Park Rzeźby na Bródnie | Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie

The Garden of Eden
Paweł Althamer

Year: 2009
Medium: garden sculpture, open garden layout in a separated space of Park Bródnowski; various tree species, blooming shrubs and flowers, changing over time and as a result of external conditions
Format: variable

The Garden of Eden is a garden/sculpture created with the cooperation of Bródno residents, including children from local elementary school no. 285. The paradise corner was created with diverse tree and shrub species. Each year the garden changes its shape. In 2010 a photograph of local residents in The Garden of Eden was given to the nearby Christ the King Church as a “holy picture” celebrating the paradisiacal element of life in a concrete neighbourhood.

Paweł Althamer, „The Garden of Eden”, 2009, photo by Jan Smaga

Paweł Althamer

Paweł Althamer (born 1967) is one of Poland’s most famous artists worldwide. His work has contributed to redefining the concept of “social sculpture.” He employs a wide range of techniques and methods, working in figure sculpture as well as social actions and performance.

Sylwia
Paweł Althamer & Grupa Nowolipie

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Year: 2010
Medium: sculpture - bronze cast, facility installed in water reservoir, functioning as a fountain
Format: 325×100×70 cm

The Sylwia sculpture was a project of Paweł Althamer and the Nowolipie group. In 1995 the artist started pottery workshops with a group of people with multiple sclerosis for whom art was a form of therapy and rehabilitation. Together they created a park fountain in the form of a snakehaired woman lying on the water. Sylwia was the name of the model who posed for it. Each part of the sculpture was designed by a different member of the group.

Paweł Althamer & Grupa Nowolipie, Sylwia, 2010, photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Paweł Althamer & Grupa Nowolipie

The Nowolipie Group consists of participants in pottery workshops for people suffering from multiple sclerosis, led by the artist Paweł Althamer since 1995 at the public art centre at ul. Nowolipki in Warsaw.
Paweł Althamer (born in 1967) is one of Poland’s most famous artists worldwide. His work has contributed to redefining the concept of “social sculpture.” He employs a wide range of techniques and methods, working in figure sculpture as well as social actions and performance. Althamer is known for being uncompromising and loyal to his artistic vocation.

Untitled (overturned tea house with the coffee maker)
Rirkrit Tiravanija

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Rok powstania: 2009
Technika: instalacja, stal polerowana, konstrukcja, obiekt przestrzenny stanowiący funkcjonalne dzieło sztuki, latem bywa adaptowane na kawiarnię
Wymiary: 280×280×280 cm

Tiravanija’s sculpture is a pavilion resembling a spaceship. Its exterior reflects the nearby trees and grass. The object encourages meetings between neighbours, but also the creative use of a work of art. In 2010 the original teahouse returned to Germany and was replaced by a copy designed by Paweł Althamer. Today it hosts the smallest cultural centre in Warsaw, initiated by artist Michał Mioduszewski and run by local residents.

Rirkrit Tiravanija, Bez tytułu (przewrócony domek herbaciany z ekspresem do kawy), photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Rirkrit Tiravanija

In his work, Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija (born in 1961) focuses on creating situations, cooperation with groups, opportunities to break social barriers, and making new contacts. At times, Tiravanija limits himself to preparing meals with neighbours at the gallery where his work is presented. The artist’s projects have been realized at the most prestigious institutions and exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Biennial. In 2004 he received the Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Guardian Angel
Roman Stańczak

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Year: 2013
Medium: sculpture; wood, gold leafs, steel core, concrete foundations
Format: 390 x 270 x 60 cm, height of the pedestal: 460 cm

Stańczak is an artist from the circle of prof. Grzegorz Kowalski’s sculpture studio at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. His art, permeated with spirituality, attempts to elicit the voice of dead objects. The figure of an angel covered in gold leaf stands guard over the Garden of Eden planted by Paweł Althamer and his many coworkers in Park Bródnowski in 2009. The Guardian Angel is testimony to the struggle with life and matter, serious encounters with people, and a private exorcism.

