Krzysztof Wodiczko

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Krzysztof Wodiczko is an artist currently living in Boston and teaching at MIT. The son of Polish conductor Bohdan Wodiczko ^[1], he was born in 1943 in Warsaw, and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw in 1968 with a degree in industrial design, and taught at the Warsaw Polytechnic until 1977. He emigrated that year to Canada to teach at the University of Guelph in Ontario. In 1979 he taught at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and from 1977 to 1981 at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax.

Wodiczko is most well known for his over 40 large-scale outdoor projections, which have been installed in over a dozen countries. His works are usually socially conscious, and often political in nature. Examples include projections onto buildings of hands or faces of people who speak about personal experiences or crimes they have suffered, allowing the public airing of issues usually kept private. He has labeled this style of art Interrogative Design. His most well-known installation took place in 1985 when he projected the image of a swastika on the South African embassy during a protest march in criticism of the country's apartheid system.

A controversial project of his was the design and construction of a special cart for homeless people. After consultation with homeless people in New York City, the cart could be used to transport a small number of belongings, provided space for the collection of bottles, and could be used as a primitive shelter.

His more recent work involves the construction of highly designed electronic objects to encourage interaction between immigrants and the public.

Contents 1 Footnotes 2 External links 2.1 Film 2.2 Further reading

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^  Douglas Crimp; Rosalyn Deutsche; Ewa Lajer-Burcharth; Krzysztof Wodiczko (Autumn 1986). "A Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko". October 38: 36. 

[edit] External links

• Krzysztof Wodiczko at Culture.pl
• Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from PBS series Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century - Season 3 (2005).
• Wodiczko Biography at Concordia
• MIT Staff Page

[edit] Film

• Krzysztof Wodiczko : projections, directed by Derek May, 52 minutes, 1991, National Film Board of Canada

[edit] Further reading

• Mark Jarzombek, "The Post-traumatic Turn and the Art of Walid Ra'ad and Krzystof Wodiczko: from Theory to Trope and Beyond," Trauma and Visuality, Saltzman, Lisa and Eric Rosenberg, editors (Lebanon, NH: Dartmouth College Press/University Press of New England, 2006)