Joanna Piotrowska
Joanna Piotrowska examines the human condition through performative acts and the construction of multiple ‘social landscapes’ using photography, performance and film. Family archives, self-defence manuals and psychotherapeutic methods are used as reference points as Piotrowska explores the complex roles which play out in everyday performance. Her psychologically charged photographs probe human behaviour and the dynamics of familial relations, exploring intimacy, violence, control, and self-protection. The artist reveals moments of care as well as hierarchies of power, anxieties, and imposed conventions that play out in the domestic sphere.
A solo exhibition of Piotrowska’s work, Sleeping Throat, Bitter Thirst, took place at the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, in 2022.
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Joanna Piotrowska Untitled, 2019
About
Joanna Piotrowska (b. 1985 in Warsaw, Poland) lives and works in London, UK.
Education
She studied at the Royal College of Art, London (2011 - 2013), the Jagiellonian University, Krakow (2010), the Universität für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna (2008), the Academy of Fine Arts, Krakow (2006 - 2009) and the Warsaw Film School, Warsaw (2004 - 2006).
Exhibitions
Selected solo exhibitions include ICA Philadelphia (2024 upcoming); LE BAL, Paris (2023); Phillida Reid, London (2022 with Formafantasma); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2022); ARCH, Athens (2022); Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne (2021); Museum Insel Hombroich, Germany (2021); Zacheta National Gallery of Art Warsaw (2020); Kunsthalle Basel (2019); Leeds Art Gallery (2019); Tate Britain, London (2019); Southard Reid, London (2016); Madragoa, Lisbon (2016); Ksiegarnia | Wystawa, Krakow (2015); Krakow Photomonth Festival (2015); The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum, Krakow (2015); and the Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland (2014).
Piotrowska’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Princeton University Art Museum (2024); Neue Galerie Gladbeck (2024); Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna (2024); Tokyo Photographic Museum (2024); FRAC Île-de-France, Le Plateau, Paris (2023); BRAUNSFELDER, Cologne, (2022); 59th Venice Biennale (2022); 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art (2022); Aberdeen Art Gallery (2020); BNKR, Munich (2020); Göteborgs Konsthall (2020); Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2020); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2018); and MoMA, New York (2018).
Collections
Joanna Piotrowska’s work is part of public collections worldwide. These include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate, London; Art Institute of Chicago; Arts Council Collection, London; FRAC Grande Large - Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque; FRAC Champagne - Ardenne, Reims; FRAC Bretagne, Rennes; Kolumba Museum, Cologne; Museum Brandhorst, Munich; and The Perimeter, London.
Press
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Joanna Piotrowska Entre nous
LE BAL
February 16 – May 21, 2023
Joanna Piotrowska
Venice Biennale 2022 The Milk of Dreams
April 23 – November 27, 2022
Joanna Piotrowska Sleeping Throat, Bitter Thirst
Kestner Gesellschaft
June 25 – September 25, 2022
Joanna Piotrowska Stable Vices
Kunsthalle Basel
October 25, 2019 – January 5, 2020
