COURTESY THE ARTIST
Poland has selected artist Roman Stańczak to represent it at the 2019 Venice Biennale, which opens on May 11 and runs through November 24. The pavilion was commissioned by Hanna Wróblewska, the director of Warsaw’s Zachęta National Gallery of Art, and will be curated by Łukasz Mojsak and Łukasz Ronduda.
For his presentation at the Biennale, Stańczak will debut a new sculpture called Flight, an airplane that the artist, who is based in Warsaw, has turned inside out. According to a release, the work is intended to act as a “reversal of the world.”
In a statement, the jury that selected Stańczak to do the work said, “‘Roman Stańczak’s work . . . the scale of the undertaking and the boldness of the concept guarantee a monumental quality of the project and its visual appeal. The artist is not afraid to see his statement associated with questions of fundamental importance for the divided political community.”
Past artists to have represented Poland at the Venice Biennale include Sharon Lockhart (2017), Yael Bartana (2011), and Krzysztof Wodiczko (2009).