Andrzej Wasilewski (born 1975), Poland
Visual and sound artist, creator of objects, installations, video, collages, paintings, and drawings. He works with both analog and digital technologies. His art arises from the spirit and practices of countercultural traditions and carries a philosophical-social dimension. His interests include issues of methodology and communication, the relationship between humans and technology and the natural environment, the entanglement of the individual in global political economy, and the deconstruction of culture understood as a collective agreement, illusion, or even a lie. In many of Wasilewski's works, culture takes the form of a false mask of Western civilization, which the artist exposes.
In his practice, he draws on the potential of black humor, absurdity, paradox, and irony. His art features several recognizable tropes: (1) industrial iconography of machines and technology; (2) a polemic on the status of the artist and creative replication; (3) the quoted aesthetics of the Golden Age of Capitalism; (4) a play with academic conservative realism and naively romantic salon art; (5) references to pop culture phenomena; (6) the fetishization of objects as emblems of rampant consumer desire.
The themes intertwine, reworked and reassembled as if from scratch, taking on a disturbing and ominous dimension. This practice, often personal in nature, combined with its cultural and theoretical underpinnings, results in a complex, self-ironic, and yet visually striking form of art.
His latest "black" project, The Absolute Factory, explores coal as both a fossil fuel and a greenhouse gas producer, as well as a fundamental element enabling life itself. It has been exhibited in Europe and Asia (TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland; Boxes Art Museum, Foshan, China; RoofArt Center, Guangzhou, China). The project culminated in an artbook featuring sociological essays, journalistic writing, fiction, poetry, popular science texts, and curatorial notes.
Currently, he is working (together with Chinese artist Yang Yifan) on a "white" project titled Vitiligo Potatoes, a direct consequence of his experience witnessing melting glaciers in the Far North. (The artist spent two weeks in 2023 at the Adam Mickiewicz University Polar Station "Petuniabukta" on Spitsbergen Island, located beyond the Arctic Circle.)
participation in over 150 exhibitions (selection):
Silicon-based: New Creator, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, (China), Swing Oolong Tail, RoofArt Center, Guangzhou, China (2025); The Absolute Factory, Boxes Art Museum, Foshan, China (2024); Absolute at Large, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland (2023); Food in Art, MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Crakow, Cracow (Poland); ТЕТРАМАТИКА (Festival of Audiovisual Art TETRAMATYKA), RadioGarage, Lviv, Ukraine (2021); Look Street Art Festival, Uptown Koenji Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2020); Ex Machina 2, Gallery of The Cyclades, Hermoupolis, Syros, Greece (2020); Fear Industry - Taipei Annual 2020, 435 Zhongzheng Road, Banqiao District, New Taipei City, Taiwan (2020); Pavilion 02, Translational Pavilion of a Common Bio and Cyber Future, GAD – Giudecca Art District, GAD Project Space #01, Venice, Italy (2019); The New Dictionary of Old Ideas, Open Studio, Meet Factory, Praga, The Chech Republic (2018); Uncanny Valleys of a Possible Future, The CTM Festival, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2018); Nakanojo Biennale Symbiosis, Nakanojo, Japan (2017); State of Life. Polish Contemporary Art within a Global Circumstance, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China (2015); Pavilion 0 - transnational pavilion of a country which does not exist of a common future of utopia, Palazzo Donà, Venice, Italy (2013); Cosmopolitan Stranger, Manifesta 9, Open University of Diversity, Hasselt, Belgium (2012); Geo-Genesis - GEO SpaceLabDoc, 5th International Geoparks Conference of UNESCO, Shimabara, Japan (2012); Going Green, Crossing Art Gallery, New York, USA (2011); Coexistence, Tembi Contemporary, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2010); Slick 09, Centquarte, Paris, France (2009); Looking for a NEW EARTH, Sojo Gallery, Kumamoto, Japan (2009); Und. Plattform zur Präsentation von Kunstinitiativen in Karlsruhe plus internationaler Gäste, Ehemaliger Supermarkt, Karlsruhe, Germany (2006); Konstmässan, Expo Center, Stockholm, Sweden (2016)
projects (selection):
installations, objects:
Absurd objects factory (2003), Transfusion (2006), (Not) to be continued (2007). Les Fleurs du Mal (2013), Ideology taser (2013), Zeusaphone – The Miracle Tesla Coil (2018), A(I)thropocene Balloon (2021), Potato future (bio-art joke) (2021), Social-classroom chair (2022), Shrink (2024), Fish have no voice (2024), The Absolute Factory (2024)
video:
Pin-ups (2010), Les Fleurs du Mal (2013), Behind rottenness (2017), Face2face (2023), Three elegant ladies (2025), 404 future not found (2025), Social-classroom chair (2025)
drawings:
Mimicry (2003)
collage paintings, sculpture:
Pin-ups (2010)
