Sofi Żezmer (Germany/Poland)
bio: Sofi Żezmer was born in Łódź, Poland, and studied at New York University prior to receiving her BFA in 1986 at the Cooper Union College for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York. In 1993 she received her MA in Art History (Constructivism) at the Hunter College in New York. She lives and works in Wiesbaden, Germany and occasionally in New York.
Sofi Żezmer has exhibited internationally in galleries, exhibition spaces and museums. Her two most recent solo shows in 2017 were at the Marta Shefter Gallery in Krakow and at The Polish Sculpture Center in Oronsko, Poland. Her forthcoming solo exhibition ‘Structural Changes’ will take place at the Kunsthalle Wiesbaden in Germany, in 2019.
Sofi Żezmer had a solo show at the Ron Lang Gallery in Amsterdam in 2016 and presented her work in an individual exhibition ‘Cloud Backup’ at DWD in Offenbach near Frankfurt on the Main in 2015. She also took part in the group show ‘New Frankfurt Internationals: Solid Signs’ at the Frankfurter Kunstverein and at the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden, Germany in 2015. In 2014 her work was exhibited in a solo show at the Richard J. Massey Foundation in New York.
In 2011 Sofi Żezmer took part in the international Sculpture Biennial ‘Lustwarande 11′ – Raw’ in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Prior to that, her work was shown in the following solo exhibitions (selection): 2011 Gallery Metis_nl, Amsterdam; 2010/ 07/ 04 Mike Weiss Gallery, New York; 2008 Museum Wiesbaden, Germany; 2005 Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco; 2003 Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden; 2003 U.B.R. Galerie Salzburg, Austria; 2002 Galerie Hafemann, Wiesbaden; 2001 BWA Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland.
Her work has been shown in the following group exhibitions (selection): 2017 Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Germany; 2016 Nouvelles Images Galerie, Den Haag, Holland; 2013 Galerie Oqbo, Berlin; 2011 The Funen Art Museum, Odense, Denmark; 2007 Westport Arts Center, Connecticut; 2005 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; 2002 Arsenał Gallery, Białystok, Poland; 1992 Zachęta Gallery, Warsaw; 1990 PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York.
Images and articles about her work have appeared among others in Flash Art Magazine, Arts Magazine, Art in America Magazine, Sculpture Magazine, Art & Antiques Magazine, FaustKultur Online Magazine, Zeit Wissen Magazynie and in the following newspapers: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Wiesbadener Tagblatt and Frankfurter Rundschau. In 2012 her monograph ‘Sofi Żezmer SIGHT SEEING’ was published in Salon Verlag, Cologne. In June of this year an interview with Michael Amy will be published in Sculpture Magazine and an article about her work by Dorota Monkiewicz will appear this year, in the forthcoming issue of the quarterly magazine of the Polish Sculpture Center, Oronsko, Poland.
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action: Word Portraits
“This project consists of several parts.
- In the city space of Sokolowsko I shall set up daily a small coffee table with two chairs on a rather busy street and ask passers by to joint me for a short conversation lasting ca. 10-15 minutes. I will be asking specific questions and directing the course of the conversation. While doing so I will be gathering words, which seem to be essential or that are often repeated and generate a ‘Word-Portrait’ of the person. Together with that person I will draw connecting lines between the words and make a ‘Thought-Map’.Afterwards I will invite the person to expand on the semantic meaning of some chosen words.
- Next I install these ‘Word-Portraits’ on the wall of an exhibition space. Next to the individual ‘Word-Portraits’ I install a large sheet of paper and transfer with stamps and colored ink individual words ‘hunted’ and ‘gathered’ on the streets of Sokolowsko.
- I invite the audience and participants of Konteksty festival to expand on the semantic fields of these chosen words. This is done as follows: to each letter an additional word (or many words) are added, which relate to the content of the original word. In this way an interactive ‘Word-Portrait’ is generated of the specific place and time”.
