Monika Sosnowska
Artist-in-residence / May–July 2014
Vernissage: 19 July 2014, 3-7pm / 20 July 2014, 3-7pm
12 route du Carroi, 37190 Saché, France.
Saché, 2 July 2014. During her residency at the Atelier Calder, Monika Sosnowska will revisit the theme of the “maquette,” a concept that she originally explored in her 2005 exhibition at the Foskal Gallery in Warsaw, which presented both monumental sculptures and models, functioning as her first small-scale retrospective.
At the Atelier Calder, Sosnowska has returned to this study, contrasting models to their final works, but through a new process, in which she ambitiously establishes a direct link with the Atelier Calder’s unique space through scale and materials. The artist begins with the creation of models of works produced in 2005, to which she adds new models that she will then realize in full scale. Sosnowska has also amassed and created found objects, structures, and fragments, which she will also enlarge to full scale. In doing so, Sosnowska employs the enlargement process that Calder used for his monumental sculptures.
The works presented, as well as the objects Sosnowska will fabricate to scale, are intended to be conceived of as a whole environment. The goal is to create relationships between autonomous elements that could not coexist in real scale, thereby forming a sort of “surreal city” which disorients the viewer, forcing him to reflect upon his relationship to the space.
Sosnowska’s work thrives within the site specificity of architecture, pushing the relationship as far as possible. Her works seem to be endowed with their own autonomous lives, and they proliferate and alter the perception of space that surrounds them.
For Sosnowska, art is first and foremost an experience, a moment in which the viewer is confronted with spaces and sensations that not only confuse but should also encourage them to reflect on the space in which they live. To this end, the artist willingly employs devices such as the labyrinth, inconsistencies in scale, and the antagonism between the vacuum and saturation.
The work of Sosnowska explores the possibilities and poems of space. Her work creates performative installations that immerse the viewer and question the nature of institutional spaces dedicated to art. Her installations highlight the oppositions between inside and outside, and her formal vocabulary emphasizes the aesthetic fragmentation and chaos of the world.
The artist confronts architecture and living space as a psychic symbol of our daily lives: “I am especially interested in the moments when architectural space begins to acquire the attributes of mental space,” she said.
Sosnowska chooses spaces such as ruins, traps and parasitic structures, which she integrates into her works, resulting in environments that do not merely provoke contemplation, but rather live of their own accord.
Monika Sosnowska, Gate, 2014, Atelier Calder, Saché
Monika Sosnowska (born 1972, Ryki, Poland), lives and works in Warsaw. She studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam and the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan. Her work has been shown widely, including recently solo exhibitions at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (2013); the Aspen Art Museum (2013); and The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2012). Group exhibitions include the Shanghai Biennale (2012); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2012); the Palace of Fine Arts, Brussels (2011); the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2011); and the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2009-2010). In 2007, Sosnowska represented Poland at the 52nd Venice Biennale.
On the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Atelier Calder, the Calder Foundation has installed Calder’s monumental sculpture, Le Chien en trois couleurs (1973), on the grounds of the Atelier Calder in Saché – the first time Calder’s work is present on the property since the inception of the program. The Atelier Calder will present several events organized during FIAC in Paris in October 2014, including a project by Darren Bader, and the publication of a special revue by Cahiers d’Art, which will be devoted to the history of Calder and France.
The Atelier Calder was created over twenty years ago by Calder’s wife, Louisa, and daughters, Sandra Calder Davidson and Mary Calder Rower, with the invaluable assistance of Stanley Cohen, Calder’s lawyer, long-time friend, and neighbor in Saché. Currently under the presidency of Alfred Pacquement, the Atelier Calder was established in conjunction with the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) and receives additional financial support from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication (DRAC Centre), the Région Centre, and the Calder Foundation.