Bożenna Biskupska at MODERN FREEDOM in New York

MODERN FREEDOM is an international exhibition presented in the newly opened spaces of the Pilecki Institute in New York. The project is dedicated to contemporary interpretations of freedom, memory, and the experience of Central and Eastern Europe — a region shaped by violence, interrupted processes of modernity, and the fragility of political and social freedom.

The exhibition explores how freedom can be understood today in a world marked by growing political tensions, armed conflicts, and declining trust in modern institutions. The works presented form a multilayered reflection on memory, the body, history, and the mechanisms shaping contemporary reality.

Modern Freedom unfolds these questions in the context of Lower Manhattan — a place deeply connected to the global language of freedom, modernity, economy, and public visibility. Bringing the Central European experience to New York becomes a form of translation: the exhibition examines how memory of violence, responsibility, and the question of freedom function within an international public space.

The project combines contemporary art with reflections on history, memory, the body, the image, and the institution. Rather than illustrating a single definition of freedom, the works create a constellation of different experiences and tensions — from historical memory and corporeality to material traces, symbols, structures of power, and contemporary systems of control.

Within this context, a significant place is given to Bożenna Biskupska’s Demarcation of the Image 01. The artist presents a monumental modular sculptural installation composed of 58 concrete panels featuring bronze casts of her characteristic One-Legged figures. The work belongs to the long-term Demarcation of the Image series, developed by Biskupska since the 1990s and considered one of the most important projects in her artistic practice.

In this work, Biskupska constructs her own visual language based on rhythm, repetition, matter, and space. The One-Legged figure becomes an ideogram — a sign existing between image and writing, bodily presence and abstract notation. The concrete panels form an architectural structure resembling a wall or a visual script, in which the human figure appears as a point, a trace, and an element of a larger order.

Demarcation of the Image 01 reflects the artist’s characteristic approach to sculpture as an open, process-based structure deeply connected to spatial experience. Within the framework of Modern Freedom, Biskupska’s work becomes a reflection on memory, human presence, and the relationship between the individual and the system.

More: biskupska.pl

📍 Pilecki Institute New York, Lower Manhattan, 92 Greenwich St
🗓 May 19 – August 31, 2026

Curators: Tomáš Koudela, Piotr Franaszek, Wojtek Radtke

More about the event: via the organizer’s profile