Piotr Uklański

Piotr Uklański (born 1968) is a Polish-American contemporary artist, director and photographer who has produced art since the mid 1990s which have explored themes of spectacle, cliché, and tropes of modern art. Many of his pieces and projects take well-known, overused, sometimes sentimental subjects and tropes and both embraces and subverts them. Untitled (Dance Floor) is one of his best known works which took a minimalist grid floor in the gallery and developed it into a disco dance floor activated with sound and lit with bright colors. His works have been featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Migros Museum of Contemporary Art in Zurich, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Early work and influences Piotr Uklański is from Warsaw, Poland, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts. He later moved to New York where he studied photography at Cooper Union and received his Masters in Fine Arts in 1995 One of his early works, The Nazis (1999), was shown at The Photographers' Gallery in London and lead to controversy as it displayed photographs of actors who had portrayed Nazis in film.

Materials and style

Installed in front of the building of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin Uklański uses a variety of media, mediums, and materials, including paintings, collage, fiber, art, installation, and photography. Photography can be considered his primary media, but the materials in his art range from resin paintings, collage, to pencil shavings, colored graphite, and ceramics. Uklański has also released a feature film called Summer Love: The First Polish Western. His works have been displayed in galleries and well-known museums around the world;

The style of Uklański's work is as wide-ranging as his use of materials. His work has challenged societal views on death and sex, and also often explores political movements as they intersect with society and media. In his 2015 exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fatal Attraction: Piotr Uklański Photographs, and Fatal Attraction: Piotr Uklański Selects from the Met Collection, Uklański's styles were distinct both in his own work, and through the generally shocking choices of photographs he collected from the museum's archives. One of his sculptures, Untitled (Polonia) (2005), is minimalist but monumental, made of glass, and stands as a response to a political event.

Major works

Dance Floor Created in 1996, this installation piece is composed of glass, an aluminum-raised floor structure and computer-controlled LED and sound system. It is a fully functioning disco dance floor with synchronized music. It creates an atmosphere for social interaction where the viewers complete the piece. Uklański stated that he wanted to create a work whose goal was to give the viewer pleasure. Uklański has since stated, "I don’t really understand why anyone would see this work as controversial. ... It’s not abusing anybody, it’s just things that are picked out from the world out there." to "provide witty commentary—from a European perspective—on how Americans approach even their moments of pleasure as forms of work and self-improvement."

Exhibition history

Selected solo exhibitions 1993 – Pojedynek w pojedynke / Dueling Alone, BWA Gallery, Sandomierz 1995 – Zycie jakie powinno byc / Life As It Should Be, Grodzka Gallery, Lublin 1998 – More Joy of Photography, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York 1999 – The Nazis, Photographer's Gallery, London 1999 – Peace, Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Zurich 2000 – A Norwegian Photograph, Fotogalleriet, Oslo 2004 – Piotr Uklański- Earth, Wind and Fire, Kunsthalle, Basel 2005 – Polonia, Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, Paris 2007 – A Retrospective, Vienna Secession, Vienna 2008 – White – Red, Gagosian Gallery, New York 2008 – Expanding the Frame Film Series, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA 2009 – Brut, Gagosian Gallery, London 2010 – The Year We Make Contact – Taduesz Kantor and Piotr Uklański, Art Stations Foundation, Poznan 2011 – Discharge, Gagosian Gallery, New York 2012 – Forty and Four, Zacheta Galeria Narodowa Sztuki, Warsaw 2014 – Piotr Uklański: Floored, Gagosian Gallery, New York 2015 – Fatal Attraction: Piotr Uklański Photographs, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Selected group exhibitions 1996 – Contemporary Art of Central Europe & Japan, Beam Gallery, Tokyo 1996 – Departure Lounge, P.S.1 Museum, New York 1997 – Assuming Positions, Institute of Contemporary Art, London 1998 – Manifesta 2, Casino Museum, Luxembourg 1998 – I love NY, Museum Ludwig, Cologne 2000/2001 – Let's Entertain, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Portland Art Museum, Portland; Musee National d' Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City; Miami Art Museum, Florida 2002 – Art Biennale in Tirana 2003 – International Art Biennale in Venice 2004 – International Art Biennale in São Paulo 2005 – Art Biennnale in Lyon 2008 – 5th Biennale in Berlin 2009 – Remembering Henry's Show. Selected works 1978-200, The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, USA 2009 – Meet Me Inside, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, USA 2010 – Whitney Biennal, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2010 – Busan Biennale, Busan, Korea