Monika Sosnowska’s exhibition Structural Exercises at London’s Hauser & Wirth

First displayed at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles from July 1 – September 17 2017, the exhibition then travelled to London, where it will run from December 1, 2017 to February 10, 2018.

The gallery’s website writes about the show: “The exhibition features a new body of work that responds to characteristic elements of existing 1960s Polish architecture in sculptural installations that reflect and riff upon history and personal experience. Wrought from industrial materials and objects, Sosnowska’s works ‘sample’ various architectural details that she idiosyncratically warps in order to immerse viewers in environments that are both uncannily familiar and disconcertingly surreal.”

The works show the process and result of Monika Sosnowska’s reflection on Poland’s socialist past and neoliberal present. When capitalism came to Poland in the 1980s, many public spaces disappeared, buildings were destroyed, which traumatised Polish society and Sosnowska personally.

Artnet.com explains why the exhibition is worth visiting: sculptural works made from construction materials like concrete and reinforcing rods “allude to how the built environment reflects the dominant political and social systems at play in a society”.