Action artist, performance artist, scenery designer, creator of animated films and stained glass. Born April 15, 1944, in Garwolin; resides in Komorów near Warsaw.

Kalina was a student in the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw between 1965 and 1971. He obtained his diploma in the studio of Stefan Gierowski. In 1989 he was invited by the same department of his alma mater to lead a "guest studio," which he lead for three semesters during 1990 and 1991.

Kalina's oeuvre encompasses a number of separate, varied activities to which the artist assigns his own names. These include "ritual actions," "determinants" and "living pictograms." The artist developed his individual language of forms early on, selecting and experimenting with the materials and objects that would eventually come to characterize his art, and delineating his sphere of interests. He has focused on issues of existential enslavement and limitation, which he strives to deconstruct through artistic processes that he uses to confront everyday realities in a direct manner ("Skrępowanie / Discomfort", Victory Square, Warsaw, 1971; "Przystanek taxi / Taxi Stop", Salt Square, Wrocław, 1972; "Wykop / Excavation", "Wigilia / Christmas Eve", action art pieces at the Paweł Freisler Gallery, Warsaw, 1972; "Biały most / White Bridge", Wrocław, 1974; "Obchód / Inspection", Repassage Gallery, Warsaw, 1975; "Przejście / Crossing", corner of Mazowiecka and Świętokrzyska streets, Warsaw, 1977). While Poland was under Martial, Kalina adopted an unequivocally oppositional stance. Given his unrestrained, expansive tendencies as well as his links to the Catholic Church, his work had to generate social resonance of unheard of proportions in the realm of public art, which indeed it did. He produced works based on "official" commissions from Catholic Church authorities, e.g. visual elements and scenery for religious ceremonies (outdoor altars during the pilgrimages to Poland of Pope John Paul II in 1987 and 1991; visual design for the funeral of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko (1984) and the design for the same priest's tomb located alongside St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Warsaw (1986), a monument shaped like a cross on the Vistula River dam in Wlocławek, 1991). He also created works based on government commissions, among them the design for the chapel in Belvedere Palace (1992). More recently he has been creating objects in sheet metal and designing stained glass windows.

Simultaneously, since 1973, Kalina has been creating animated films. He has authored more than a dozen films that have won him numerous awards at Polish and international festivals. He also designs and directs original theatre productions that are presented on some of the country's professional stages ("Pielgrzymi i tułacze / Pilgrims and Exiles", premiered at the Teatr Studio / Studio Theatre in 1989, then performed numerous times in Poland and abroad; "Katapulta / Catapult", Teatr Mały / Little Theatre, Warsaw, 1993).

Selected exhibition and awards:

• 1977 - Cyprian Kamil Norwid Art Criticism Award for intervention titled "Przejście" / "Crossing," Warsaw
• 1983 - "Znak krzyża / Sign of the Cross", God's Grace Parish, Warsaw
• 1984 - "Apokalipsa - światło w ciemności / Apocalypse - Light in Darkness", Lower Church of the Holy Cross, Warsaw
• 1984 - Award of the "Solidarity" Independent Culture Committee for the visual design of the funeral ceremony for Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, Warsaw
• 1985 - "Niebo nowe i ziemia nowa? / New Heaven and New Earth?", God's Grace Parish, Warsaw
• 1986 - Brother Albert Award
• 1987 - Annual Artistic Award of the Museum of the Warsaw Archdiocese
• 1988 - Participant of the art exhibition accompanying the Olympic games in Seoul, South Korea
• 1990 - Award of the Minister of Culture and Art for the "Most Interesting Museum Event of the Year" for his exhibition/installation "Czas niepokornych" / The Time of the Irreverent, The Museum of Independence, Warsaw

Author: Maryla Sitkowska, Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, June 2002.

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