EnglishWojciech Gilewicz, urodzony w 1974 roku w Biłgoraju. Studiował na Akademii Sztuk Pięknych w Poznaniu (1994-96), a następnie w Warszawie, gdzie w roku 1999 uzyskał dyplom z malarstwa (aneks z fotografii). Mieszka i pracuje w Warszawie i w Nowym Jorku.
Wojciech Gilewicz, born in 1974 in Bilgoraj, Poland. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan (1994-1996) and then in Warsaw, where in 1999 he earned a degree in painting (with an additional degree in photography). Lives and works in Warsaw and New York.
He is a painter, photographer, author of installations and videos.In his works, which usually combine all these disciplines, Gilewicz explores the blurring of distinctions between reality and its artistic representation. A frequent motif of his practice is the replacing of elements of the real world with their painterly replicas. Gilewicz’s paintings pretend to be fragments of walls, windowsills, pavements, and for an unaware viewer are utterly indistinguishable from the originals. Sometimes the artist ‘corrects reality’ by placing ‘patch’ paintings over dents or holes in a wall. The spectator is able to find the pieces, hidden in the urban tissue by the artist, with the help of specially prepared maps or films documenting the painting process. Gilewicz usually leaves the paintings for a long time in their public-space locations, deliberately exposing them to the effect of sunlight, rain, wind or the human factor. In his practice Gilewicz demonstrates the immense power of the painting medium that is able to perfectly imitate reality, while at the same time, in a way, denying the meaningfulness of painting, because his pictures remain invisible. Gilewicz’s paintings are hyperrealistic and non-representational at the same time – they perfectly imitate fragments of reality but when taken out of the reality context and transferred to the gallery, they become purely abstract.
Wojciech Gilewicz is also the author of the photographic series Them started in 2002. This series is based on illusion – using 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 everyday, in reality never took place. The traditional photographic techniques used here do not allow for the two characters to get close or touch each other. They work, travel, rest together, they are always together but separate at the same time, divided by an insurmountable distance. The resulting situations are full of psychological tension, alluding to a search for identity and a sense of loneliness, alienation and unfulfillment.The Them series photographs 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.
The leitmotif of Wojciech Gilewicz’s practice is a desire to show how relative and changeable our perception of the surrounding world is and how fluid the boundaries between reality and its artistic representation can be. Gilewicz’s practice invites a reflection on the mechanisms governing our perception and on the cultural determinants of the way we see things.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)
2010 Entropia Gallery Infinity, Wroclaw, Poland
2009 Lubelskie Towarzystwo Zachety Sztuk Pieknych, Lublin, Poland
2009 Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2008 Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, USA
2007 Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland
2007 Museum of Fine Arts, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine
2007 BWA Gallery Revitalisations, Sanok, Poland
2006 – 2007 Entropia Gallery The Aporia of Painting, Wroclaw, Poland
2005 TR Warszawa, Warsaw, Poland
2005 Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2005 WAA (Warsaw Artists’ Action) Them, Warsaw, Poland
2004 Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe, Paris, France
2002 Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, Poland
2001 Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle / Laboratorium Gallery City – Estate – Studio –
Apartment, Warsaw, Poland
2000 Biala Gallery Lublin, Poland
1999 Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selected)
2010 ISCP Gallery There Has Been No Future, There Will Be No Past New York, USA
2010 Bunkier Sztuki Kilkanascie koanow na (nie)istnienie, Cracow, Poland
2009 appendix2 Like a Rolling Stone 2, Warsaw, Poland
2009 castillo/corrales Hello Goodbye Thank You Again, Paris, France
2009 Museum of Contemporary Art BELGRADE: NONPLACES. Art in public space, Belgrade, Serbia
2009 Aspen Art Museum Monitaur, Aspen, USA
2009 MoBY (Museums of Bat Yam) Factory, Bat Yam, Israel
2009 Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu Lucim lives on, Torun, Poland
2009 Zendai Museum of Modern Art Starting Point: Intrude Art & Life 366, Shanghai, China
2009 Studio BWA Hidden, Wroclaw, Poland
2009 SculptureCenter In Practice, New York, USA
2008 Istituto Polacco di Roma Transfert Gallerie Polacche a Roma #6, Roma, Italy
2008 BWA Gallery Hidden, Zielona Gora, Poland