Roman Stańczak, The Guardian Angel, 2013, photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Roman Stańczak

Born in 1969 in Szczecin. He is a sculptor, living and creating his works in Wesoła, near Warsaw. In the early 90s, he combined the so-called ‘critical art’ (associated primarily with professor Grzegorz Kowalski’s art workshop at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts Sculpture Department, where he studied) with a spiritual quest. Ever since the end of 1996, he has been dealing with ... life.

Grating
Monika Sosnowska

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Year: 2009
Medium: sculpture, rebars, paint layer (industrial paint), reinforced concrete foundations
Format: 400×400×400 cm

The sculpture is a reference to the local Polish tradition of public space sculptures, a consequence of the artist’s interest in the modernist heritage, but also construction mistakes and amateur, grassroots shaping of common and private spaces by residents of prefabricated blocks of flats. Sosnowska’s work is a sphere attached to the ground made of ornamentally shaped reinforcement bars, alluding to shapes and patterns of gratings installed by residents in Bródno to protect ground-floor apartments, kiosks and shops from burglary.

Monika Sosnowska, Grating, 2009, photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Monika Sosnowska

Sosnowska (born 1972) is one of the most widely recognized contemporary sculptors. She represented Poland at the 2007 Venice Biennale. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Serpentine Gallery in London, Schaulager in Basel, Serralves in Porto, and many others.

You Are Not Alone (Would There Be Earth Without the Sun?)
Susan Philipsz

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Year: 2010
Medium: sound installation

The installation by Scottish artist Susan Philipsz is an invisible sound clock that strikes, just like a pendulum clock, every 15 minutes. Philipsz assigned each hour a signal from a radio station. The artist played all the signals on a vibraphone. The clock serves as a soundtrack for the park, while also referring to the Polish opposition tradition. The title comes from an interview with Lech Wałęsa. Asked about the influence that radio had on the opposition activities of Solidarity, he replied, “Would there be Earth without the Sun?”

Susan Philipsz, You Are Not Alone (Would There Be Earth Without the Sun?), 2010, photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Susan Philipsz

Scottish artist Susan Philipsz (born in 1965) currently lives and works in Berlin. She is mainly interested in sound, human voice production and its relationship with architectural space. The emotional and psychological influence of her music on her audience is also extremely important for her. Philipsz’s sound installations are frequently created outside of galleries and museums, in reference to various elements of architecture: bridges, ruins, underpasses, city parks and cemeteries. Her works have been presented at many prestigious international exhibitions, such as Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana (2000) and the 4th Berlin Biennale (2006). In 2010 she was awarded the Turner Prize.

Toguna
Youssouf Dara, Paweł Althamer

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Year: 2011
Medium: wood, straw
Format: variable

Toguna is a consequence of Paweł Althamer’s long fascination with the culture of Dogon, a tribe in Mali, western Africa. Althamer invited Dogon sculptor Youssouf Dara to Warsaw with the mission of erecting “social architecture” based on the African tradition. The most important place for the tribe is the toguna, a wooden shelter with a thick roof, supported with sculpted columns, where men’s assemblies and council meetings are held.

Youssouf Dara, Paweł Althamer, Toguna, 2011, photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Youssouf Dara, Paweł Althamer

Youssouf Dara is a Dogon sculptor. Art plays an important role in Dogon society. The people believe that with artists’ magical skills, the Universe is kept alive. Once every sixty years, a Sigui is held: an eight-year ceremony supposed to “renew the Cosmos.” The central figure in the ceremony is a wooden structure several metres high called the Mother of Masks. For each ceremony a new figure is produced by a tribal sculptor.

Paweł Althamer (born 1967) is one of Poland’s most famous artists worldwide. His work has contributed to redefining the concept of “social sculpture.” He employs a wide range of techniques and methods, working in figure sculpture, as well as social actions and performance.

