Catalogue > At random

This video rethought the role of public sculptural representations, worldwide. While often “decorative”, these sculptures are often simply objects in public spaces funded by local governments, manifesting their power in shaping both art in public realm and popular aesthetics, often giving a false perception of sculpture medium, and how it should or could be interpreted. This ongoing project was a series of video-recorded performative guerrilla actions, using sculptures located in public spaces, including the U.S., Korea, and Iran. Before performing with a given sculpture, the artist asked for advice from professional art conservators or other specialists in the field of restoration.

Wojciech Gilewicz (b. 1974) is a Polish-born New York-based interdisciplinary visual artist. The artist draws on experience in painting and video to investigate boundaries of art and space. In his recording of reality, Gilewicz uses the video camera, which can fluidly transform into a means of registering social relations, which take place “outside” his actions performed with or around his paintings or sculptural objects. Gilewicz’s art provokes reflection on the mechanisms which govern perception and its cultural conditioning. Video works by the artist were presented internationally in the framework of numerous screenings in art institutions and video festivals including Media Art Biennale WRO, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid, CURRENTS: Santa Fe International New Media Festival, and Hors Pistes Japon. His awards include grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation and The Joan Mitchell Foundation, his residencies include Akiyoshidai International Art Village in Japan and Changdong Art Studio/National Museum of Contemporary in Seoul, Korea. The artist has been part for the last three years of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program in New York, where he’s been working on his “New Paintings” series started back in 2006 inspired by NYC subway. (www.gilewicz.net) In 2017 Wojciech Gilewicz established Beach64retreat in the Rockaways, Queens, New York for creative individuals as the artist’s response to the rising precarity in arts&culture around the world. The retreat is free of charge.