Artur Zmijewski

If it happened only once it's as if it never happened, 2005
Texts by Joanna Mytkowska, Sebastian Cichocki, Adam Szymczyk, Jane Farver, Charles Esche, Malina Weiss

Kunsthalle Basel, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw

Publisher: Hatje Cantz.

EUR40

Hardcover, 24 × 16.7 cm, 208 pages, English / Polisch

 

Polish Pavilion at the 51st International Biennale of Venice. 

Artur Zmijewski first attracted attention with his video pieces entitled Singing Lessons , shown at Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt. In a group of deaf youths "sings" the Kyrie from a mass by Jan Maklakiewicz. The result is a gripping document of striving for the impossible--a study of limitations and failure. Zmijewski breaks taboos in his other works as well, focusing primarily on aspects of the body. In the 1998 work An Eye for Eye, he worked with amputees missing a leg or a hand to create hybrid beings who are apparently able to walk or grasp again with the aid of "borrowed" limbs. Zmijewski will be representing Poland at the 2005 Venice Biennale. This monograph presents the artist's penetrating works created for the exhibition along with a number of informative essays.