Polish Pavilion Commissioner: Hanna Wróblewska
Assistant Commisioner: Joanna Waśko
Exhibition Curator: Michał Libera
Sound Design: Ralf Meinz
Room Acoustics: Andrzej Kłosak

Organizer: Zachęta National Gallery of Art

Architecture is built of sound. Enclosed spaces are room tones and niches are specific echoes. The ventilation systems are overwhelming noises while walls are filtered sounds of the neighbor’s living rooms. We live, work and play in gigantic complexes of sounds—their distribution is what we call architecture. But this very distribution is also a map of our social lives that we share with others while listening in, through and of the buildings. Katarzyna Krakowiak’s sound sculpture is the amplification of the Polish Pavilion by architectural micro-deformations of its walls and floor, renovation of the ventilation system, and reinforcement of the resonant frequencies. The artist does not bring any sounds alien to the building—but once amplified, they seem to become alien themselves.

The exhibition is accompanied by a multidisciplinary reader on sound, space and architecture with texts selected by Lidia Klein and the curator of the exhibition, Michał Libera and designed by Czosnek Studio. The book features an interview with Katarzyna Krakowiak, contributions by the curator, the editors, as well as a selection of theoretical analyses, essays, poems and music scores. It is divided into three sections: “Sound in architecture: reverberation,” “Sound through architecture: eavesdropping” and “Sound of architecture: vibration.” The volume brings together texts by Mark Bain, Karin Bijsterveld, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Francis Bacon, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Steve Goodman, Bohumil Hrabal, Branden Wayne Joseph, Eric La Casa, Bernhard Leitner, Francisco López and Klaus Schuwerk, Alvin Lucier, Florence McLandburgh, John L. Locke, Max Neuhaus, Georges Perec, Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Bruce R. Smith, Jonathan Sterne, Georges Teyssot, Emily Thompson, Thomas Tilly and Jean-Luc Guionnet, Lamberto Tronchin, Shelley Trower, Toshiya Tsunoda, David Toop and Paweł Mościcki.

Katarzyna Krakowiak
Born in 1980, Katarzyna Krakowiak explores sculpture and architecture with the use of various media, notably sound. In 2006 the artist graduated from the Sculpture Transplantation Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, under Mirosław Bałka, where she worked as assistant from 2004 to 2007. Significant exhibitions include Who Owns the Air?, Galeria Foksal (Warsaw, 2011), Game and Theory, South London Gallery (London, 2009). Her works were presented in group exhibitions at, among others, KUMU Museum (Tallinn, 2011) and HMKV (Dortmund, 2011). In 2007 she completed an internship at the Architecture Foundation, London. Since 2011 she has been working at the Studio Urban Interior Design (Department of Interior Design) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk (in collaboration with Jacek Dominiczak). Working with Krzysztof Gutfrański as part of the Ekspektatywa series (Fundacja Bęc Zmiana, 2010) she has prepared and published a manual for constructing your own Metaphones.

Michał Libera
Born in 1979, sociologist, producer, curator and music critic. Co-founder of 4.99 Foundation, organizer of concerts, workshops and rehearsals of, among others, Playback Play, plain.music, The Song Is You. Co-producer of a series of albums devoted to the Polish Radio Experimental Studio and released by Bôłt Records, as well as a series of conceptual-pop albums Populista. He has collaborated with Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Centre of Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Dunikowski Sculpture Museum in Królikarnia, Warsaw. In the years 2007–2011 he presented a number of programs about contemporary music on Polish Radio (Channel 2). Since 2001, he has been the editor of a musical series launched by the publishing house słowo/obraz terytoria. His critical essays have appeared in, among others, Glissando, Res Publica, Kultura Współczesna, Recykling Idei, a collected volume of his texts will be published in 2012 by Krytyka Polityczna.

Polish participation in the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale in is made possible through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.

The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw.

Media patronage: Architektura-murator