FromApril 8 to October 2, 2022
Silesian Museum in Katowice (Poland) presents
Ludwika Ogorzelec
Underground Exhibition
Installations & Sculptures
Ludwika Ogorzelec crystallizes underground spaces of the Silesian Museum in Katowice (Poland).
This particular museum is located in one of the former, now closed mines in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin region of Poland. This is also why the artist has decided to display her sculptures under the name: “Underground Exhibition”. The opening is scheduled for mid-March 2022.
The solo exhibition of the works by a sculptress Ludwika Ogorzelec will comprise three sculptures formed on site in the designated areas of the museum. The first one, “Anti-gravity II” from the “Space Crystallization” series, will be a large sculpture made of lightweight linear wood pieces transported from the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw and adapted to a new, different space at the Silesian Museum. It will be accompanied by a presentation of a part of a historical series of mobile sculptures (wood) transported from the artist’s Paris studio. The second, site-specific sculpture from the “Space Crystallization” series will be titled “Slope”. In its case, the line crystallizing its spacious area will be drawn with a transparent cellophane creating a slightly illuminated white structure fixed above the heads of the museumgoers walking up or down the sloping platforms.
The third, also site-specific work will be displayed in a large concrete space known as the Single Artwork Gallery, where Ludwika wishes to create a “Transparent Rhapsody” that is also to become part of the “Space Crystallization” series. Steel wire ropes stretched between the walls and crossing each other will form a structure which, covered with illuminated glass shapes and accompanied by the sound it is to make, will create an emotional, visual and auditory space the visitors will immerse themselves in.
Ludwika Ogorzelec was born on 5 January 1953 in Chobienia, Lower Silesia. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (1978–1983) under Prof. Leon Podsiadły and was awarded a diploma of a Master of Fine Arts at the sculpture department. Since 1985 she has been living Paris. Between 1985 and 1987 she continued her creative work at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Prof. César, a world-famous sculptor fascinated by her works who invited her to use his atelier. This proved to be a great chance for Ludwika Ogorzelec to confront herself – an artist from Poland – with what was going on in the big wide world. In 1986, her works were already being exhibited as part of Salon de la Jeune Sculpture and Salon d’Automne, and in the following year as part of Salon Réalités Nouvelles and Salon de mai 44e. It was also during that time that she started cooperating with the prestigious Galerie Barbier Beltz in Paris. In the following years she began receiving invitations to participate in artist-in-residence programmes and exhibitions in the USA, Sweden, Australia, China, South Korea, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Lebanon, Latvia, Bangladesh, Greece, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Bulgaria, Spain and, of course, Poland. Her latest and largest exhibition in Poland displaying the artist’s body of work, titled “I’m Looking for a Moment of Equilibrium” (2020–2021), was organized at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art and marked her 107th solo exhibition. During that very time, Ludwika Ogorzelec’s work was also put on display as part of the “Sculpture in Search of a Place” at the Zachęta – National Gallery of Art.
