Lecture by Paulina Olowska

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Paulina Olowska is CCA's fall 2010 Capp Street Project artist in residence and one of seven featured artists in the Wattis Institute's program The Magnificent Seven. Her collages, performances, paintings, and neons are influenced by myriad sources: Modernism, Soviet and American propagandist typography, 1960s Pop art, French affichistes, American graffiti art, contemporary fashion, and beyond. Her politically and culturally nostalgic, if ironic, art practice is also informed by meticulous research into local histories in post-Soviet Poland. She has, for example, depicted in paint the cultural atmosphere of Lubelia, a Polish province known in the 19th century as a haven for intellectuals, and restored neon signs produced in 1961 by the state-owned Polish company Reklama.

Olowska holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the Academy of Arts, Gdansk, Poland. She has had solo exhibitions at Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Museum Abteiberg, Monchengladbach, Germany; and Sopot National Gallery, Gdansk, Poland. Her works have been included in group exhibitions at the Turin Triennial, Italy; the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida; the 5th Berlin Biennial; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the 9th Istanbul Biennial; and the 1st Moscow Biennial.

This lecture is cosponsored by the CCA Wattis Institute. Lead sponsorship for the Capp Street Project artist residency of Paulina Olowska is provided by the Nimoy Foundation.

Generous support for CCA public programs in San Francisco has been provided by Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.