Wojciech Gilewicz, born in 1974 in Bilgoraj, Poland. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan (1994-1996) and then in Warsaw, where in 1999 he earned a degree in painting (with an additional degree in photography). Lives and works in Warsaw and New York.

He is a painter, photographer, author of installations and videos.
In his works, which usually combine all these disciplines, Gilewicz explores the blurring of distinctions between reality and its artistic representation. A frequent motif of his practice is the replacing of elements of the real world with their painterly replicas. Gilewicz’s paintings pretend to be fragments of walls, windowsills, pavements, and for an unaware viewer are utterly indistinguishable from the originals. Sometimes the artist ‘corrects reality’ by placing ‘patch’ paintings over dents or holes in a wall. The spectator is able to find the pieces, hidden in the urban tissue by the artist, with the help of specially prepared maps or films documenting the painting process. Gilewicz usually leaves the paintings for a long time in their public-space locations, deliberately exposing them to the effect of sunlight, rain, wind or the human factor. In his practice Gilewicz demonstrates the immense power of the painting medium that is able to perfectly imitate reality, while at the same time, in a way, denying the meaningfulness of painting, because his pictures remain invisible. Gilewicz’s paintings are hyperrealistic and non-representational at the same time – they perfectly imitate fragments of reality but when taken out of the reality context and transferred to the gallery, they become purely abstract.

Wojciech Gilewicz is also the author of the photographic series Them started in 2002. This series is based on illusion – using graduation filter and double exposure, Gilewicz creates his own look-alike, twin brother, his alter ego and looks at himself through their eyes arranging situations that, seemingly ordinary and everyday, in reality never took place. The traditional photographic techniques used here do not allow for the two characters to get close or touch each other. They work, travel, rest together, they are always together but separate at the same time, divided by an insurmountable distance. The resulting situations are full of psychological tension, alluding to a search for identity and a sense of loneliness, alienation and unfulfillment.The Them series photographs can be read on many different levels of interpretation – as a present-day version of the Narcissus story, as a narrative about melancholy, or as homoerotic love.

The leitmotif of Wojciech Gilewicz’s practice is a desire to show how relative and changeable our perception of the surrounding world is and how fluid the boundaries between reality and its artistic representation can be. Gilewicz’s practice invites a reflection on the mechanisms governing our perception and on the cultural determinants of the way we see things.

Wojciech Gilewicz Karol Sienkiewicz
New Phenomena in Polish Art after 2000, Wojciech Gilewicz Grzegorz Borkowski

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (selected)   
                                              

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selected)

2010
2009
2009
2008
2007
2007
2007
2006 - 2007
2005
2005
2005
2004
2002
2001

2000
1999

Entropia Gallery Infinity, Wroclaw, Poland
Lubelskie Towarzystwo Zachety Sztuk Pieknych, Lublin, Poland
Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, USA
Biala Gallery, Lublin, Poland
Museum of Fine Arts, Iwano-Frankiwsk, Ukraine
BWA Gallery Revitalisations, Sanok, Poland
Entropia Gallery The Aporia of Painting, Wroclaw, Poland
TR Warszawa, Warsaw, Poland
Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
WAA (Warsaw Artists’ Action) Them, Warsaw, Poland
Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe, Paris, France
Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok, Poland
Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle / Laboratorium Gallery City – Estate – Studio – Apartment, Warsaw, Poland
Biala Gallery Lublin, Poland
Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, Poland

2010
2010
2009
2009
2009

2009
2009
2009
2009

2009
2009
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2007
2007

2007

2007

2006
2006
2006
2006
2003
2002
2001

ISCP Gallery There Has Been No Future, There Will Be No Past New York, USA
Bunkier Sztuki Kilkanascie koanow na (nie)istnienie, Cracow, Poland
appendix2 Like a Rolling Stone 2, Warsaw, Poland
castillo/corrales Hello Goodbye Thank You Again, Paris, France
Museum of Contemporary Art BELGRADE: NONPLACES. Art in public space, Belgrade, Serbia
Aspen Art Museum Monitaur, Aspen, USA
MoBY (Museum of Bat Yam) Factory, Bat Yam, Israel
Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu Lucim lives on, Torun, Poland
Zendai Museum of Modern Art Starting Point: Intrude Art & Life 366, Shanghai, China
Studio BWA Hidden, Wroclaw, Poland
SculptureCenter In Practice, New York, USA
Istituto Polacco di Roma Transfert Gallerie Polacche a Roma #6, Roma, Italy
BWA Gallery Hidden, Zielona Gora, Poland
Plumbers’ Hall Around the Coyote, Chicago, USA
BWA Gallery External artists. OUT OF STH, Wroclaw, Poland
Biala Gallery Remont generalny, Lublin, Poland
Pianissimo Distortion of an Unendurable Reality, Milan, Italy
Istituto Polacco di Roma Transfert Gallerie Polacche a Roma #2, Roma, Italy
appendix2 Artists Recommend Artists, Warsaw, Poland
Museum of Art in Lodz Multi-way Street annex to the exhibition Beautiful Losers, Lodz, Poland
Paul Robeson Galery Imago: The Drama of Self-Portraiture In Recent Photography, Newark, USA
Zacheta National Gallery of Art / Kordegarda Gallery Here a Change Occurs, Warsaw, Poland
Real Art Ways POZA, Hartford, USA
Centre for Contemporary Art Laznia Love and Democracy, Gdansk, Poland
LiveBox at Ravenswood Space, Place & Interface, Chicago, USA
Zacheta National Gallery of Art On Their Own, Warsaw, Poland
National Museum / Krolikarnia, Warsaw, Poland
2 Bunkier Sztuki, Look at me, Cracow, Poland
BWA Gallery Goscinna Pracownia Malarstwa Leona Tarasewicza goscinnie w Galerii BWA w Zielonej Gorze, Zielona Gora, Poland

AWARDS, GRANTS, RESIDENCES

2010
2010
2010
2010
2010/ 08
2009
2008
2008
2007
2005
2004
2004
2001/ 04/ 06
1999

National Art Studio Residency, Seoul, Korea
National Museum of Contemporary Art Grant, Seoul, Korea
UNESCO-Aschberg Grant, Paris, France
LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) Residency, New York, USA
IAM (The Adam Mickiewicz Institute) Grant, Poland
TAV (Taipei Artist Village) Residency, Taipei, Taiwan
Zendai MoMA Residency, Shanghai, China
ISCP (International Studio and Curatorial Program) Residency, New York, USA
Mloda Polska Grant, Poland
Galichnik Art Residency, Macedonia
Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe Residency, Paris, France
Fundacja Kultury Grant, Poland
Ministry of Culture Grant, Poland
Master’s Degree with honors

WORKS IN COLLECTIONS (selected)