Born in Warsaw in 1943, he lives and works in New York, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Warsaw. He is known for his large-scale projections of images onto architectural facades and monuments, having created over 90 such projections in 20 countries. Since 1980, through his projections and other communication projects, he has collaborated with socially disadvantaged urban residents to promote their voices and expression in public spaces.
Krzysztof Wodiczko’s work has been presented in numerous international exhibitions and art festivals, such as Documenta, the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial, the Liverpool Biennale, and the Yokohama Triennial. He is a recipient of the 4th Hiroshima Art Price “for the contribution of an international artist to world peace.” He has presented his work in retrospective exhibitions, including: at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Antoni Tapies Foundation in Barcelona, the Museum of Art in Łódź, the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul.
His work has been featured in the American PBS television series “Art in the Twenty-First Century.”
Krzysztof Wodiczko is the author of books, including: “Critical Vehicles” (MIT Press), “City of Refuge: Sept. 11,” “The Abolition of War,” “The Transformative Avant-Garde,” and others, including the extensive monograph “Krzysztof Wodiczko” (Black Dog, London), as well as “Wodiczko: Socioaesthetics” (Krytyka Polityczna), “Obalenie Wojen” (MOCAK), and “Conversations and Critical Texts” (Arsenał Municipal Gallery in Poznań).
Krzysztof Wodiczko is the former director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, a professor in the Faculty of Art, Design, and the Public Domain at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design since 2011, and a visiting professor at the Faculty of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
(Source: Website of the Faculty of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw).
The work aims to provide homeless people with dignity, property protection, and a minimum of private space. The vehicle proposed by the artist does not claim to be an ideal shelter – its creation took into account the necessary compromises and the specific limitations imposed by nomadic urban existence. Although it cannot be called a home, the vehicle has the potential to improve the lives of those living in difficult conditions. The starting point for its creation were the survival strategies currently employed by urban nomads. Through conversations with collectors, a design for a vehicle was developed that could be used for both residential purposes and for transporting and storing cans and bottles. Its symbolic significance is as important as its utilitarian function. The vehicle was created based on the image of the collector as an autonomous and active individual, and is intended to serve as a visual equivalent to everyday goods used for consumption and commerce (for example, food delivery vehicles) and to build a bridge of empathy between the homeless and their observers.
From a brochure by Krzysztof Wodiczko and David Lurie, published for the exhibition “Vehicle for the Homeless” at New York’s Clock Tower Gallery in 1988.
(Source: MOCAK, Museum of Contemporary Art, Krakow)
