Ryszard Ługowski

Ryszard Ługowski - a painter, performer, and sound artist - is a graduate and longtime professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

His artistic journey began with painting, but over time he began to gravitate toward installations and performance art, situating his work within the context of two key legacies of 20th-century art: Marcel Duchamp’s conceptual provocations and the transformative energy of Pop Art.

Born in 1955, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He received his diploma from the Department of Painting in 1982, having studied in the studio of Prof. Stefan Gierowski.

He works in sculpture, drawing, installation and performance art, and is also involved in experimental film. He led the Intermedia Studio at the Institute of Fine Arts at Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, as well as the drawing studio at the Faculty of Painting and Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He was awarded the title of Professor of Fine Arts by Polish President Bronisław Komorowski in 2013. He was a multiple recipient of grants from the Ministry of Culture and Art in 1982, 1987, 1993, and 2004, as well as from the Culture Foundation in 1996 and a one-time J. Wierusz-Kowalski scholarship in 1982. In 2010, he was awarded the bronze medal “Gloria Artis - Meritorious to Culture.” 

Ługowski consistently engages with the world of everyday objects, altering their context and stripping them of their utility, thereby opening them up to new interpretations. In his work, the familiar becomes alienated, prompting reflection on the fragile boundary between uniqueness and meaning. At its core, his work is a meditation on the passage of time, the existential dimensions of memory, and the fleeting yet constant presence of being.

Over the past decade, his artistic language has crystallized into immersive sound rituals. Exploring the acoustic landscapes of gongs and Tibetan singing bowls, in recent years he has expanded his sonic universe by collaborating with Paulina Sylwestrowicz on the Sound of Void project (ex-nihilo.pl), where resonant acoustic sounds meet the realms of electronic ambient and drone music. The titles of his performances suggest a search for transcendence through sound, an attempt to make the invisible structures of existence audible, and an invitation to the audience to enter a space of contemplation straddling the line between chaos and order, memory and oblivion, silence and resonant sound.

In recent years, together with Zygmunt Piotrowski, he has been developing the project FIGHTING WITH MYSELF.

Some of the titles of his works include: Performance on Sound (2014-15), The Lone Wanderer (2014), Nitrogenium (Puławy, 2016), A Gaze from the Abyss (2016), The Gentle Touch of Gravity (Orońsko, 2016), Sounds of Light (2017), On the Verge of Chaos (2017), Mare Infinitum (2017), Time Crystals (2018), Nanga Parbat – The Dream (2018), Butterfly’s Wing (2019), Te Byt (2019), and Hommage à Bieżan at the Warsaw Autumn Festival (2019–2024) - reveal the philosophical and poetic dimensions of his work.

He has participated in exhibitions at, among others: the Marc Chagall Museum in Vitebsk, the Polish Institute in Stockholm, the City Library in Kassel, the Sixth Line Gallery in Minsk, Belarus, the Borej Art Center in St. Petersburg, Zachęta Gallery - Warsaw, RODA STEN Gallery - Gothenburg, Mazovian Center for Contemporary Art - Radom, Villa Reale - Monza, Platform - Vaasa, Kunsthalle - Bergen, Królikarnia - Warsaw, Städtische Museum - Regensburg, Humboldt - Berlin, MCSW “Elektrownia” - Radom, Rom-8 Gallery, State Academy of Fine Arts - Bergen, EL Gallery - Elbląg, CRP - Orońsko, Museum of Polish History - Warsaw, Art Nouveau Museum - Płock, UNESCO AIAP Committee, Port Hercule - Monaco, Mark Rothko Art Center - Daugavpils, Latvia, PERFOMEDIA - Bergamo 2023, Syracuse 2025, Black Market - Kassel 2025, and many other venues, where he has staged performance art pieces. He is the author of writings on art and his own artistic practice.