WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE

Rajkowska Joanna


Was born in Bydgoszcz in 1968. She graduated with a art history diploma from Jagiellonian University (1987-1992), at the same time she studied at the Faculty of Painting of Krakow’s Academy of Fine Arts in Professor Jerzy Nowosielski’s studio (1988-1993). She also participated in a six-month study programme at the State University in New York (1994-1995).

She is a laureate of Paszport Polityki in the “visual arts“category (2007) and the President of the City of Krakow Award (1996). She was a grant-holder at Arts Link in Buffalo (1996), Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1997), The Civitella Ranieri (1998), the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2001, 2006), IASPIS Foundation, Umea (Sweden 2006), Visegrad Fund (Budapest 2007), Pro Helvetia Foundation (a residential stay at PROGR, Bern 2009). A member of Krytyka Polityczna editorial office.

Joanna Rajkowska presented her objects, video works, and photographs in the frames of more than twenty individual exhibitions in Poland and worldwide. Nonetheless, the most important area of her interest are the projects realised directly in the public space. Entering that area, Rajkowska engages in a peculiar type of contemporary social archaeology. In her productions she touches upon difficult, quite frequently traumatic experiences connected with a specific locality, reveals hidden problems, and creates spaces for collective existence and interactions.

The artist realised her first public project in Galeria XX1 in Warsaw in 2001. For five days, gallery premises were transformed into a huge public bedroom facilitating intimate interactions between strangers. Dziennik snów [Diary of Dreams] initiated a series of productions in which the artist provides people with an opportunity to be together under auspicious conditions conducive to generating close bonds.

Some of Joanna Rajkowska’s projects are of a spectacular character (e.g. Warsaw’s Palma) while others are only a slight intervention, perceptible to a skilled eye only (e.g. Berliński krzak [Berlin Shrub]). However, all of them became an opportunity to reveal important aspects of everyday life and politicalness in everyday life dimensions.

The public projects realised by Joanna Rajkowska among others include:
Nietoperz (Most Kornhausbrücke, Bern 2009),
Linie lotniczne (Galeria Trafo, Budapest 2008),
Spluwaczka (Plac Konstytucji, Warsaw 2008),
Camping Dżenin (Freedom Theatre, refugee camp in Dżenin, The West Bank, Palestine 2008),
Dotleniacz (Plac Grzybowski, Warsaw 2007),
500 ostryg dla Mysłowic (Mysłowice 2007),
Centrum Świata (Orońsko 2007),
Wyjście. Czekając na 624 pracowników Muzeum (Krakow 2005),
Hello (Passage de Retz, Paris 2004),
Przejażdżka wokół Wyspy Wojny (Belgrade, Serbia 2004),
Tylko miłość (Szpital Wolski, Warsaw 2004),
Dwadzieścia dwa zlecenia (2002-2005),
Berliński krzak (Potsdamer Platz, Berlin 2003),
Dziennik snów (Galeria XX1, Warsaw 2001).
Wodnik (Aquarius)


The Wodnik (Aquarius) project pertains to the state of Polish Catholicism and was conjured up as a reaction to a certain, outright unthinkable article in the extreme-right press.

The project consists in placing of a squatting life-size effigy of a Church official clad in a chasuble and with a mitre on its head on the bottom of the riverbed of the Wilga River, in the proximity of its estuary to the Vistula River. The effigy touches the bottom with its hand and it faces downwards. It is a life-size statue made of white-coloured concrete, set in the river against its current to give the impression of struggling against it. A small eddy should form around it. The submerged official will be overgrowing slowly catching objects and plants borne by the river’s current in the nooks and crannies of its cassock. In short, on the bottom of the river bed, it will have its own secretive aquatic life...


Project curator: Marta Raczek



Picture: Weronika Szmuc



A meeting - An involved Modern Artist

The discussion was focus mainly on the person of a modern committed artist, incessantly drilling into socially sensitive issues. Rajkowska’s most famous works, such as Pozdrowienia z Alej Jerozolimskich and Dotleniacz, was referenced, as will their media and social impact on the local community and on the understanding of what urban space is/may be. We will also show the committed artist’s other, less known face – her activities dedicated to the cause of human rights in Palestine.

The meeting was conducted by Joanna Erbel – a sociologist and photographer involved in researching and documenting social movements, the problems of carnality and the city, both in the social sense as well as a theme of photographic projects. She is the author of numerous photo-reports from demonstrations, pickets and protests; a member of the Krytyka Polityczna Team.

Picture: Weronika Szmuc

12 - 22/06/2009

Wodnik (Aquarius)

19/06/2009

A meeting - An involved Modern Artist

the Wilga river estuary
around Długosza and Ludwinowska Streets
Wyspiański Pavilion
Wszystkich Świętych Square no 2