Paweł Althamer

born 1967 in Warsaw,
lives and works in Warsaw.

Paweł Althamer's sculptures are not always produced using matter. Some are based on such unusual ‘materials’ as the communal spirit, psychedelic experience or a journey.

Artist's works in the collection

Matołek the Billy-Goat, created in 1933 by Kornel Makuszyński, returns in Althamer’s sculpture and performances. The artist donned the costume of the children’s story protagonist a number of times, for instance when visiting the Dogon tribe in Mali. The Billy-Goat who, in the words of the pre-war poet, sets out to ‘seek all over the world what is close at hand’, in his home village of Pacanów, is an evocative device to convey Althamer’s own strategy, based both on physical travelling and journeys of the mind. The artist holds that the individual never leaves his or her home, even when a visitor on the territory of others, so foreign travel need not induce trepidation. The Warsaw district of Bródno is Althamer’s Pacanów: his own space in which to live, work and be part of a community, also on the spiritual level.

Produced in co-operation with Reaktor (Czarli Bajka, Konrad Chmielewski, Paweł Chmielewski, Przemysław Pietrzak, Lelek, Trawnik, Alek, Wilku).

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