Mirosław Bałka's First Italian Retrospective Opens at Pirelli HangarBicocca

Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan has inaugurated CROSSOVER/S, the first Italian retrospective of Polish artist Mirosław Bałka (born 1958 in Warsaw). The exhibition presents eighteen monumental installations spanning sculptures, installations, and videos from the 1990s to the present, including a new work, Holding the Horizon (2016), a video conceived specifically for the Milan venue. Bałka transforms elements and events from his biography into works that explore the relationship between the visible and invisible, using materials such as wood, salt, ash, soap, cement, and steel. His early 1990s shift from anthropomorphic forms to symbolic objects like beds, platforms, and fountains alludes to human presence without depicting it. The exhibition is curated with Vicente Todolí, and Bałka notes that the darkness of HangarBicocca amplifies the physical and perceptual experience, allowing the works to engage with contemporary European history and politics. Key works include Soap Corridor (1995), Cruzamento (2007), 200 x 760 x 550 The Right Path (2008-2015), Yellow Nerve (2012-2015), Wege zur Behandlung von Schmerzen (2011), 7 x 7 x 1010 (2000), Common Ground (2013-2016), and BlueGasEyes (2004). The exhibition runs in the Navate space, which Bałka describes as surpassing any European exhibition standard, and challenges the artist to reinterpret works originally created for smaller architectures.