Anna Konik

Biography

Anna Konik in 2000 graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she studied in the workshops of Krzysztof M. Bednarski (1996/1997) and prof. Grzegorz Kowalski (1997/2000). In the years 1999-2001 she worked as an assistant to prof. Zofia Glazer at the Faculty of Drawing at the Wararsaw Academy of Fine Arts. In the year’s 2008/2009 she was a lecturer at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg, and in 2009 she was invited as the Rudolf Arnheim Visiting Professor to the Institute of Art and Image History (Institut für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte) at the Hunboldt University in Berlin. In the year 2010/2011 she cooperated as a guest with the Fashion Design Faculty at the Design Department of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. In 2012 she took the doctor’s degree at the Department of Media and Scenography of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. Her doctoral advisor was prof. Jarosław Kozłowski. In 2016 she was a Guest Lecturer in the Intermedia Department at the University of Arts in Poznan. In 2017 she was invited as a Liebelt Visiting Professor to the Academy of Fine Arts in Drezden. She also once again (as she did in 2012 and 2013) teaches the seminars on video at the Department of Literature and Linguistics of the Bielefeld University.

In 2009 she was nominated for the Deutche Bank’s award “Spojrzenia 2009” and the Paszport Polityki award.

Konik’s works are in private and corporate art collections: Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland; Podlaskie Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts, Bialystok, Poland; The Upper Silesian Museum, Bytom, Poland; Leube Art Foundation, Gartenau-Salzburg, Austria; Lublin Association, Zacheta Collection of Fine Arts, Poland; Art Stations Foundation, Poznan, Poland; Warminsko-Mazurskie Association, Zacheta Collection of Fine Arts, Poland.

Creativity

In her multi-channel video installations Anna Konik tackles, among others, the issues of loneliness and social exclusion. These are conveyed by real people: mentally ill, elderly, homeless, immigrants. The artist establishes relations with them based on acceptance and trust. By listening to them she allows their long-hidden stories to be told. Anna Konik transfers her personal experiences of meeting the alienated people into the sphere of art, which makes the viewers aware of the others’ loneliness and troubles.

This takes place in an environment open for the viewer. Their presence is essential for the existence and functioning of the video installation. Anna Konik arranges their spatial structure taking into consideration the viewers’ place and movement. Working with the exhibition’s space is of vital importance for the artist. She creates numerous variants for each presentation. They take on different forms depending on the location where they are shown (the so-called in-situ installations). They often change the size of a given interior, exhibit sculptural features and are preceded by three-dimensional models, plans, drawings, mockups. Anna Konik builds their meanings by locating the moving images in a certain order in space,

The structure of images and sounds, which pertain to the internal sense of a presented history, works in a similar way. Contemporaneity (simultaneousness) of the images presents their varying perspectives. Apart from that, the artist utilizes also synchronization, static or dynamic frame, sound, duplication. These means do away with the documental nature of the presentation. Sometimes Anna Konik injects such spaces with objects, drawings, photos, collages.

She tackles the issue of alienation in her works titled Toys, In the Middle of the Way, Transparency, Our Lady Forever, In the Same City, Under the Same Sky…

She also touches upon the issue of place – as a space with certain history, linked to real people, filled with emotions. The topic of place, along with a story unfolding within it, is present in Our Lady’s Forever, Play back (of Irène). It was dealt with separately in the project Villa of the Entranced.

In Anna Konik’s works, apart from the identity of an alienated person and place, an important subject is also the fabric of individual memory. These three themes are intertwined in her every work. She records in them all that is at a given moment emotionally close to her, what exists in relation to her own life experience.

Projects:

My Hair 1998, photographic collage

Re-scaled strands of cut hair. They are surrounded by a peculiar ‘frame’ consisting of numerous portraits of their owner – artist. The ritual of cutting one’s hair is always related to a point of transformation.

Disco Relaxation 1999/2000

A rotating, enormous skull, made of polyester resin and covered with mirrors is accompanied by images of two sick people – a woman in a rapid monologue, whose message is that everything is fine; and a man signing his own poems.

Toys 2000, video installation, 2-channel video

The protagonists of two films shown next to each other are people suffering from schizophrenia. The first footage is a recording of their typical day in a day therapeutic center. The second film presents the therapeutic session organized for the same people by the artist. Patients, dressed in white overalls, are standing in a white space. They can interact with latex, inflatable objects (resembling arms and feet).

In the Middle of the Way, 2001/2015 -…, video installation in process, 11 films

The artist makes contact with homeless people who are constantly moving through European capitals and cities. In the recorded videos she accompanies them during their walks and the protagonists tell her their stories. One of the videos is about the artist herself. Similarly to her other protagonists, she is also in a constant state of journey, and therefore experiences a particular form of homelessness and uprooting.

Transparency 2003-2005, video installation, 4-channel video (variable)

The projects separately presents four old people met in Berlin, Warsaw and Stuttgart. The video image of each person was duplicated. The two incarnations conduct a particular form of dialogue within the same picture frame. They speak about their lives and how they feel now. The subject of these videos is memory and “time travel”. In Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw Anna Konik created walkways, where the stories were presented.

Our Lady's Forever 2007-2015, video installation, 7-channel video (variable)

Multi-channel installation created in the Irish city of Cork, in the scenery of an abandoned psychiatric hospital - Our Lady’s Hospital. Inside it Anna Konik staged a drama about unfulfilment in love, written by a young man suffering from schizophrenia. It is a poetic, impressionistic work, with non-linear narration, where the protagonists look for each other in the maze that is the empty building. The building itself is an equally important protagonist of this work.

