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Artur Żmijewski is a radical Polish artist, most known for his provocative video work. Questions about socially approved “norms” and how the body functions or looks different recur in Żmijewski’s work. Often inviting people living with infirmity, disability or illness to participate in social experiments, his videos rip open the safety nets and social contracts built into the terms of contemporary representation. Żmijewski’s work also unabashedly confronts and depicts controversial viewpoints on historical and contemporary structures such as the Polish military and the church. The artist constantly draws a line between the manifestation of socio-political corruption and the innocence and purity of humanity. In doing so, viewers are left to consider their own limitations as they come face-to-face with potentially difficult or unfamiliar ideas.

Artur Żmijewski lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. He studied in Grzegorz Kowalski’s studio at the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1990-95). His video and photography has been extensively exhibited and critically reviewed. He represented Poland in the 2005 Venice Biennale and in 2007 was included in Documenta 12. Żmijewski is also on the editorial team of Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique), a forum for left-wing political and cultural discourse in Poland. He is represented by Galerie Peter Kilchmann in Zurich, Switzerland.

This program is presented by SAW Video with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Council of the Arts and the City of Ottawa.