Bródno
Jens Haaning

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Year: 2012
Medium: sculpture, bricks, mortar, rebars, reinforced concrete foundations
Format: 323,5 x 1591,5 x 51 cm

The Danish artist Jens Haaning usually tackles issues of national identity, immigration, racism, and the relations between language and politics. He creates his projects in the context of the site, researching the specificity of the city or neighbourhood. This time the artist came up with a massive sculpture installation. As Haaning said, “It’s important to me that the sculpture in Bródno is made of bricks. I see Poland in relation to a celebration of collective work and effort that underlies the creation of a ‘paradise’ in Bródno.”

Jens Haaning, Bródno, 2012, photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Jens Haaning

Born in 1965, Jens Haaning lives and works in Copenhagen. His works have been presented at such institutions as the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art in Zurich, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, De Appel in Amsterdam and the Secession Vienna.

To Be Found
Ai Weiwei

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Year: 2014

Ai Weiwei’s sculpture is composed of three cylindrical pits filled with broken crockery, soil and peat. The pits are 100 metres long, forming an isosceles triangle. The crockery buried in the ground is a replica of a famous Chinese temple vase from the 14th century, depicting strategist and teacher Wang Yi seated on a chariot drawn by a tiger and a panther. Despite being clearly material, with volume and weight (over 300 kg), the project is invisible and inaccessible to the viewer. The idea was for the artwork to function as a conceptual myth, a sort of urban legend.

Ai Weiwei, To be found, 2015, photo by Nicolas Grospierre

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a visual artist, architect and political activist. He was born in 1957 in Beijing, where he still lives and works. During 1981–1993, he lived in New York, where he studied design and gained exposure to Western art and literature.
Ai is the author of numerous art installations and architectural objects all over the world. Apart from his artistic activity, he also runs his architectural studio FAKE Design. In 2009, after the catastrophic earthquake in the Sichuan province, Ai became involved in robust criticism of the Chinese government. As a result, in 2011 Ai was imprisoned, his Shanghai studio demolished, and the artist sued for tax evasion.

Make Yourself At Home
Honorata Martin

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Year: 2015

In the summer of 2015, Honorata Martin moved into the Bródno Sculpture Park for several weeks. It was the realization of the idea of a social sculpture using interpersonal relations as the primary material. She identified the need to use visual arts as a form of communication. Painting, sculpture and drawing became the foundation for a community of Bródno residents who participated in her performance. Two material traces are left from this elusive activity: the sculpture Face (in cooperation with sculptor Michał Znojek) installed where her tent was set up, and pavement paintings of texts by local poet Andrzej Przybysz

Honorata Martin, Make Yourself At Home, 2015, fot. Monika Kozub

Honorata Martin

Honorata Martin (born 1984) is a painter, performer and multimedia artist. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, where she currently works as a tutor in the Workshop of Audiovisual Space. She has taken part in numerous exhibitions, including Rainbow in the Dark (Malmö Konstmuseum, 2015), As You Can See: Polish Art Today (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2014), and Curator Libera: The Artist in the Time of Hopelessness (BWA Wrocław, 2013). She is recipient of many prestigious art awards.

Untitled (Painting Interventions)
Katarzyna Przezwańska

Year: 2010
Medium: painting, industrial paint, more than ten painting “interventions” within the area of a park
Format: variable

Przezwańska performed a dozen painting interventions in Park Bródnowski using the area’s “natural” features. Her abstract painting appears in relation to cracks in the sidewalk, concrete pathways, asphalt holes and found park infrastructure: pots, reservoirs, benches. She noticed worn construction materials and used found objects with sculptural properties. The colours are mostly borrowed from the façades of nearby buildings.

Katarzyna Przezwańska, painting intervention, 2010, fot. Bartosz Stawiarski

Katarzyna Przezwańska

Born in 1984, Przezwańska graduated from the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Her work reflects her interest in modernism and modernist utopias as well as the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century. A crucial feature of her work is colour and its perception with reference to spatial properties of architecture. Przezwańska’s works take the form of abstract, three-dimensional images, full of colour inspired by the nearest urban surroundings.