Play back (of Irène) 2009-2011, video installation, 15-channel video (variable)

The realization translates the experiences of Irène, who survived a dangerous accident in the Alps, into the langue of video. The visual side is formed by the fragmentation, turning the images upside down, speeding up or slowing down. The rhythm of the installation is determined by the colors of a shattered rainbow, which appears in the screen every 2 minutes and 58 seconds. The soundtrack was created by an American poet, Don Berger, and Anna Konik. This shattered and reconstructed story/destruct is based on Irène’s actual account. The cubes of the 15 monitors were hung freely in space at the height of 165 cm.

The Villa of the Entranced 2009-2011, video installation, 6-channel video (variable)

The subject of the video recording is the architecture and interiors of the Linde villa, along with the activities of the people inside of it. The pre-war building is part of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin group of buildings. It is an exceptional place, which hosts prominent scientists. In her artistic work Anna Konik explores the topics they study. The impressionistic transmission from the inside was constructed with images generated by the place itself – reflections, glints, filterings. This form relates to many themes, including the issue of perception, what we experience, and what remains within us. The video installation has geometric structure and is sculptural in its nature.

In the same city, under the same sky... 2011-2015, video installation, 35 films

The work consists of 35 stories, which the artist heard from immigrant women from various countries. Most of them live in suburban ghettos or refugee centers in Stockholm, Białystok, Istanbul, Bucharest and Nantes. The women speak of shocking experiences, which forced them to flee their homes and the lack of acceptance and distrust in places where they ended up living. Native inhabitants of this cities retell the life stories of the immigrants in first-person narration.

…work in process

In her current project Anna Konik records the stories of the residents of a small town of Dobrodzień (before WW II it was called Guttentag). The fate of the Jewish population, people relocated from the eastern fringes, and the German minority determine the identity of this place. The project is an attempt to reach the deleted facts, that which was erased from memory in the context of war, the period of communism and the following years. The artist also returns to certain places in Dobrodzień, which she remembers from her childhood.

Fellowships (selection)

Konik has received study awards and residencies.:

● POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (2016/2017)

● The Golden Thread Gallery-Flax Art. Studios, Belfast (2015)

● The Nantes Institute for Advanced Study, Fellowship, Nantes (2014/2015)

● New Europe College, Fellowship – International Studio Program of Landis & Gyr Foundation, Bucharest (2013/2014)

● Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Fellowship, Warsaw (2013)

● IASPIS - Swedish Visual Arts Fund’s International Programme, Fellowship, Stockholm (2011/2012)

● ZiF Center for Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship, Bielefeld University (2011)

● Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin - The Mellon Fellow (2008/2009)

● Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, Zug (2007)

● "The young Poland" grant, National Culture Centre, Warsaw (2007)

● KulturKontakt, Vienna (2006)

● SPACES World Artists Program, Cleveland, USA (2005)

● Polish Ministry of Culture Scholarship (2005)

● Leube Artist in Residency (2004)

● Akademie Schloss Solitude (2003/2004)

Solo exhibitions (selection)

● Anna Konik. Grain of Sand in the Pupil of the Eye. Video works 2000-2015, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2015/2016)

● In the same city, under the same sky… National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) Bucharest (2015/2016)

● In the same city, under the same sky… ZiF Center for interdisciplinary Research, University Bielefeld (2016)

● Faraway, So Near… Void Gallery Londonderry (2014)

● In the same city, under the same sky… Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok (2013)

● In the same city, under the same sky… Swedish Parliament, Stockholm (2012)

● Play back (of Irène), ZiF Center for interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University (2011)

● Fear and Entranced, Atlas Sztuki, Łódź (2011)

● The Villa of the Entranced, Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin (2010)

● Our Lady’s Forever, Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg (2009)

● Our Lady’s Forever, 61st International Film Festival Locarno (2008)

● Our Lady’s Forever, Kronika Gallery, Bytom (2008)

● Our Lady’s Forever, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2007)

● Transparency, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2004)

Group exhibitions (selection)

● Invisible Barriers: Moving Images, The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast & Belfast Film Festival (2015)

● Progress and Hygiene, Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw (2014/2015)

● Deprivation - The Rise of Eastern Culture / Another Dimension, Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok (2014)

● The Oxymoron of Normality, DEPO Gallery, Istanbul, Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok (2014)

● A Voice of Ones Own ¬ On Women's Fight for Suffrage and Human Recognition, Konstmuseum, Moderna Museet, Malmö (2014)

● Hate Speech. I exclude the exclusion, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw (2014)

● United States of Europe, De Maarkten, Brussels; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; National Sculpture Factory, Cork, Ireland (2013), Łódź; Lapinlahti Helsinki; Mekas Vilnius; Plataforma das Artes Portugal; Old Market Pallouriotissa Cypr; Motorenhalle Dresden; The Red House Sofia; Les Ecluses, fabrique culturelle et numerique France (2011-2013);

● Tür an Tür, Polen – Deutschland. 1000 Jahre Kunst und Geschichte, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2011)

● Territories of the In/ Human, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (2010)

● Views 2009, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; WRO Art Center, Wroclaw (2009)

● Collection 5, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2009)

● The artist in the (art) society, Kunsthalle Palazzo, Basel (2009)

● Isolated, The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2009)