Julita Wójcik (b. 1971, Gdańsk)
Performance artist, author of happenings and artistic objects. Wójcik studied at the Academy of Art in Gdańsk (1991-97) and is a graduate of its Department of Sculpture. She is an author of numerous video films, performances and sculptures, which touch upon seemingly banal topics. In the majority of her works Wójcik utilises simple household duties and housework chores, stereotypically construed as feminine, transforming them into objects of art. By doing so, she tackles the issues of gender (and its confines) as well as aestheticises the very act of domestic work.
“Peeling Potatoes” (2001), during which the apron-clad artist literally peeled the title potatoes and interacted with the audience gathered at the National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (Zacheta), made the headlines of Polish newspapers and was subsequently widely discussed.
Wójcik is a recipient of several scholarships granted by the Polish Ministry of Culture (1995/6, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007). In 2006 she was awarded an artist residency programme at New York’s Art in General and Budapest’s Trafò Gallery (2006). In 2007 she participated in the 4th Ars Baltica Triennale in Bergen (Norway).
Her works are owned by the National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (Zachęta), the Museum of Modern Art in Łodz, the National Museum in Warsaw, the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
She lives and works in Gdańsk.
Major exhibitions and solo projects:
2006 “With Hope and Impatience”, Kordegarda Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2006 “Ready, Set, Action”, Part of the “At the Very Centre of Attention” Series, Centre For Contemporary Art – Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
2005 “Sets”, Arsenał Gallery, Białystok, Poland
2005 “Feed the Heavenly Birds”, garden of the Ministry of Art and Culture, Warsaw Warsaw, Poland
2005 “From Italian Soil to Poland and Back”, Polish Institute, Rome, Italy
2005 “Exercises in Roses”, Sobótka Street Garden, Gdańsk, Poland
2003 “Tit’s Bathouse”, Konstakuten Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2003 “Knickknacks”, Platán Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
2002 “Revitalisation of the Schopenhauer Park”, Gdańsk Orunia, Poland
2002 “Sandbox with a View”, Gradowa Góra, Gdańsk, Poland
2001 “Peeling Potatoes”, Zachęta Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2001 “Pond”, BWA, Zielona Góra, Poland
2001 “Watercolours”, Ukiel Lake, Olsztyn, Poland
2000/2001 “My Garden”, ul. Władysława IV, Gdynia, Poland
2000 “Brain Washing”, Mózg Club, Bydgoszcz, Poland