Join us for a conversation with exhibiting artist, Joanna Piotrowska and Hallie Ringle, Daniel and Brett Sundheim Chief Curator, as they reflect on Piotrowska’s artistic practice spanning photography, film, and performance. The talk will be accompanied by a light reception.
Joanna Piotrowska: unseeing eyes, restless bodies is curated by Hallie Ringle, Daniel and Brett Sundheim Chief Curator, with support from Denise Ryner, Andrea B. Laporte Curator and Kristina Centore, Curatorial Project Manager and Administrative Coordinator.
This free public lecture is part of a series that gathers distinguished artists, activists, writers, and disruptors whose work engages with the social and cultural themes of our time. This season of lectures presents a selection of artists whose work is connected to or featured in ICA’s current exhibitions.
Registration
Register to attend this free event here. | Join the conversation via Zoom here.
Live captioning and ASL interpretation will be provided for this program.
ICA is committed to creating a welcoming environment for all visitors. For more notes on accessibility including accessible parking nearby visit our Accessibility landing page. If you require any accessibility accommodations or have any questions about the program, please contact Brittany Clottey (bclottey@ica.upenn.edu).
About the artist
Joanna Piotrowska (b. 1985) is a Polish artist based in London. She examines the human condition through performative acts and the construction of multiple ‘social landscapes’ using photography, performance and film. Family archives, self-defence manuals and psychotherapeutic methods are used as reference points as Piotrowska explores the complex roles which play out in everyday performance. Her psychologically charged photographs probe human behaviour and the dynamics of familial relations, exploring intimacy, violence, control, and self-protection. The artist reveals moments of care as well as hierarchies of power, anxieties, and imposed conventions that play out in the domestic sphere.
About the exhibiton
This presentation marks the first U.S. solo museum exhibition dedicated to Joanna Piotrowska, a Polish artist based in London whose work examines the human condition through performative acts, photography, and film. Self-defense manuals and psychotherapeutic methods are used as reference points as Piotrowska explores the complex roles that play out in everyday life. The exhibition features large-scale, silver gelatin prints of subjects that probe human behavior and the dynamics of domestic relations, exploring intimacy, violence, control, and self-protection with an emphasis on gesture and touch. Throughout the galleries, the artist creates a space with domestic references from which contrasting image placement and content create an uncanny experience that reveals moments of care as well as hierarchies of power.
About the Wieztman Lecture Series
The Institute of Contemporary Art, the Weitzman Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania are pleased to present a series of free public lectures and artist presentations that connect a group of distinguished artists, writers, activists, and disruptors to the Philadelphia public.
In their varied approaches and techniques, these individuals speak to ICA’s ethos of artistic experimentation and practice that engages with the social and cultural themes of our time. As artists, writers, and cultural producers, their artwork and criticism expand across themes of popular culture, queer life, kinship & community, and de/construction through the utilization of sculpture, performance, sound, collage, installation, and more.
In this lecture series, we invite you all to engage in conversation with our participants and become a part of an active dialogue that explores the stake of contemporary art in our society and culture.
Support
Programming at ICA is made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation. Public and Student Engagement at ICA is supported by the Bernstein Public Engagement Fund, Suzanne Weiss Doft & Jacob W. Doft, Stacey & Robert Goergen Jr., Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan, the Nash Family Foundation, Joline & David Stemerman, and by Dana McDonald Strong & Mark W. Strong.
Support for Joanna Piotrowska: unseeing eyes, restless bodies has been provided by The Inchworm Fund. Additional support has been provided by Danielle Anderman, Cecile & Chris D’Amelio, Stacey Burke Frost & Benjamin Marc Frost, Christina Weiss Lurie, Norma & Lawrence Reichlin, and Stephanie & David Simon.
The Master of Fine Arts program at Penn is focused on the professional development of visual artists. Through workshops, seminar courses, international residency opportunities and interactions with curators, writers and artists, the program provides an open intellectual framework to foster independent methods of artistic research.
