Artur Żmijewski
from the Selected Works series
Barbara, Helena, Zofia
Three women, Barbara, Helena and Zofia, are the protagonists of three films from the collection of the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, part of Żmijewski’s Selected Works (2006– 2012) series. The main subject of the videos is work, in this case physical work of low social prestige: Barbara is a tram driver, Helena cleans houses and Zofia is a hotel maid. The structure of all the pieces is the same: the artist accompanies each woman with a camera around the clock, recording what is happening in their private and professional lives. All three work in low-paid jobs that do not provide any opportunities for personal growth, which, in a sense, makes them socially disadvantaged. The Selected Works series (selected by the artist, but the title also refers to a phrase often used in artistic résumés) can be considered another statement by Żmijewski on the issue of exclusion, which preoccupied him at the time.
Artur Żmijewski
(b. 1966) a visual artist, the author of films, objects, installations and photographs, a curator and author of publications in the field of contemporary
art. He studied at the Faculty of Sculpture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, graduating in the class of Prof. Grzegorz Kowalski in 1995. One of the prominent representatives of the critical art movement in Poland, he was associated for many years with the periodical Krytyka Polityczna. In 2005, Żmijewski represented Poland at the 51st International Art Biennale in Venice, where he showed the film Repetition; in 2012, he was the curator of the 7th Biennale of Contemporary Art in Berlin.