'bunker' in barbican centre
2009-09-30 - 2010-01-10
London
For his first solo exhibition in the UK, Polish artist Robert Kuśmirowski transforms The Curve into a World War Two-era bunker, aptly situated in the heart of the City of London, an area which was completely levelled by bombing during the Second World War. This highly atmospheric installation – featuring a warren of mysterious rooms and a draisine running along a track that disappears into a dark tunnel – transports viewers to another reality.
Renowned for meticulous simulations of historical settings, Kuśmirowski’s installations challenge the notion of the real. A hybrid of the artist’s imagination and personal memories of actual places and those depicted in films and photographs, these works bring together found objects with elements constructed out of wood, cardboard, paint and other materials. Kuśmirowski’s installations, structures and objects delve into the personal and collective past, unearthing complicated histories and questioning memory.
In his recent project The Collector’s Massif (2009) at Bunkier Sztuki in Krakow, Kusmirowski displayed his vast inventory of objects from previous installations alongside a private collection of toys. At the New Museum in New York, he constructed Unacabine (2008), a replica of the remote cabin in Montana where Polish-American terrorist Theodore Kaczyński conceived his mail bombing campaign against American universities, airlines and other companies. Kuśmirowski’s Wagon (2006), exhibited in the 4th Berlin Biennale, was modelled after train carriages used to transport detainees to Auschwitz. Bunker draws on the Barbican Estates’ history and location on a site devastated by bombing during World War II.
Exhibition open from 30 September 2009 till 10 January 2010.
Admission free.
More info at: www.barbican.org.uk
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