Suspended in front of Untitled (The Year We Made Contact) — a textile painting made of woven layers of natural fibers — is Untitled (Red Dwarf) — a round painting composed of thick resin impasto. This installation’s dramatic effect recalls the visually expressive stage designs created by Polish artists of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Tadeusz Kantor and Josef Szajna. The rough textures of the sweeping jute and hemp textile also deliberately draw attention to similar aspects of the Brutalist architecture of the Whitney’s Marcel Breuer’s building. Yet while certain modernist art and architecture traditions figure heavily in Uklański’s practice, this work manifests the ever-changing formal and material parameters of Uklański’s art.
Piotr Uklański at Gagosian
—Art in America (June-July 2008; via findarticles.com)
Dear Gallery: It was Fun, but I’m Moving Up
—New York Times (April 2008)
Dead Man’s Bounty
—New York Times (October 2007)
Piotr Uklański at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise
—Frieze (May 2001)
Picks: Piotr Uklański
—Artforum (July 2005; note: registration required)
Review: Piotr Uklański
—Frieze (November-December 1998)