Miroslaw Balka

Lives and works in Warsaw and Otwock, Poland.

Miroslaw Balka was born in 1958 in Warsaw, Poland. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1985 and worked on activities in group consciousness, Neue Bieriemiennost, from 1986 to 1989. In 1991 he received the Mies van der Rohe Stipendium in Krefeld, Germany. Balka is a member of Akademie der Kunste, Berlin and runs the Spatial Activities Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

Balka is active in the fields of sculpture, drawing and video. In 2009, his work How It Is, was the 10th Unilever Series commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London.

Balka has had numerous solo exhibitions internationally including: De Appel, Amsterdam (1991); Galeria Foksal, Warsaw (1991); Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld (1992); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (1992); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1994); Tate Gallery, London (1995); Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo (1997); IVAM, Valencia (1997); National Museum of Art, Osaka (2000); Galeria Zacheta, Warsaw (2001); SMAK, Gent (2001); Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (2001); Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2002); Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (2002); Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2002); Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg; K21, Düsseldorf;  Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2002); Modern Art, Oxford (2009); Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (2010); Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2010); CCA, Warsaw (2011); Akademie der Kunste, Berlin (2010).

He has exhibited in major international group exhibitions including: Metropolis, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Possible Worlds, ICA and Serpentine Gallery, London; Documenta IX, Kassel; 9th and 15th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney; Rites of Passage, Tate Gallery, London; The Carnegie International 95, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Distemper, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; 24th Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, 1st Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, Between Cinema and a Hard Place, Tate Modern, London; 44th, 50th and 51st Venice Biennale, Venice, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe.

In 1997, Balka created a memorial in Stockholm dedicated to the victims of the 1994 Estonia ferry disaster.