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The work of Łukasz Surowiec is diverse both in form and in the range of issues he addresses. He is a searching artist, one who finds material for ever-new artistic projects in his confrontation with the world—projects that engage with many aspects of reality. He moves freely between discourses central to contemporary art. Interested in the human being and their existence, he explores the notion of the subject and its corporeality—whether in post-conceptual reflection, where the body is revealed through signs, traces, and subtle allusions, or in examining the familiarity/alienation of one's own aesthetically modified body.

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He often does this through acts of introspection, as exemplified by numerous video works featuring the artist himself, focused on his own actions. He is interested in the threshold where aesthetics intersects with engineering and medicine.

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Surowiec also discovers and brings to the center the peripheries of social reality, working and moving among people pushed to the margins. He adopts a socially engaged position. By initiating processes that can unfold further and potentially lead to social change, he employs provocation and artistic fiction as tools for influencing reality. Questions of public space—as well as memory and commemoration within that space—played a central role in a major project he developed for the 7th Berlin Biennale: Berlin-Birkenau, also shown at Whitechapel Gallery in London and Hong Kong City Hall.

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The Berlin-Birkenau project involved transporting one hundred young birch saplings from the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp to Berlin. They were planted in public parks, on school grounds, and in sites historically linked to the Holocaust, forming a living archive of traumatic memory.

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In his objects and artistic interventions, Surowiec explores and examines contemporary social relations, while also addressing historical and political issues. Significant projects that focus on social relations include Waiting Room (2013), Tears Sale (2014), and Spirit Level (2014). The aim of his artistic interventions is to implement initiatives and strategies that respond to social and artistic concerns. His work takes the form of a method for understanding public reality, with particular attention to marginalized individuals. In his practice, Surowiec addresses current social issues, often extending beyond the walls of official art institutions.

Łukasz Surowiec, The Lair, 2023, Oil on canvas, 110 x 150 cm

Courtesy of Art Agenda Nova / Photo: Katarzyna Mierzwińska

Łukasz Surowiec

Polish, b. 1985

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Łukasz Surowiec, The Lair, 2023, Oil on canvas, 110 x 150 cm

Courtesy of Art Agenda Nova / Photo: Katarzyna Mierzwińska

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Works

Łukasz Surowiec
Waiting room. Man With the red Kerchief, 2023
Oil on canvas
100 x 80 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
The Lair, 2023
Oil on canvas
150 x 110 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
The End Happens in Silence, 2023
Oil on canvas
180 x 145 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
The Second Stone, 2024
Oil on canvas
80 x 100 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
We Had Everything, 2024
Oil on canvas
140 x 110 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
The Stone, 2023
Oil on canvas
60 x 80 cm

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Łukasz Surowiec
The Stone, 2023
Oil on canvas
80 x 60 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
We Had Everything, 2024
Oil on canvas
140 x 110 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
The Second Stone, 2024
Oil on canvas
80 x 100 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
The End Happens in Silence, 2023
Oil on canvas
180 x 145 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
Waiting room. Man With the red Kerchief, 2023
Oil on canvas
100 x 80 cm

Łukasz Surowiec
The Boy With Meat, 2024
Oil on canvas
140 x 110 cm

Courtesy of Art Agenda Nova / Photo: Katarzyna Mierzwińska

Courtesy of Art Agenda Nova / Photo: Katarzyna Mierzwińska

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