“The images are sharp. Absolutely sharp, with formidable precision. These are simple images. Photographs that focus on an object. Only one, centered, designated. An object that photography installs in a space, its space, permanent and uncomfortable. No approximation, no effect, no gloss. Flattening and remote things. The setting up of the elements. Pieces of a puzzle that remains to be assembled. To be put together. To be reconstructed.”
__Christian Caujolle, excerpt
Marta Zgierska
conceptual photography
Biography.
Marta Zgierska (n.1987) is a photographer. She holds a Master degree in photography from the National School of Film and Theater Leon Schiller Lodz, Poland; a University Degree in philology and theater from the University Marie Curie-Sklodowska, Lublin, Poland.
She has been awarded prestigious prizes as: Prix HSBC for photography (2016), Daylight Photo Award (2016), PDN Photo Annual New York (2017) and has been ‘The Artist Of The Year” at the au Dong Gang International Photo Festival, South Korea (2019).
Her work has been exhibited worldwide: The Fort Institute of Photography, Poland; Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland;Geneva, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, Geneva, Switzerland; Reminders Photography Stronghold Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
She lives and works in Warsaw (Poland).
2020 Blush, Sintitulo Gallery, Mougins
2019 Blush, Gowen Contemporary Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland.
2019 Artist Of The Year, Dong Gang Museum of Photography, South Korea.
2019 Afterbeauty & Votive Figure, Galerie Intervalle, Paris, France
2019 Blush, Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland.
2018 Post, The Fort Institute of Photography, Warsaw, Poland.
2017 Post, Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland
2017 Post, ART Geneva, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, Geneva, Switzerland.
2017 Post, Intervalle Gallery, Paris, France
2017 Post, Filter Space Gallery, Chicago, USA
2017 Post, Reminders Photography Stronghold Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
2019 Afterbeauty, Rituals I: Correlations, Fotogalerie Wien, Austria.
2019 Takeover, PGS National Gallery, Sopot, Poland.
2019 Votive Figure, Polyptyque / Galerie Intervalle, Marseille, France.
2019 Afterbeauty, Artgenève / Gowen Contemporary Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland.
2018 Post, Galeristes Art Fair / Galerie Intervalle, Paris, France
2019 Afterbeauty, Artgenève / Gowen Contemporary Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland.
2018 Angst, Museum Dr. Guislain, Gent, Belgium.
2018 5 x 2 = 10, Gowen Contemporary Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland.
2017 Post, Unseen Photo Fair Amsterdam / Galerie Intervalle, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2017 Drift, Beirut Art Fair / Gowen Contemporary Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon.
2017 Post, Backlight Photo Festival, Tampere Art Museum, Finland.
2016 Post, Festival Circulation(s), Paris, France.
2016 Post, Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum, Greece.
2016 Post, FotoLeggendo Festival, Rome, Italy.
2016 Post, Encontros da Imagem International Photography Festival, Braga, Portugal
2016 Post, Bitume Photofest, Lecce, Italy.
2016 Celeste Visible White Photo Prize, Fondazione Studio Marangoni Gallery, Florence, Italy.
2016 Post, Prix HSBC pour la Photographie, PAD Paris, France
2016 Post, Prix HSBC pour la Photographie, Parcours Saint‐Germain, Paris, France; Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris, France; Gowen Contemporary Gallery, Geneva, Suisse; Musee de la Photographie André Villers, Mougins, France; L’Arsenal, Metz, France; Arrêt sur l’Image Galerie, Bordeaux, France; Galerie Sintitulo, Mougins, France
2016 Salon of New Photography, Raster Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2015 LensCulture Emerging Talents, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, USA
