Born in 1984 in Toruń, he graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In 2016, Kwietnicki received an MFA diploma with distinction under the supervision of Profesor Marian Stępak specialising in Intermedia and Multimedia at the Intermedia Visual Arts Department. Kwietnicki deals mainly with installations and objects, as well as performance art. His projects address the issues of social relations at various levels, from small units such as the family, to the identity crisis related to national affiliation. In 2012–2013, he collaborated with the “Signs of Time” Centre for Contemporary Art in Toruń within the artistic-educational project PRZEprojekt. Co-founder and member of the Toruń-based self-education group GnW (Group upon the Vistula), which gathers artists, curators and researchers who work with methods and strategies of self-education. He has participated in many artistic, educational and social activities.
Maciej Kwietnicki, Borders [GA], installation, 2016, photo by Kacper Gorysz
Polish artist puts a menacingly looking gate with a barbed wire in a gallery, exploiting our own fears against all borders. An aggressive light, darkening of the room, all of this is there to create a feeling of danger as if we were trespassing illegally. Paradoxically and ironically, the gate has the sign „Welcome”. It reminds us why we actually want to put borders and fences in the first place, reminding us both of land borders as well as private gated estates or guarded buildings. The artist wants us to confront our fears against borders, both reasons why we establish them and against crossing them, so that we could go beyond them and see through the reasons which make us fence ourselves against others.
