"Poliscar" courtesy of Foksal Gallery

Born 1943 in Warsaw, visual artist using photography and video art; art theoretician.

In 1968 he graduated from Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) in the Industrial Design Department, Warsaw. One of the internationally most acclaimed Polish artists. Emigrated twice, from Poland to Canada and then from Canada to the United States. He now divides his time between New York, where he lives and Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is a professor of Visual Arts, a head of Interrogative Design Group, and a director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since 1980, Krzysztof Wodiczko has created over 70 "Public Projections" of still and video images that critically animate historic monuments and civic edifices. "Public Projections" with still images include: The Grand Army Plaza Memorial Arch, Brooklyn, NY (1983); The South African Embassy, London (1985); The Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (1988); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989), The Lenin Monument, Berlin (1990) and Arco de la Victoria, Madrid (1991). "Public Projections" involving sound and motion began with City Hall Tower, Kraków (1996) and later engaged the following monumental city symbolic structures: Bunker Hill Monument, Boston (1998); A-Bomb Dome, Hiroshima (1999); El Centro Cultural, Tijuana, Mexico (2001); facade of the National Gallery in Warsaw (2005) and the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2006).

"Homeless Vehicle" 1988-89 and "Justment" 1971 courtesy of Foksal Gallery

Wodiczko has also developed a series of tools and devices for urban interventions, such as "Homeless Vehicle" (1988-89), "Poliscar" (1991), as well as portable and wearable communication instrumentations such as "Alien Staff" (1992), "Porte-Parole" (1994), "AEgis" (2000) and "Dis-Armor" (1999-present).

In 2005 a major individual exhibition titled If You See Something... was held at the Galerie Lelong in New York and a major retrospective exhibition of Wodiczko's work was organized at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and, independently, at the Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Center in Krakow, Poland.

Wodiczko's work can be found in numerous public collections such as: The Fundació Tapies, Barcelona, Spain; Museum Sztuki, Łódź, Poland; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Artbank, Canada; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France; FNAC, and FNAC Ile de France, Paris; FRAC Pays de la Loire, Nantes, France; The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; The Jewish Museum, New York; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; The Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; MACBA, Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, and Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland.

In 1998 Krzysztof Wodiczko received the 4th Hiroshima Art Prize "for his contribution as an artist to the world peace" and in 2004 the Kepes Award, at MIT. In 2005 he received an annual award from the College Art Association for the "distinguished body of artistic work".

Based on information provided by the artist, May 2007

"Vehicle" courtesy of Foksal Gallery

"ladder" 1976 photo. Jerzy Borowski, courtesy of Foksal Gallery

"Drawings lines" 1974 photo. Sergo Kuruliszwili, courtesy of Foksal Gallery

"Duke of York Column" 1985 and "Federal Court" 1984 photo. Jerzy Borowski, courtesy of Foksal Gallery

"The Whitney Museum of American Art" New York (1989);and The Venice Biennale 1986 photo. Jerzy Borowski, courtesy of Foksal Gallery

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