2008 Plumbers’ Hall Around the Coyote, Chicago, USA
2008 BWA Gallery External artists. OUT OF STH, Wroclaw, Poland
2008 Biala Gallery Remont generalny, Lublin, Poland
2008 Pianissimo Distortion of an Unendurable Reality, Milan, Italy
2008 Istituto Polacco di Roma Transfert Gallerie Polacche a Roma #2, Roma, Italy
2007 appendix2 Artists Recommend Artists, Warsaw, Poland
2007 Museum of Art in Lodz Multi-way Street annex to the exhibition Beautiful Losers, Lodz, Poland
2007 Paul Robeson Galery Imago: The Drama of Self-Portraiture In Recent Photography, Newark, USA
2007 Zacheta National Gallery of Art / Kordegarda Gallery Here a Change Occurs, Warsaw, Poland
2006 Real Art Ways POZA, Hartford, USA
2006 Centre for Contemporary Art Laznia Love and Democracy, Gdansk, Poland
2006 LiveBox at Ravenswood Space, Place & Interface, Chicago, USA
2006 Zacheta National Gallery of Art On Their Own, Warsaw, Poland
2003 National Museum / Krolikarnia, Warsaw, Poland
2002 Bunkier Sztuki, Look at me / Spojrz na mnie, Cracow, Poland
2001 BWA Gallery Goscinna Pracownia Malarstwa Leona Tarasewicza goscinnie w Galerii BWA
w Zielonej Gorze, Zielona Gora, Poland
SCREENINGS (selected)
2010 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
2008 Monkey Town A snake on a Tree, New York, USA
2008 Foksal Gallery Noc Muzeow, Warsaw, Poland
2008 White Box DiVA (Digital & Video Art), New York, USA
AWARDS, GRANTS, RESIDENCES (selected)
2010 National Art Studio Residency, Seoul, Korea
2010 National Museum of Contemporary Art Grant, Seoul, Korea
2010 UNESCO-Aschberg Grant, Paris, France
2010 LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) Residency, New York, USA
2010, 2008 IAM (The Adam Mickiewicz Institute) Grant, Poland
2009 TAV (Taipei Artist Village) Residency, Taipei, Taiwan
2008 Zendai MoMA Residency, Shanghai, China
2008 ISCP (International Studio and Curatorial Program) Residency, New York, USA
2007 Mloda Polska Grant, Poland
2006, 2004, 2001 Ministry of Culture Grant, Poland
2005 Galichnik Art Residency, Macedonia
2004 Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe Residency, Paris, France
2004 Fundacja Kultury Grant, Poland
1999 Master’s Degree with honors
CATALOGUES AND PUBLICATIONS (selected)Kilkanascie koanow na (nie)istnienie, Poland 2010
ING Bank Collection Fundacja Sztuki Polskiej ING, Warsaw, Poland 2010
Polish Street Art Klucze, Warsaw, Poland 2010
Art Pride. Polish Gay Art Abiekt.pl, Warsaw, Poland 2010
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
5 TM Centrum Rzezby Polskiej, Oronsko, Poland 2009
Artibus, Transfert Gallerie Polacche a Roma #6, Istituto Polacco di Roma, Italy 2008
Artysci zewnetrzni. OUT OF STH BWA Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland 2008
Remont Generalny Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland 2008
Entropia, Transfert Gallerie Polacche a Roma #2, Istituto Polacco di Roma, Italy 2008
Transgrsja wyobrazni Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland 2008
POZA Real Art Ways, Hartford, USA 2008
New Phenomena in Polish Art after 2000 Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw,
Poland 2007● Wojciech Gilewicz Revitalisations BWA Gallery, Sanok/Warsaw, Poland 2007/2010
● 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 Museum of Art in Lodz, Poland 2007
Imago: The Drama of Self-Portraiture In Recent Photography Paul Robeson Gallery, Newark, USA 2007
Binary Cities: Lodz – Warsaw Galeria Manhattan, Lodz; MCKiS, Warsaw, Poland 2006
Tekstylia bis. Słownik młodej polskiej kultury Korporacja Ha!art, Cracow, Poland 2006
Love and democracy Centre for Contemporary Art Laznia, Gdansk, Poland 2006
On Their Own Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland 2006
V/1 Supermarket Sztuki Tolerate me! Warsaw, Poland 2005
● Wojciech Gilewicz Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland 2005/2010
● Them (CD) WAA (Warsaw Artists’ Action), Warsaw, Poland 2005
● Wojciech Gilewicz Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, Poland 2002
Cyklop Nr. 8 Galeria i Muzeum Fotografii Cyklop, Gdansk, Poland 2001
Biala 1985 – 2000 Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland 2001
Pozawydzialwe przeginanie w kierunku mozliwości otwarcia oczu na otoczenie swiatlo nature i medytacje sztuki Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland 2000
Slask kopalnia tematow Upper Silesian Culture Center, Katowice, Poland 1999
● individual catalogues
WORKS IN COLLECTIONS (selected)
Frac Limousin, Limoges, France
Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Lubelskie Towarzystwo Zachety Sztuk Pieknych, Lublin, Poland
ING Bank, Warsaw, Poland
Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia
MoBY (Museum of Bat Yam), Bat Yam, Israel
Dolnoslaskie Towarzystwo Zachety Sztuk Pieknych, Wroclaw, Poland
Zendai MoMA, Shanghai, China
Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland
Museum of Fine Arts, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine