Pawel Althamer

At the core of Pawel Althamer’s (*1967 in Warsaw) artistic work is man himself—as physical sculpture, an abstract assemblage of materials, as installation or specific video image, or as a genuinely social creature, which the artist uses as a theme in projects involving various groups of people. In the performance/action Common Task, for instance, Althamer has friends and neighbors accompany his exhibitions in various places; the people are dressed in gold, as if they come from another star, bringing back a sense of amazement and the innocent gaze to the world, while celebrating and symbolizing them. This is the first publication to extensively examine the spiritual aspects of Althamer’s work and position it within the political and historical context of recent Polish history. In this way, it becomes possible to see the creative sphere within this specific, European-influenced cultural space.