2015 Post, Malmo Fotobiennal, Sweden.
2015 Post, Poznan Photo Diploma Award, Maison de la Photographie, Lille, France
2015 Post, Poznan Photo Diploma Award, Biennale of Photography in Poznan, Poland.
2015 Post, DongGang International Photo Festival, South Korea.
2015 Post, Pa-ta-ta Festival, Granada, Spain.
2015 Post, Rencontres de Ghar el Melh, Tunisia.
2014 Future Condition, Photokina, Cologne, Germany.
2014 Estreet, East Poland House in Brussels, Belgium.
2014 Eastreet, KD Gallery, Nancy, France
2014 Eastreet, Lublin, Poland
2012 Oskoma, FF / Imaginarium Gallery, Lodz, Poland
2012 TIFF Festival Debuts Section, Varsovie, Poland
2012 Private Property, TIFF Festival, Varsovie, Poland
2012 Fashion choc moglo byc inaczej, OFFPiotrkowska, Lodz, Poland
2012 Historie Obecnosci, Fotofestiwal, PWSFTviT, Lodz, Poland
2012 Ostatni Seans, 2b+r Gallery, Varsovie, Poland
2012 Port Praski, MFFM, Jaroslaw, Poland
2011 Ostatni Seans, Fotofestiwal, The Cinematography Museum, Lodz, Poland
2011 Lodz. Widoki poza pamiecia, Skwer, Varsovie, Poland
2010 Come On! Come Closer, Osrodek Propagandy Sztuki, Lodz, Poland.
2019 Nomination for the DZ BANK Art Collection scholarship, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2019 Artiste de l’année, DongGang International Photo Festival, South Korea
2019 Finaliste de la Bourse du Talent, Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris, France
2019 Finaliste de Hariban Award, Kyoto, Japan
2018 Nominée au Foam Paul Huf Award, Amsterdam, Pays Bas
2018 Shortlistée au Lucie Foundation Emerging Artist Scholarship, Los Angeles, USA
2018 2e place au: International Festival of Photography PhotoVisa, The Silence Award, Krasnodar, Russia
2017 Gagnante du PDN Photo Annual, Photo Books, New York, USA
2016 Lauréate du Prix HSBC pour la Photographie, Paris, France
2016 Gaganante du Daylight Photo Awards, USA
2016 Nominée au ING Unseen Talent Award, Amsterdam, Pays Bas
2016 Gagnante du Foto Leggendo Giovanni Tabo Prize, Rome, Italy
2016 Gagnante du Kolga Tbilisi Photo Award, Best Conceptual Photo Project, Georgia
2016 Finaliste du International Photography Award Emergentes dst, Encontros da Imagem International Photography Festival, Braga, Portugal
2016 Finaliste de: Encontros da Imagem International Photography Festival, Discovery Award Under 30, Braga, Portugal
2016 Mention honorable de Best Photography Book from Central and Eastern Europe 2015/2016, European Month of Photography, Bratislava, Slovakia
2016 Finaliste de Celeste Visible White Photo Prize, Florence, Italy
2016 Shortlistée de Latent, Rome, Italy (shortlisted)
2016 Finaliste de Nera di Verzasca Award, Verzasca Foto Festival, Sonogno, Switzerland
2016 Gagnante de Photonic Moments Month of Photography, Evening Projections, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2016 Mention honorable de Young Talents of Image: Storytelling, FP Magazine, Milan, Italy
2015 Gagnante de Lens Culture Emerging Talent Awards, Amsterdam, Pays Bas
2015 Shortlistée de Lucie Foundation Emerging Artist Scholarship, Los Angeles, USA
2015 Shirtlistée de Vevey International Photo Award, Switzerland
2015 Shortlistée de Guernsey Photography Festival International Competition
2015 Finaliste de Poznan Photo Diploma Award, Poland
2015 Finaliste de Przetwornia Project, expert: Rafal Milach, Cracovie, Poland
2012 Mention honorable de l’International Photography Awards, Los Angeles, USA
2012 Gagnante de TIFF Festival, Debuts Section, Varsovie, Poland
2012 Gagnante du MFFM Festival, Jaroslaw, Poland
2010 Mention honorable de l’International Photography Awards, Los Angeles, USA
2010 Prix spécial de Portrait Empik Photo, Poland
2010 Finaliste de Grand Press Photo, Varsovie, Poland.
2019 Mazovia Creative Award, Varsovie, Poland
2019 CreArt Residency, Kaunas, Lithuania
2019 Within the Frame of Sopot Residency, Sopot, Poland
2018 Grant of the Mayor of the City of Lublin, Poland
2017 Polish Culture Around the World, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Varsovie, Poland
2016 Reminders Photography Stronghold Grant and Residency, Tokyo, Japan
2016 Photography Grant, Fine Art Category (2nd place winner)
2015 Polish Culture Around the World, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Varsovie, Poland.
2019 Afterbeauty, Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland
2016 Post, Actes Sud, Arles, France
2012 Private Property, Instytut Kultury Wizualnej, Warsaw, Poland (collective)
GUP Magazine, Unseen Magazine, LensCulture, The Eyes, L’Oeil de la Photographie, Fotoroom, Fotografia Magazine, Photoworks, Paper Journal, Fisheye Magazine, De l’air Magazine, Magazyn SZUM, Aspiracje, Arteon, Hunger Magazine, Life Framer, Jungle Magazine, Der Greif, Blow Magazine, Musee Magazine, dienacht, Aint-Bad Magazine, iGNANT, Vostok, This Orient, Thisispaper, Sajinyesul, SMBHmag, F-Stop Magazine, Unless you will
Eastreet (collective book)
—
Selection of texts and interviews
Critique by Carine Bovey, Post tenebras vanitas, “Le Chat Perché”, Genève, Suisse, Octobre 2019 [FR]
Text by Kamila Dworniczak, Afterbeauty, “Arteon”, Poznań, Poland, Juin 2019 [PL]
Essai by Iwona Kurz, Post pictura. Photo-bio-graphy, in: Marta Zgierska, Afterbeauty, Monograph, Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland, Février 2019 [PL] [EN] [FR]
Essay by Zofia Krawiec, What is left after beauty?, in: Marta Zgierska, Afterbeauty, Monograph, Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland, Février 2019 [PL] [EN] [FR]
Text by Laura Gowen, artgenève, Gowen Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland, Janvier 2019 [FR] [EN]
Critique by Joanna Kinowska, Post, czyli co?, “Przekrój”, Warsaw, Poland, March 2018 [PL]
Text by Adam Mazur, Post, curatorial text, The Fort Institute of Photography, Varsovie, Pologne, Février 2018 [PL] [EN]
Text by Sophie Charlotte Hoffmann, Pure gray, the color of resignation and silence. A series by Marta Zgierska, “THIS ORIENT”, Munich, Allemagne, Novembre 2017 [EN]
Interview by Joanna L. Cresswell, Marta Zgierska, “Unseen Magazine”, Amsterdam, Netherlands, September 2017 [EN]
Text by Darren Campion, Marta Zgierska, “Paper Journal”, Londres, UK, Juillet 2016 [EN]
Text by Diane Dufour, Photographie Sans Titre issue de la série Post de Marta Zgierska, “L’Oeil de la Photographie”, Paris, France, May 2016 [FR] [EN]
Text by Diane Dufour, Post, Artistic Advisor of the Prix HSBC pour la Photography,
Paris, France, February 2016 [FR] [EN]
Text by Enrico Bossan, Reminders Photography Stronghold Grant, Reminders Photography Stronghold Grant reviewer, on Marta Zgierska, the 12th RPS Grantee, Tokyo, Japan, February 2016 [EN]
_____
Exhibitions views
Selection of artworks.
_recently documented on our website
Marta Zgierska, Untitled (from the “Post” series) 2016
Marta Zgierska, Afterbeauty – Sequence I, 2018
Marta Zgierska, Selfkiss I – from the series “Votive Figure”, 2019
Marta Zgierska, Untitled (from the series “Post”) 2014
Marta Zgierska, Untitled (from the “Post” series) 2015
Marta Zgierska – Drift VII, 2017
Marta Zgierska, Votive Figure IX, 2019
Marta Zgierska, Untitled (from the series “Post”) 2014
Marta Zgierska – Drift VI, 2017
Marta Zgierska, Untitled (from the “Post” series) 2013
Main series
Marta Zgierska, Post
«My first photographs were like an incantation to fear…», thus describes Marta Zgierska the the infinitely silent ans slow process bringing her back to life, after the accident and her broken body. A life after, a life “post”, where the extreme attention to her own vulnerability is the only means to escape. We all know we are mortal, of course, but feeling it is another thing. Marta Zgierska will invent a language of survival through refinement, concentration and allegory. In her images, meditation upon death and the mad but clinical desire to come unstitched go side by side and one would remain voiceless and like petrified as so much grace and abstraction may constantly miss narrowly the abyss.
Diane Dufour was, at the time of this text, the director of BAL – an institution for emerging photography in Paris.
Marta Zgierska, Drift
“Zgierska’s confrontation with memory doesn’t offer catharsis, but suggests instead a maze without centre, growing ecentrically around an event that subsequently disappears, leaving only the outline of a lost, unforgettable trauma.” __ Darren Campion
Marta Zgierska, Afterbeauty
The series of photographs depicts various beauty cosmetic masks. Captured in a photographic studio immediately after their use, they get the appearance of abstract sculptures or spatters of paint on canvases, all in delicate and sweet tones of color evoking the decor of a girlie’s room. Nonetheless, this palette of friendly colors is broke by a disturbing form, causing associations with the autonomous structures, snatched from the body within sterile, medical conditions.
__Zofia Krawiec
Marta Zgierska, Votive Figure
The series “Votive Figure” refers to votive offerings. The ex-votos (thanksgiving plaques) are set by believers to ask for protection or healing, most of the times addressed to Virgin Mary. These offerings sometimes materialize as a figure in anatomic wax. Their origin is nonetheless prior to Christian tradition. For instance, a votive hand been discovered on a archaeological site in Syria. In any case, the offering often involves a form of forfeiture or a sacrifice to the offerer. Marta Zgierska covers herself in wax and dedicates parts of her body to a new cult: beauty.
__ Le chat perché, 2019
Texts.
(critics)
The Artificial Reality Of The Rough Within Beauty Sublimation
– by Cristina Albertini Bahnarel
To the images of the fragments of body covered by wax add now real indoor scenes about which we would not know to say if they are glimpses of a boudoir, beauty salons, simple workshop views or what else… It could be about a fiction narrative, some kind of dystopia, or the psychedelic expression of the genre of Twin Peaks. A narrative of that personal story of the cult of the image… With these images, Marta awakes this phrase that Louise Bourgeois (…)
Photography As A Mask Of Reality
– by Bruno Dubreuil
So here we are in the world of trompe l’oeil, of this illusion that aims at the perfect repetition of reality.
This is a genre well identified and codified in the history of art, the meaning of which has evolved over the years: first memic virtuosity, then subtle play with reality.
What Is Left Afterbeauty?
– by Zofia Krawiec
The series by Zgierska depicts an unusual, intimate self-portrait. Each sheet features the artist’s face imprinted on it moments earlier. However, traces of her image remain concealed, blurred and obliterated in the photographed forms. The concept of “taking off the mask” is a cultural archetype.
Post pictura. Photo-bio-graphy
– essay by Iwona Kurz
Essay written on the occasion of the exhibition by Marta Zgierska at Biala Gallery, Lublin (Poland) February 2019. it’s an analysis of the autobiographical approach of the artist.
Links.
follw her on her instagram
Contact us
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