Dates:
born   1964
Biography: Born 1964
Lives and works in Warsaw, Poland


SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 What Paradise, What Hell, cont'd,
Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw


Eat Me, Galeria Starniach, Krakow
1998 What Hell, What Heaven, Galeria
Foksal, Warsaw


1997 Follow Me, Change Me,
Szombathely Kunsthalle, Szombathely


1995 Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2000 l'Autre Moitie de l’Europe, Jeu de
Paume, Paris


1999 Polish Art of End-Beginning of
Century, Manez, St Petersburg


Rondo, Ludwig Museum of
Contemporary Art, Budapest


After the Wall, Moderna Museet,
Stockholm


Last Judgment, Galeria Zacheta, Warsaw
1998 Genius Loci, Kunsthalle, Bern


1997 Schwere-Los Skulpturen, Ludwig
Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest


1996 Beyond Belief, Allen Memorial Art
Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin


Institute of Contemporary Art,
Philadelphia


Art in Poland: New Directions, The
University of Buffalo Art Gallery, Buffalo,
New York


1995 Beyond Belief, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago


1994 Der Riss im Raum, Martin Gropius
Bau, Berlin


1992 The 3rdInternational Istanbul
Biennial, Istanbul


1992 The Boundary Rider: 9th Biennale
of Sydney, Sydney


FURTHER READING
Beyond Belief (exh. cat.), Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago; Institute of
Contemporary Art, Philadelphia 1995


The Boundary Rider: 9th Biennale of
Sydney (exh. cat.), Sydney 1992


Genius Loci (exh. cat.), Kunsthalle Bern
1998 Zuzanna Janin, Centrum Sztuki
Wspolczesnej/Center of Contemporary
Art, Warsaw 1999


Zuzanna Janin (exh. cat.), Salzburger
Kunstverein, Salzburg 1995


Rottenberg, A., et al. Art from Poland,
Galerie Zacheta, Warsaw 1997


Schewe-Los Sculpturen (exh. cat.), 00
Landesgalerie, Linz; Ludwig Museum,
Gallery of Contemporary Art, Budapest
1997
Source:"Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue
Date of source:1999

Description: Zuzanna Janin has consistently worked
with objects and images that suggest
the passage of time, and memories of
particular people and places. There is an
element of vanitas to these themes. In
Skull - an installation related to the
artist's work for TRACE - filmed images
of a dancer dancing with her own
shadow are projected onto the wall
through a gigantic wire outline of a
human skull. Shadow lines that follow
the contours of the skull blend with the
image on the wall, weaving through the
dancer's body. The projected grid is
reminiscent of medical imaging
technolo¬gies: a reference that reminds
us of the frailty of the human body, even
while the gigantic proportions of the
projected figures give the work a
nightmarish quality.


The projected images may also be read
as memories played out 'inside the
head'. Janin's installations invariably
link
the body, memory, light and space in
this way. Some of her earlier works
recreated spaces recalled from daily life.
Shadows of rooms she had once
occupied were reconstructed out of
parachute silk. This material is so light
that it moves with even the smallest
disturbance of the air: responding, in this
case, to the passage of a viewer through
the room. It also holds light in an
extraordinarily atmospheric way,
creating an ethereal architecture out of
light and shadow.


More recently, Janin has used
photographic assemblages to explore
the passage of time. By layering full-
length portraits of her own body with
photographs of family members who
closely resemble her genetically, she
evokes a span of ages in one individual.
In this way she creates the illusion of her
body aging in front of our eyes from
infant to old woman. Car, the work she
has installed for TRACE, also suggests
passage. The car of the title is a copper
wire network derived from computer-
generated drawings of a car in 3D. A film
in real time of the artist's daily journey
between home, studio and gallery is
projected onto the car, casting shadows
of its wiry contours onto the wall behind.
The camera has been placed at eye level
with a view of the road ahead and the
rear-view mirror. The effect is of space
moving away in both directions
simulta¬neously, like the past and the
future receding from the present. All of
these works in some way suspend the
linear perception of time, allowing us an
intimation of eternity. Yet equally, they
all have a documentary quality, as Janin
seeks to grasp the elusive structure of
memory itself.
Description Source: "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue
Description Source Date: 1999
Gender: female
Type: person