Janusz Bałdyga

Janusz Bałdyga (born 1954 in Lublin); studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Faculty of Painting, from 1974-79. He graduated in 1979 from the studio of Prof. Stefan Gierowski. Member and co-founder of the artistic group Pracownia (1976-81), co-director of the studio at the Dziekanka Student Art Center (1976-79) in Warsaw. Since 1979 he has been a member of the Akademia Ruchu theater. Currently, he is a professor at the University of Fine Arts in Poznań, where he runs the performance art studio at the Faculty of Sculpture. He is the author of drawings, objects, installations, performances, and street actions. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, symposia, and artistic manifestations in Poland, including at the Manhattan Gallery - Łódź, Donguy Gallery - Paris, CCA Ujazdowski Castle - Warsaw, Interdruck Schipper Patitz - Leipzig, Awangarda BWA Gallery - Wrocław, Otwarta Pracownia - Kraków, Labyrinth 2 Gallery - Lublin, Wschodnia Gallery - Łódź, Center for Artistic Activities - Piotrków Trybunalski, as well as abroad, including in Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland, Austria, Russia, Taiwan, Belarus, Switzerland, Israel, Norway, Spain, Japan, Indonesia, and the USA.

Janusz Bałdyga is primarily involved in objects and performance art. Over many years, he has developed his own original style / character of these artistic expressions, in which he consistently reduces language and means of articulation, creatively using simple elements such as a board, nails, ropes, water, fabric, glass, and creating elementary structures from them – a line, a circle, a rectangle, a point. Bałdyga uses the concept of "marked places", in which the sense of space and its conditions, as well as the dynamics brought into it by human presence, are of great importance. The artist's body also becomes a structural element, a tool for describing space, and a testimony of struggling with matter (Wychylenia [Deflections], Uwaga granica [Attention Border]). Balancing around the critical point and trying to activate the hidden sphere constantly accompanies his actions. Bałdyga's performative works largely suggest drawing the viewer into the space and the course of the ritual. Their social, political, or philosophical subtext leaves no doubt about the country and tradition of the artist's origin, while not erasing the universal dimension of such deeply individual messages. As he states: "I am not a commentator, but the initiator of a specific situation, which, being certainly situated in a specific time and space, cannot be free from social and political references."