Zbigniew Libera (born 7 July 1959 in Pabianice; lives and works in Warsaw).

From 1982 to 1983, he was imprisoned under Section 48 of the Martial Law Decree for printing underground publications. For this activity, he was awarded the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

During the 1980s, he co-created some of the most significant independent art circles and initiatives in Poland, including Łódź’s Kultura Zrzuty movement, the music group STERNENHOCH with J. Truszkowski, the magazine TANGO, and the artistic community centred around Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek. From 1987 to 1989, he worked as a photographic model for Zofia Kulik.

In the autumn of 1989, he embarked on an initiatory “journey east” to Egypt and Israel, which lasted until the summer of 1990. In the early 2000s, he co-founded the Warsaw Artists’ Initiative and two artistic café-clubs: BAUMGART/LIBERA and, subsequently, AURORA, together with Mariola Przyjemska and Tomasz Kurzyca.

He has been actively involved in the Civic Forum for Contemporary Art, an organisation whose work focuses on the problems faced by artists and their social and economic circumstances.

Libera is regarded as one of the leading representatives of critical art. In his work, he analyses and challenges established conventions, mass culture and traditional models of upbringing, while also addressing the ways in which the media manipulate reality.

Libera’s photographs and videos from the 1980s—including Somebody Else, Hermaphrodite, Intimate Rites, Mystical Perseveration and How Girls Are Trained—anticipated the wave of body art by approximately a decade.

In the mid-1990s, he began creating the series Corrective Devices: objects produced through the transformation of existing consumer products and mass-produced items. These works included Universal Penis Expander and Body Master: A Play Kit for Children Under Nine.

He also designed altered toys—works exposing the mechanisms of upbringing, education and cultural conditioning. The best-known examples include LEGO. Concentration Camp, Ken’s Aunt and You Can Shave the Baby.

Libera has also created artists’ books, including:

• What Does a Liaison Officer Do?, created with the poet Darek Foks, published by Ars Cameralis in 2005 and reissued by Ossolineum in 2022;

• Trocki’s Ace Pick, published by One Star Press in 2006;

• Guy Innocent and Heartless, published by Profile Gallery in 2008;

• Art of Libera-tion: A Press Study, published by the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in 2019 and 2020;

• A Pile of Photographs, created with Łukasz Chodkowski and published by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw in 2023.

Since the early 2000s, Libera has worked primarily with photography, focusing particularly on the specific nature of press photography and the ways in which the media shape our visual memory and manipulate images of history. Examples include the series Masters and Positives.

In recent years, he has also produced large-format photographic works, including Mother, History Lesson, The Exodus of People from the Cities, The First Day of Freedom and Polish Hospitality.

His work has been presented in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including at the 45th Venice Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, MUMOK in Vienna, Zachęta—National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, and the Jewish Museum in New York.

Libera is also a film director and a graduate of the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing. He directed the feature film Walser, which premiered in 2015.

As a set designer, he has contributed to twenty theatre productions, collaborating with directors including Magda Szpecht, Maja Kleczewska, Katarzyna Karwat, Damian Neć and Emilia Sadowska.

He has also curated exhibitions, including The Artist in a Time of Hopelessness at BWA Awangarda in Wrocław and It Is Not My Fault That This Sculpture Brushed Against Me at the Królikarnia branch of the National Museum in Warsaw.

Libera is also active in education. In 2006, he delivered the honorary Copernicus Lecture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, United States, and taught a short course at the university’s art department. From 2008 to 2009, he ran the Open Form Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In 2017, he lectured at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw.

Between 2013 and 2016, together with Aleksandra Panisko, he produced more than fifty episodes of the television series Libera: A Guide to Art for TVP Kultura.

WORKS IN COLLECTIONS

Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
The Jewish Museum, New York, United States
Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan
Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary
Rubell Family Collection / Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, United States
Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Germany
La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
Erste Bank Collection, Vienna, Austria

Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland
National Museum in Warsaw, Poland
National Museum in Kraków, Poland
Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland
Zachęta—National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland
Museum of Art in Łódź, Poland
Silesian Museum, Bytom, Poland
MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Kraków, Poland
Museum of Photography, Kraków, Poland
Wrocław Contemporary Museum, Poland
Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum, Bydgoszcz, Poland
Arsenal Gallery, Białystok, Poland
Mazovian Centre for Contemporary Art Elektrownia, Radom, Poland

His works are also held in numerous private collections.

Contacts

Krzysztof Ogłoza

phone; +48 608519443

e-mail: krzysztof.ogloza@gmail.com