He graduated from University of Fine Arts in Poznań in 1993 and Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London in 1998. He lectured at Dartington College of Art in Great Britain and at Florida Atlantic University in the USA. As part of Erasmus program, he lectured, among others, at Konstfack in Stockholm and the European School of Visual Arts in Poitiers. His works have been exhibited, among others, at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Galeria Kronika in Bytom, Focus Łódź Biennale in Łódź and at many exhibitions including such cities as Beijing, Tel Aviv, New York, Istanbul, and Berlin. He works at Faculty of Multimedia Communication at University of Arts in Poznań, where since 2013 he has been the head of Interdisciplinary Doctoral Studies. In years 1994-2013 he was the editor-in-chief of “Zeszyty Artystyczne”, an artistic and scientific magazine published by Academy of Fine Arts and later by University of Fine Arts in Poznań. From 2001 to 2017 he was the editor-in-chief of “Czas Kultury”. From 2017, he has been a director of Arsenal Municipal Gallery in Poznań. He is a member of AICA international association of art critics. In 2014 he received Cross of Freedom and Solidarity from the President of the Republic of Poland. In 2015 he was awarded Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis. He works and lives in Poznań.
“Prophecy”, 2019
video, 13’15’’
Marek Wasilewski deals mainly with video. His works are often a kind of game with viewers, a picture that seems to present a banal reality is a pretext to reflect on various dependencies and entanglements. Wasilewski analyses the medium he uses, examines its principles and patterns, plays with conventions and exposes mechanisms of manipulation. This applies to both the sphere of art itself and, for example, to social issues. “Prophecy” is a video recorded in Croatia. The first shot presents a perfomatous action carried out in front of monument of anti-fascist guerrilla on Pelješac peninsula. After a while, the action moves to ruins in the town of Kupari near Dubrovnik. It is a place called Bay Of Abandoned Hotels, a tourist and recreation complex built in the times of Yugoslavia destroyed during the civil war in the 1990s. Both places are evidence of devastation caused by the plague of nationalism. The soundtrack is an independent, parallel layer complementing the meaning of this work. This found footage is an apocalyptic prophecy of misfortunes that will soon be waiting for humanity due to the coming World War III.
