Project Gallery: Monika Sosnowska, Dec. 4, 2013 – Sept. 28, 2014 at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)
Monika Sosnowska (b. 1972) is best known for large, site-specific sculptures made of steel, concrete and other industrial materials. Though usually abstract, much of her work draws from the distinctive built environment of Warsaw, with its defunct or re-purposed Soviet-era buildings, its vast industrial zones and its reconstructions of historic neighborhoods destroyed during World War II. Sosnowska’s project for Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) makes dramatic use of the double-height Project Gallery for which it was commissioned.
Consisting of over 1,100 pounds of bent steel, the sculpture references the skeletal structures that are used as kiosks in Warsaw’s informal marketplaces. Often welded together from scrap metal by the same individuals who use them to sell their goods, these structures embody the kind of spontaneous, street-level commercial activity that contributes to a given city’s economic vitality and dynamism, despite its ambivalent status with respect to the official financial system. Although this activity generally unfolds beneath the radar of metropolitan authorities, the material residue that it leaves behind often changes the urban landscape in significant ways. Sosnowska’s sculpture transposes these social forces into the gallery space, amplifying and transforming them into a unified and impactful aesthetic encounter.