALKA, ETTI ABERGEL, YUDITH LEVIN AND MARIANNE BERENHAUT AT ART BIESENTHAL, BERLIN
ART BIESENTHAL, BERLIN June 3, 2023Dvir Gallery is happy to announce the participation of Mirsolaw Balka, Etti Abergel, Yudith Levin and Marianne Berenhaut at ‘The Poet’s Folly and the Sovereign’s...Read more