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The practice of London based Polish artist Joanna Piotrowska involves photography, video and performance. After studying Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Piotrowska received her MA from the Royal College of Art in London. Her work was exhibited by renowned institutions including Tate Britain (2019), Kunsthalle Basel (2019), 10th Berlin Biennale (2018) and MoMA, New York (2018). She is the 2018 recipient of the Lewis Baltz Research Fund Award.
Joanna Piotrowska’s psychologically charged work explores human relations and its gestures of care, self-protection and control. Although her photographs feature everyday motifs, they do not show ordinary or candid situations. As the curator George Vasey points out: “Each image resists easy assimilation, like reading a book with the pages torn out, the images are enigmas.”
The performative aspect plays a fundamental role in the construction of the artist’s work. Piotrowska asks her subjects to perform certain actions and they respond actively in order to let underlying psychological structures and conditionings emerge. The resulting images may look awkward or even disturbing, but as the psychoanalyst and writer Anouchka Grose suggests: “While Piotrowska’s photos might initially look sinister, it’s also easy to imagine the subjects suddenly bursting into laughter.”
Piotrowska’s oeuvre investigates the interaction between the human body and the environment, which is charged with social, political and anthropological issues. Through decontextualisation and exaggeration the artist challenges seemingly obvious settings and assumptions, such as the common equation of home=family=safety. Her work thus invites viewers to reconsider certainties that were taken for granted.
Born 1985 in Warsaw, Poland.
Lives and works in London, UK.
MA Photography, Royal College of Art, London, UK
BA Photography, Academy of Fine Arts, Cracow, Poland
Toride, Hagiwara Projects, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Camera Austria Award for Contemporary Photography by the City of Graz, Austria
Ellen Auerbach Scholarship for Photography, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany
Artist in Residence, ARCH, Athens, Greece
Lewis Baltz Research Fund Award
Inclusartiz Institute Residency, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Reda Prize, Artissima, Turin, Italy
Nomination for Paul Hamlyn Foundation Prize
Plat(t)form, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
Photoworks & Jerwood Award
First Book Award, MACK Books, London, UK
Genesis Foundation Scholarship
Hidden Places artist in residence, Görlitz, Germany
Joanna Piotrowska, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, France
unseeing eyes, restless bodies, ICA, Philadelphia, USA
Kochasz ty dom co ciszą swą, Women’s Rights Center, Poznań, Poland
Entre Nous, LE BAL, Paris, France
Toride, Hagiwara Projects, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Joanna Piotrowska. Sleeping Throat. Bitter Thirst, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany
Joanna Piotrowska & Formafantasma. Sub Rosa, ARCH, Athens, Greece
Joanna Piotrowska. Are We Home Yet?, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Joanna Piotrowska. Thump, Stiftung Insel Hombroich, Neuss, Germany
Joanna Piotrowska. Frowst, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland
Madragoa Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal
Joanna Piotrowska. Stable Vices, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Joanna Piotrowska. All our false devices, Tate Britain, London, UK
CONDO Mexico City, Madragoa and Dawid Radziszewski hosted by Arredondo/Arozarena, Mexico
Frieze London, Southard Reid booth, London, UK
SP-Arte, Madragoa Gallery booth, São Paulo, Brasil
Joanna Piotrowska. Untitled, Southard Reid, London, UK
Joanna Piotrowska, Dawid Radziszewski Gallery, Art Basel/Statements, Basel, Switzerland
Joanna Piotrowska, Dawid Radziszewski Gallery, LISTE 2016, Basel, Switzerland
Frantic, Madragoa Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal
Joanna Piotrowska, Dawid Radziszewski Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Joanna Piotrowska. Frowst, Ethnographic Museum, Photomonth, Kraków, Poland
How Are You?, Księgarnia | Wystawa, Cracow, Poland
Joanna Piotrowska. Hester, Southard Reid, London, UK
Joanna Piotrowska, s.w.a.l.k. Project Space, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK
“Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here?”: Photography and Touch, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, USA
Stranger Things, Neue Galerie Gladbeck, Germany
The Breath of a House is the Sound of Voices Within, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany
The Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions 2024, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
I Opened the Curtain to See What Lays Behind, carlier | gebauer, Berlin, Germany
Her Voice Echoes of Chantal Akerman, FOMU, Antwerpen, Belgium
This is me, this is you, The Eva Felten Photography Collection, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany
The Land Before Time, Veterinary Faculty Leipzig, University of Leipzig, Germany