Stall bar
Nik Kosmas

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Ed.: unikat
Year: 2016
Medium: sculpture/object
Format: 250×90×100 cm

Stall bars are one of the most basic and universal pieces of strength and stretching exercise equipment. They go back to the early 19th century when Swedish physical education pioneer Pehr Henrik Ling created an exercise device to help with his arthritis. With the support of the King of Sweden, he founded a national institute teaching gymnastics as an art. Nik Kosmas is fascinated by the open form and multi-functionality of the devices. He maintains they can be used not only for an endless range of exercises, but also for drying towels, installing shelving, or playing erotic games.

Nik Kosmas, Stall bar, 2016, photo by Bartosz Stawiarski

Nik Kosmas

Born 1985 in Minneapolis, Nik Kosmas lives and works in Berlin. Together with Daniel Keller, Kosmas cofounded AIDS-3D in 2006, an artist collective that produced installations, net-based works, and performances until it was disbanded in 2013. Since then, he has worked as a personal trainer and entrepreneur. Kosmas’s stall bars, meant as a practical, commercial product, were displayed and used for training in the main exhibition of the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016).

The Burghers of Bródno

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Year: 2016-2017

The monument is a sculptural self-portrait of the current inhabitants of the Bródno district. The figures were created during a series of sculpture workshops held by artists, who were joined by members of the local seniors’ club Lira, district councilors, refugees from the Centre for Foreigners, parishioners at St Mary Magdalene Church, teenagers, children from the Umbra ceramic workshop, members of a local gym, runners from the Parkrun club, activists running the teahouse in the park, and patrons of a local Italian restaurant. The idea for the sculpture was proposed by Paweł Althamer. Its title was inspired by Auguste Rodin’s famous The Burghers of Calais, which depicts heroic inhabitants of the city. Cast by the Polish Sculpture Centre in Orońsko.

Photo Gallery

Authors: Bogumiła Pakieło , Bogumiła Zawadzka, Hanna Stanisławska, Zofia Tobik, Jadwiga Kalinowska, Ewa Kowalska, Zofia Piraszewska, Barbara Dąbrowska, Hanna Piątkowska, Barbara Rosłońska, Danuta Wróblewska, Joanna Chrościcka, Roman Stańczak, Hanna Konador, Tadeusz Podgórski, Małgorzata Podgórska-Manowska, Michał Mioduszewski, Honorata Martin, Andrzej Przybysz, Krzysztof Mioduszewski, Milena Jaworska, Mateusz Kowalczyk, Marek Rąbiński, Maksymilian Podleśny, Diana Grabowska, Bruno Althamer, Tomek Borecki, Kamil Szałaj, Szymon Althamer, Michał Oleksiak, Mateusz Chmura, Krzysztof Ostrzeszewicz, Paweł Chmielewski, mieszkańcy Ośrodka dla Cudzoziemców na Targówku, Norbert Delman, Jerzy Bohdan Szumczyk, Jędrzej Rogoziński, Jerzy Płusa, Iwona Płusa, Jędrzej Rogoziński, Tadeusz Głupczyk, Marzena Klimkiewicz, Dominik Klimkiewicz, Verdiana Calia, Mattia Montemezzani, Paweł Althamer, Rafał Żwirek, Katarzyna Górska-Manczenko, Jolanta Miśkiewicz, Iwona Wujastyk, Krzysztof Miszewski, Paweł Michalec, Monika Szambelan, Kamila Szczubeł, Otylka Woszczyk, Ola Woszczyk, Monika Jaczewska, Ewa Sobocińska, Marzena Kamtarska, Marianka Althamer, Łukasz Babut, Elżbieta Rozwadowska, Tomasz Akacki, Małgorzata Staszewska, Adrian, Klara, Laura, Helena Hruszwicka, Basia Hruszwicka, Adaś Beck