Krzysztof Wodiczko

Krzysztof Wodiczko born 1943 in Warsaw, Poland, lives and works in New York City; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Warsaw.

He is a former director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Professor of Art Design and the Public Domain, Emeritus at Graduate School of Design at Harvard, and Visiting Professor at the Media Arts Department of Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

Krzysztof Wodiczko is renowned for his large-scale projections on architectural facades, and monuments and realized more than 90 of such projections in 20 countries.

Since the 1980s, such public projections as well as specially designed performative media instruments have been focusing on assisting the socially marginalized city residents in developing and disseminating their public voice and expression.

Krzysztof Wodiczko’s work has been exhibited at Documenta (twice), Venice Biennale (Canadian and Polish pavilions), Venice Architectural Biennale (international Pavilion), Whitney Biennial, Liverpool Biennale, and many other biennales, art festivals and international exhibitions.

He has held major retrospective exhibitions at Walker Art Center; Fundación Antoni Tapies; Zacheta National Gallery of Art; DOX Art Center in Prague; Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz; F.A.C.T Liverpool; M. M. C. A. in Seoul; and many other museums and art centers.

Krzysztof Wodiczko received the 4th Hiroshima Art Price “for his contribution as an international artist to the world peace”.

His works are included in public collections of the Hirschhorn Museum; MoMa, New York; Centre Pompidou; National Museum, Warsaw; Macba, Barcelona; MOMA, Warsaw; The Jewish Museum, New York; MMCA, Seoul; MMA Kyoto; Walker Art Center; and other museums, foundations, and private collections.

Krzysztof Wodiczko received a PhD from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and honorary degrees from the University of the Arts in Gdansk, the University of the Arts in Poznan, and the Maine School of Art in Portland, ME.

He is an author of Critical Vehicles, MIT Press, City of Refuge: Sept. 11; The Abolition of War; The Transformative Avant-Garde, and the comprehensive monograph Krzysztof Wodiczkol by Black Dog Press London. His artistic projects and theoretical texts were also published in many books and catalogues accompanying his retrospective exhibitions.

Interrogative Design, Ian Wojtowicz ed., a book devoted to Krzysztof Wodiczko interrogative design methodology—“A consolidated collection on legacy and the vital currency of interrogative design.”—with a contribution of many of his former art students, colleagues, and associates, has been published by MIT Press in 2024.

Krzysztof Wodiczko’s work is being presented as a part of the PBS television series Art in the Twenty-First Century and in Art 21 Extended Play. A film Krzysztof Wodiczko: Art of Un-War directed by Maria Niro was released in 2022.