Chosen Family, Kunstmuseum Ravensburg, Ravensburg, Germany
Oltre Terra. Why Wool Matters, Formafantasm at The National Museum of Oslo, Norway
Ruhr Ding: Schlaf, Urbane Künste Ruhr, Germany
Cursed Union, Friends Indeed, San Francisco, USA
Sisters & Brothers: 500 Years of Siblings in Art, Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany
Achaeologists of Memory: Vitols Contemporary Art Collection, Kumu Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn, Estonia
L’Irrésolue (The Irresolute), Frac Ile-de-France Le Plateu, Paris, France
Biennale d’art contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France
The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
European Trails. Europäische Fotokünstlerinnen der Gegenwart, H2 – Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst, Augsburg, Germany
British Art Show IX, touring exhibition of contemporary art, various locations, UK
The Architecture of Confinement, BNKR – current reflections on art and architecture, Munich, Germany
60 years, Tate Britain, London, UK
BOOKS. An exhibition of books about art and art about books, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
La Boite – en – Valise, Office Baroque, Antwerp, Belgium
Museum for Preventive Imagination – Editorial, MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Rome, Italy
Our Red Sky, Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg, Sweden
Paranoia TV, Graz Biennale, Graz, Austria
Our Red Sky, Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg, Sweden
Emotion and Structure, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany
Paranoia TV, on view at www.paranoia-tv.com, on the Paranoia TV app, on Ö1 Kulturradio & ORF Steiermark, and at various locations in Graz and Styria, Austria
Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Munich, Germany
occupy and echo (a stage), Reading Room, Melbourne, Australia
Yorkshire Sculpture International, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK
Coimbra Biennial of Contemporary Art Coimbra, Portugal
Jen Liu, Joanna Piotrowska, Jesse Wine, Simone Subal, New York, USA
Antarctica. An Exhibition On Alienation. Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
SUPERSTITION, Museum Marres, Maastricht, Netherlands
Structures of meaning | Architectures of perception, Gateway, Abu Dhabi, UAE
SCULPTURES, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, USA
We don’t need another hero, 10th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany
Being: New Photography 2018, MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Material Environments, The Tetley, Leeds, UK
Condo Mexico City, ArredondoArozarena hosting Madragoa and Dawid Radziszewski Gallery, Mexico
Big towers, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore
GAUDIOPOLIS, Off-Biennale, Budapest, Hungary
ROOM, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre
These Rotten Words, Chapter Art Centre, Cardiff, UK
ROOM, Sadie Coles, London, UK
Give Me Yesterday, Prada Foundation, Milan, Italy
Frantic, Madragoa Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal
Such Are Promises, Darren Bader, Sadie Coles, London, UK
Salon of New Photography 2016, Raster Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Give Me Yesterday, Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy
True Players, W139, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Lea Cetera, Daniel Lipp & Joanna Piotrowska, Sunday Art Fair, London, UK
Altrimenti che essere, Galleria Oltredimore, Gender Bender Festival, Bologna, IT
Kombucha, Bunkier Sztuki, Kraków, Polen
Jerwood and Photoworks Awards 2015, Jerwood Space, London, UK
Art Lending Library project by Walker & Bromwich, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK
Krasna-Krausz Book Awards and First Book Award 2015, Media Space, Science Museum, London, UK
What love has to do with it, Project Space, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
21st Century Art and Design, RCA 2013, Christie’s, London, UK
Sleeper Wakes, Aperto Gallery, St Petersburg, Russia
Family Politics, Jerwood Space, London, UK
Fly me through the night, Pilot. Private house at Primrose Hill, London, UK
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Spike Island, Bristol, UK
Call XV, Luis Adelantado Gallery, Valencia, Spain
MA Graduation Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK
The Suspension of History, Basement Project Space, Cork, Ireland
Sittcomm.award, Wyspianski Pavilion, Cracow, Poland
5128 Zpafiska Gallery, Cracow, Poland
Tate Britain, London, UK
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
British National Photography Collection, Bradford, UK
Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK
KOLUMBA, Art museum of the Archdiocese Cologne, Cologne Germany
The ING Polish Art Foundation, Warsaw, Poland
Arts Council Collection, London, UK
Entre nous. Joanna Piotrowska, MACK co-published with LE BAL, London, UK
Joanna Piotrowska. Stable Vices, MACK, London, UK
Joanna Piotrowska. Frantic, Humboldt Books, Milan, Italy
Joanna Piotrowska. Frowst, MACK, London, UK (Winner of the 2014 MACK First Book Award)
Zander Galerie
Schönhauser Straße 8
50968 Cologne
Germany
Zander Galerie
6 Rue Jacob
75006 Paris
France
