What is my work about?
Blurring of the boundaries between reality and its artistic representation as well as different possible ways of perceiving it basically have been driving my whole artistic practice from the very beginning. In my works of art I also reflect upon how changing contexts result in shifting meanings, when for instance my paintings, imitating fragments of reality taken out of it and transferred to a gallery space become purely abstract and gain whole new meanings. When my work happens to be displayed in a museum I ask who is really to determine its sense, value and meaning ? institution, curator, critic or the public and does it gain a new sense within this new museum context or not? I think what describes best my work is that I?m a painter by education, by trade and in my heart trying to redefine painting through other artistic media like video for instance or performative actions. For a few years now I have been developing an interdisciplinary, multimedia and multilevel project “Cuboids”.
Artist Statement
Wojciech Gilewicz, Polish American interdisciplinary visual artist was born in 1974 in Bilgoraj, Poland. He lives and works in Arverne, Queens in New York. He is a painter, photographer and author of installations and videos as well as of performative actions conducted in public realm and videotaped, often related to his painterly practice.
Drawing on his experience of the painting medium, the artist creates formally varied works, which seek to investigate the boundaries of art and space (In Practice, 2009). In his recording of reality, Gilewicz remains loyal to the painting tradition he was trained in. Each frame registered by his camera becomes a painting (Akiyoshidai, 2012), the camera itself fluidly transforming into a means of registering social relations, which take place ‘outside’ his actions (Residency Unlimited, 2012).
Wojciech Gilewicz’s art provokes reflection on the mechanisms which govern perception and its cultural conditioning (Painter’s Painting, 2010-2014). The author also actively collaborates with the viewer, whom he involves both in his projects and in polemics about myths and stereotypes concerning the most recent art, its reception and interpretation. He takes on board issues related to the role of painting in today’s world, the status of the artist and artistic work in the context of the institution and the circulation of art as well as society at large (Cuboids, 2014).
In 2009, the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Poland published Them – an artistic album of Wojciech Gilewicz’s work, presenting a series of photographic double self-portraits, a project started in 2002, which continues to date, in parallel to the artist’s painterly, video, installation and performative practice: http://www.691456535.home.pl/GILEWICZ/ckfinder_pliki/files/ONI.pdf Using traditional photographic techniques: graduation filter and double exposure, Gilewicz creates his own look-alike, twin brother, his alter ego and looks at himself through their eyes arranging situations that, seemingly ordinary and every day, in reality never took place. The resulting situations are full of psychological tension, alluding to a search for identity and a sense of loneliness, alienation and unfulfillment and can be read on many different levels of interpretation – as a present-day version of the Narcissus story, as a narrative about melancholy, or as homoerotic love. This ongoing intimate series touches upon the blurring of the boundaries between reality and its artistic representation – a problem long present in Wojciech Gilewicz’s painting and painting-and-photography works, installations, performative actions and videos.
CV
EDUCATION
1999
Master’s Degree in Painting, Minor in Photography
1996 – 1999
Academy of Fine Arts Painting Department Warsaw, Poland
1994 – 1996
Academy of Fine Arts Painting Department Poznan, Poland
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (selected)
2013
Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts Painter’s Painting, Taipei, Taiwan
Zacheta National Gallery of Art Project Room Arcus, Warsaw, Poland
2012
Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology Intrude, Cracow, Poland
Flux Factory Residency Unlimited, New York, USA
2009
Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2008
Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, USA
2007
Museum of Fine Arts Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
2006 – 2007
Entropia Gallery The Aporia of Painting, Wroclaw, Poland
2005
Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2004
Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe, Paris, France
2001
Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle / Laboratorium Gallery City – Estate – Studio –
Apartment, Warsaw, Poland
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selected)
2014
The Boiler / Momenta Art Seven, New York, USA
The Africa Centre Infecting the City, Cape Town, South Africa
2013
Queens Museum of Art Queens International 2013, New York, USA
Beit Ha’air Museum for Urban Culture Plain, Tel Aviv, Israel
Piano Nobile Paper Jam #2, Geneva, Switzerland
2012
IDEAS 40203 Alternate Painterly, Louisville, USA
Wroclaw Contemporary Museum The Artificial Fullmoon, Wroclaw, Poland
NURTUREart Videorover: Season 4, New York, USA
2010
FRAC (Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain) Limousin Electro Geo, Limoges, France
Changdong Art Studio of National Museum of Contemporary Art A Day in the Market, Seoul, Korea
ISCP (International Studio and Curatorial Program) Gallery There Has Been No Future, There Will Be No Past. Challenging Cultural Profiling in Central and Eastern European Art, New York, USA
LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) / Governors Island Floating World, New York, USA
Lviv Art Palace The Power of Art, Lviv, Ukraine
2009
castillo/corrales Hello Goodbye Thank You Again, Paris, France
Museum of Contemporary Art BELGRADE: NONPLACES. Art in public space, Belgrade, Serbia
Aspen Art Museum Monitaur, Aspen, USA
MoBY (Museums of Bat Yam) Factory, Bat Yam, Israel
Zendai Museum of Modern Art Starting Point: Intrude Art & Life 366, Shanghai, China
SculptureCenter In Practice, New York, USA
2008
Plumbers’ Hall Around the Coyote Art Festival, Chicago, USA
Pianissimo Distortion of an Unendurable Reality, Milan, Italy
2007
Muzem Sztuki in Lodz Multi-way Street annex to the exhibition Beautiful Losers, Lodz, Poland
Paul Robeson Galery Imago: The Drama of Self-Portraiture In Recent Photography, Newark, USA
Zacheta National Gallery of Art / Kordegarda Gallery Here a Change Occurs, Warsaw, Poland
2006
Real Art Ways POZA, Hartford, USA
LiveBox at Ravenswood Space, Place & Interface, Chicago, USA
Zacheta National Gallery of Art On Their Own, Warsaw, Poland
2003
National Museum / Krolikarnia, Warsaw, Poland
SCREENINGS (selected)
2012
Standard Hotel 11th Annual FABnyc Benefit Event, New York, USA
2011
Videoholica International Video Art Festival, Varna, Bulgaria
Haus der Kulturen der Welt Fake Estates / Les Rencontres Internationales, Berlin, Germany
Reina Sophia National Museum Fake Estates / Les Rencontres Internationales, Madrid, Spain
14 Media Art Biennale WRO 2011 Alternative Now, Wroclaw, Poland
Palais de Tokyo / The Tokyo Bar Souvenirs from the Earth.tv, Paris, France
2010
Pompidou Center Fake Estates / Les Rencontres Internationales, Paris, France
6th Ave / 29th St The Big Screen Project, New York, USA
Pratt Manhattan Gallery Art in Odd Places, New York, USA
Dumbo Arts Center video_dumbo, New York, USA
Haus der Kulturen der Welt Capitalismus / Les Rencontres Internationales, Berlin, Germany
Reina Sophia National Museum Capitalismus / Les Rencontres Internationales, Madrid, Spain
2009
Pompidou Center Capitalismus / Les Rencontres Internationales, Paris, France
2008
West Germany A snake on a Tree, Berlin, Germany
Monkey Town A snake on a Tree, New York, USA
Foksal Gallery Museum Night, Warsaw, Poland
White Box DiVA (Digital & Video Art), New York, USA
AWARDS, GRANTS, RESIDENCES (selected)
2014
Art Omi International Artists’ Residency, Ghent, USA
Queens Council on the Arts Grant, New York, USA
2013
Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts Residency, Taipei, Taiwan
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art Catherine Doctorov Prize for Contemporary Painting
finalist, Salt Lake City, USA
2012
Residency Unlimited, New York, USA
2011
Arcus Project Residency, Ibaraki, Japan
AIAV (Akiyoshidai International Art Village) Residency, Yamaguchi, Japan
2010
Changdong Art Studio of National Museum of Contemporary Art Residency, Seoul, Korea
National Museum of Contemporary Art Grant, Seoul, Korea
UNESCO-Aschberg Grant, Paris, France
LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) Residency, New York, USA
2009
Rema Hort Mann Foundation nominee (video), New York, USA
TAV (Taipei Artist Village) Residency, Taipei, Taiwan
2008
Zendai Museum of Modern Art Residency, Shanghai, China
ISCP (International Studio and Curatorial Program) Residency, New York, USA
2004
Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe Residency, Paris, France
WORKSHOPS, PRESENTATIONS AND LECTURES (selected)
2013
Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts Invisible Painting, Workshop, Taipei, Taiwan
Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts Open Studio, Presentation, Taipei, Taiwan
Zacheta National Gallery of Art Project Room Arcus, Presentation, Warsaw, Poland
2012
Residency Unlimited RU Talk: Wojciech Gilewicz w/ Boshko Boskovic, Discussion and screening,
New York, USA
2011
AIT (Arts Initiative Tokyo) Minglius with Arcus, Artist Talk, Tokyo, Japan
Tsukuba University Artist Talk, Tsukuba, Japan
Arcus Project Recycling Culture, Workshop, Moriya, Japan
Arcus Project Open Studio, Presentation, Moriya, Japan
AIAV (Akiyoshidai International Art Village) Open Studio, Presentation, Yamaguchi, Japan
YICA (Yamaguchi Institute of Contemporary Art) Presentation,Yamaguchi, Japan
Yamaguchi University Presentation, Yamaguchi, Japan
2010
LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) Open Studio, Presentation, New York, USA
2009
TAV (Taipei Artist Village) Giraffe Kindergarten, Workshop, Taipei, Taiwan
TAV (Taipei Artist Village) Open Studio, Presentation, Taipei, Taiwan
TAV (Taipei Artist Village) Who’s afraid of abstraction? Presentation and workshop, Taipei, Taiwan
2007
Zacheta National Gallery of Art KMS: Art Lovers Club, Presentation and workshop, Warsaw, Poland
CATALOGUES AND BOOK PUBLICATIONS (selected)
Intrude Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology, Cracow, Poland 2014 (in preparation)
Pracownia / Studio Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Art, Cracow, Poland 2014 (in print)
The Front Room. Artist’s Projects at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis 2008-2013 Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, USA 2014
Queens International 2013 Queens Museum of Art, New York, USA 2014
ARCUS Residency for Artists, Experiments for Locals ARCUS Project Administration Committee, Ibaraki, Japan 2013
Room with a View Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland 2012
BELGRADE: NONPLACES / art in public space Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art and public space, Belgrade, Serbia 2009
Factory Bat Yam Museums of Art, Israel 2009
Wojciech Gilewicz Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland 2009
Oni / Them Wojciech Gilewicz Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland 2009
POZA Real Art Ways, Hartford, USA 2008
Wojciech Gilewicz Revitalisations BWA Gallery, Sanok, Poland 2007
Wojciech Gilewicz The Aporia of Painting (DVD + booklet) Entropia Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland 2007
Multi-way Street annex to the exhibition Beautiful Losers. Contemporary Art and Street Culture Muzem Sztuki in Lodz,
Poland 2007
Imago: The Drama of Self-Portraiture In Recent Photography Paul Robeson Gallery, Newark, USA 2007
Wojciech Gilewicz Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland 2005
Wojciech Gilewicz Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, Poland 2002
individual catalogues are accessible as PDF on: http://gilewicz.net/catalogues
BIBLIOGRAPHY (selected)
Brushstrokes. Reflections on Wojciech Gilewicz’s Recent Work, Marco Antonini, ArtPulse Spring 2012
http://artpulsemagazine.com/brushstrokes-reflections-on-wojciech-gilewiczs-recent-work
In Practice, Lori Cole, ArtForum, February 2009 (group show review)
http://artforum.com/picks/id=22032&view=print
Transfert, Emily Verla Bovino, Frieze Magazine, September 2008 (group show review)
http://www.frieze.com/shows/review/transfert/
BIOGRAFICAL FILMS
Sale / Wyprzedaż by Wojciech Gilewicz Pleple.tv, Warsaw, Poland 2011 (educational film on painting medium)
CUBOIDS, video, 10 min, 2014 (work in progress)
PAINTER’S PAINTING, video, 14 min, 2010-2014 (work in progress)
AKIYOSHIDAI, video, 10 min (fragment), 2012