Krzysztof Wodiczko, Guests, 2009, video installation, 17.17 minutes, courtesy of the artist and Zacheta National Gallery of Art. Photo courtesy of Profile Foundation.

Padiglione Polonia

53a Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte - La Biennale di Venezia

Krzysztof Wodiczko

Guests

53rd International Art Exhibition in Venice

Opening reception:
June 4th, 2009, at 5 pm,
Giardini di Castello
exhibition open until
November 22nd, 2009

http://www.labiennale.art.pl

Polish Pavilion
Pavilion Commissioner Agnieszka Morawinska
Curator of the Exhibition Bozena Czubak
Assistant Commisioner Malgorzata Osinska

Organisation of the exhibition
Zacheta National Gallery of Art
Pl. Malachowskiego 3
00-916 Warsaw, Poland
tel. (+48 22) 556 96 00
press@zacheta.art.pl

The protagonists of Krzysztof Wodiczko's projection in the Polish Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Art Biennial are immigrants, people who, not being 'at home', remain 'eternal guests'. 'Strangers', 'others' are key notions in Wodiczko's artistic practice, be it in the projections, the Vehicles, or the technologically advanced Instruments that enable those who, deprived of rights, remain mute, invisible and nameless to communicate, gain a voice, make a presence in public space.

The projection, created specially for the Biennial, transforms the space of the Polish Pavilion into a place where the viewers watch scenes taking place seemingly outside, behind an illusion of windows, their projection on the pavilion's windowless walls. The individual projections, the images of windows projected onto the pavilion's architecture, open its interior to virtual, but at the same time real, scenes showing immigrants washing windows, taking a rest, talking, waiting for work, exchanging remarks about their tough existential situation, unemployment, problems getting their stay legalised. The slight blurriness of the images reduces the legibility of the scenes taking place behind milky glass. Wodiczko plays with the visibility of immigrants, people who are 'within arm's reach' and, at the same time, 'on the other side', referring us to their ambivalent status, their social invisibility. Both sides experience an inability to overcome the gap separating them. The Biennial visitors are 'guests' here too, of which they are reminded by the images of immigrants trying, from time to time, to peek inside.

The project, dealing with the multicultural problematique of alterity, concerns one of the most burning issues of the contemporary world, globally as well as in the EU, where a discourse of acceptance and legalisation is accompanied by often restrictive immigration policies. The author worked with immigrants based in Poland and Italy, but coming from different countries of the world such as Chechnya, Ukraine, Vietnam, Romania, Sri Lanka, Libya, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Morocco.

In his Venice project, Wodiczko combines the unique experience of his earlier indoor projections, staged in galleries or museums, which opened the otherwise isolated art world to the outside world, with a performative nature of his outdoor projections which allowed participants to animate public buildings with images of their faces or hands and the sounds of their voices.

For further information please contact: Olga Gawerska (press officer) press@zacheta.art.pl

Polish participation in the 53rd International Art Exhibition in Venice is financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.

Co-operating Institutions: Adam Mickiewicz Institute; Polish Institute in Rome; Profile Foundation; Atlas Sztuki; Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris; Lelong Gallery, New York; Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Media Patronage of Zacheta: Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, TOK FM, The Warsaw Voice, Art&Business, Artinfo.pl, Onet.pl, empik