Krzysztof Wodiczko

Krzysztof Wodiczko is an internationally-renowned artist known for his large scale slide and video projections on architectural facades and monuments. He has realized more than 80 such public projections in Australia, Austria, Canada, England, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. For Krzysztof, disrupting the complacency of perception is imperative for the public to stop, reflect, and perhaps even change its thinking; so he builds his visual repertoire to evoke both the historical past and the political present.

War, conflict, trauma, memory, and communication in the public sphere are some of the major themes of his work. His practice, known as Interrogative Design, combines art and technology as a critical design practice in order to highlight marginal social communities and add legitimacy to cultural issues that are often given little design attention. He applies the immediate force of performance to social and political problems. The rhythms of extenuating events and the brevity of each installation give his projected episodes the intensity of public, political demonstrations.

By intercepting vision with projections, he replaces an unconsidered reception with a critical one. Krzysztof began to integrate direct activism into his projects in the late 1980s with his vehicles and his instruments, articles of design that would act as band-aids – not only healing social wounds but perhaps more importantly calling attention to them. The role of art in understanding and confronting conflict becomes an increasingly significant aspect of both Krzysztof’s aesthetic and pedagogical practices.

This is true in his continued work with immigrants and war veterans, as well as his public lectures and teaching seminars worldwide. Recently, Krzysztof has also created projections for the interiors of cultural spaces as a metaphor for our psychological isolation from broader social and political experience. He believes in the necessity for intellectuals to participate actively in society forging, through commitment to resistance and truth-telling.

He lives and works in New York City and teaches in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is currently professor emiretus of art and the public domain for the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). Krzysztof was formerly director of the Interrogative Design Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he was a professor in the Visual Arts Program since 1991. He also teaches as visiting professor in the Psychology Department at the Warsaw School of Social Psychology.

In 1976, Krzysztof began a two-year artist-in-residence program at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He emigrated from Poland in 1977, establishing residency in Canada teaching at the University of Guelph in Ontario, and began working with New York art dealer Hal Bromm. In 1979 he taught at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and continued teaching at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design until 1981.

From 1981 to 1982 Krzysztof was artist in residence at the South Australian School of Art (currently part of the University of South Australia in Adelaide). In 1983, he established residency in New York City teaching at the New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury. The following year, he received Canadian citizenship and in 1986 resident-alien status in the United States. He began teaching at MIT in 1991, maintaining his residence in New York City while working in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Krzysztof’s awards and honours include:

- 2009 – Golden Medal "Gloria Artist" from the Polish Ministry of Culture for his exceptional contribution to Polish culture.
- 2009 Medal for the Contribution to the Promotion of Polish Culture Abroad from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- 2008 Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture.
- 2007 Katarzyna Kobro Award of the Polish Cultural Institute.
- 2005 College Art Association artist award for a distinguished body of work.
- 2004 Kepesz Award from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- 1998 4th International Hiroshima Prize for his contribution as an artist to world peace.

As Director of API, Krzysztof endorses IPF’s Art For Peace International (API) approach to conflict transformation as a means for people to effect change in their communities alongside other peace building vehicles such as: sport, advocacy, dialogue and empowerment. Recognizing that art is a language of its own, Krzysztof encourages the use of art in all of its forms.

Krzysztof hopes that IPF’s Art For Peace program will act as an impetus for cultural relations organizations to reassess the role that culture can play in development and peace building, and also contribute to help increase recognition of the role that arts can play as part of international efforts to build a true and durable peace in a fragile world.