To celebrate the 25th birthday of our institution, we invited Katarzyna Józefowicz to create an artwork in the ŁAŹNIA CCA building in Nowy Port. The installation will occupy the staircase core and be visible from the ground floor. The artist plans to create one of her trademark intricate paper structures. The object will resemble a drawing – the artist’s reference to the dialogical interior architecture designed by Prof. Jacek Dominiczak. At the same time, apart from architectural associations, the work intends to activate the sphere of dreams and images, an emergent shape that appears in the building – and disappears from it. The installation will evoke oneiric, unrealistic qualities, a recording of time gone by, in which the building served different purposes than now and was also architecturally distinct. On the other hand, the form of these paper structures will refer to ever denser housing estates, embedded one in another, and creating a spider’s web of sorts: an organic spatial form with a crystal structure.
The installation will be officially unveiled during the Long Night of Museums and form a permanent part of the ŁAŹNIA 2 space.
KATARZYNA JÓZEFOWICZ is a sculptor and author of installations. Born in Lublin in 1959, between 1981 and 1986, she studied at the Faculty of Sculpture of the State School of Visual Arts (PWSSP) in Gdańsk – the present-day Academy of Fine Arts. She now teaches at her alma mater, running the Sculpture Studio at the Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia.
In 2001, she won the Passport award from Polityka magazine. Józefowicz has presented her work at solo exhibitions, e.g. at the Foksal Gallery, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle and ŁAŹNIA CCA. The artist’s favourite materials are paper and cardboard – impermanent and delicate by definition. She uses them to create large, intricate structures composed of thousands of elements. Józefowicz’s works are time-consuming, requiring focus and many hours of monotonous work. The artist creates everything herself.