Paweł Żukowski

Paweł Żukowski’s action, entitled Cardboards, was realized on forty balconies in Warsaw. The artist used simple slogans: “we will manage” or “we demand tests”, “let’s postpone the elections” to support varsovians in a pandemic time. In this action, Żukowski combines his art with political and social activism, directing the attention of the audience onto the pressing issues of public debate around civil rights in Poland. He comments these times that will likely reshape the world for decades to come, and the changes that may have many negative aspects, like state level-surveillance, spying, the closing of communities, growth of fascist and authoritarian tendencies or the new meaning of a “public”. His action goes viral: one could observe people’s spontaneous reactions and many self-made banners joining his actions.

Bio

Paweł Żukowski (Warsaw, 1979) is graduated at The Warsaw School of Economics and The University of The Arts in Poznań. He combines his art with political and social activism, directing the attention of the audience onto the pressing issues of contemporary Poland.

One example of his working methodology was a protest outside the offices of a homophobic newspaper. Żukowski spent several days there with a cardboard poster declaring “LGBT is me”. This event was broadly reported and commented on by the mainstream media in Poland, reenacted by nearly one hundred people joined him in defying the rise of homophobia and transphobia in the country.

His works have been exhibited across a range of independent as well as mainstream art galleries in Poland and abroad. Some examples include the Trafostacja Sztuki (TRAFO, Szczecin), the Municipal Gallery Arsenał, the Nova Gallery and the Siłownia Gallery (Poznań), the Lookout Gallery and the Exhibition Bureau (Warsaw), The Ballery (Berlin), the Kavaleridze Museum (Kyiv), the CSW Znaki Czasu (Toruń), Centrala (Birmingham), Sztuki Museum (ms2, Łódz), and the Doris Ghetta Gallery (Ortisei).