Monika Sosnowska: Regional Modernities

10 August – 29 September 2013

ACCA is pleased to present the first major Southern Hemisphere showing of internationally acclaimed Polish artist Monika Sosnowska, following her recent site specific commission for Central Park, New York. 

Sosnowska creates large, psychologically charged architectural installations influenced by the changing social, political and architectural landscape of her native Warsaw. 

She first came to prominence with the 1:1 sculpture she created for the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2007), where she squeezed a bent fragment of modern architecture into the 1930s Polonia Pavilion, as if the two “buildings have been constructed in the space and have to live in symbiosis, or…to fight or wrestle with each other”. 

Born in 1972, Sosnowska studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, but found that the “painting started to escape her canvas’ during her final years of study.  Today space itself is her medium, which she uses to creating large-scale interventions that surprise and confuse.

For ACCA, she will create a series of works across all four galleries, each reinterpreting or offering a counterpoint to the large, angular interior.   The furthest corner of Gallery 4 will feature an oppressive concrete bunker, and Gallery 3 will become one of Sosnowska’s famous ‘institutional corridors’ – having the illusion of distance, but the reality of being far too narrow to enter without crawling.

“Monika's sculptural works represent more than mere form.  They are epic objects in which history, politics and the drama of Warsaw's evolving urban fabric are twisted and reshapen as totems and impossible spaces,” said Juliana Engberg, Artistic Director of ACCA.

“Monika's works represent a tradition of modernity from the Soviet edifice to the struggling, emergent new Poland which must confront its past while it shapes its future.”

Monika Sosnowka, August 10  – September 29.
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

Gallery hours:  10am–5pm daily including weekends and public holidays. 
Wednesdays late, until 8pm.  Mondays by appointment. 
Tel: 03 9697 9999. 
Admission: Free.  www.accaonline.org.au

ACCA is supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

MEDIA INFORMATION:  Katrina Hall on 0421 153 046 or email kathall@ozemail.com.a