Miroslaw Balka on Participation, Doubt, and the Horizontal in Art

In an interview with Artribune, Polish artist Miroslaw Balka (b. 1958, Warsaw) discusses his first Italian retrospective "Crossover/s" at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan. The exhibition features eighteen works where the public plays a performative role, transforming the visit into a multisensory experience. Balka rejects the term "pedagogical" for his works, instead describing them as tests of the mind's possibilities. He sees the exchange between artist, visitor, and artwork as a triptych on a stage. Balka distinguishes between professionalized History and private stories, stating that history is active in memory and if not alive in memory, it is not history. As a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw, he shares doubts with students, digging below zero to find undiscovered ground. He avoids the word "knowledge" in relation to art, advocating for horizontal practices over vertical certainties. Balka agrees with Robert Filliou that the artist's function can be like a teacher's, but warns against assuming every artist is a good teacher. The interview was conducted by Maria Rosa Sossai.