Anda Rottenberg: Miroslaw Balka. Pursuing Meaning, Fleeing Meaning, , Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan 2017
Simone Menegoi: Social Body. The Individual and the Collectivity in the Work of Mirosław Bałka, Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan 2017
Alegra Pesati: All that Remains: the Drawings of Mirosław Bałka, Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź 2017 2017
Julian Heynen: That's How it Is, in: Mirosław Bałka. How it is, Tate Publishing, 2009
Mirosław Bałka in conversation with Rafał Jakubowicz, Documenta Magazine, 2007
Peter Schjeldahl: Polish Haiku, The Reinassance Society, 1992

"Common Ground", 2013/2016, installation view "Mirosław Bałka – CROSSOVER/S", 2017, Pirelli HangarBicocca

Mirosław Bałka

Mirosław Bałka was born in 1958 in Warsaw and lives and works in his childhood home in Otwock, Poland, and Oliva, Spain. He has been a mainstay at the world's most definitive contemporary art platforms for over three decades.

He has participated in five editions of the Venice Biennale (1990, 1993, 2003, 2005, and 2013), representing Poland with a solo presentation in 1993. He has also shown work at Documenta IX (1992), and at the biennials of São Paulo (1998), Sydney (1992, 2006), Santa Fe (2006), and the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh (1995). He is currently participating in the 16th Manifesta Biennial, Ruhr area (June 21–October 4, 2026).

Bałka has been commissioned to create a number of significant permanent works, including his celebrated Tate Modern Turbine Hall commission, How It Is (2009), a monumental steel chamber that plunged visitors into total darkness. Other permanent outdoor commissions include the memorial to the victims of the Estonia Ferry disaster in Stockholm (1997), AUSCHWITZWIELICZKA in Cracow (2010), and HEAL at the University of California, San Francisco (2009).

This October, he inaugurates a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro in Podgorica. This follows a trilogy of retrospective solo exhibitions presented between 2015 and 2018: Nerve. Construction at the Museum of Arts, Łódź (2015), CROSSOVER/S at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2017), and Die Spuren at Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen (2017/18).

His works are held in major museum collections worldwide, including Tate Modern, London; MoMA, New York; SFMOMA, San Francisco; MOCA, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; The Art Institute of Chicago; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Museu Serralves, Porto; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kiasma, Helsinki; Kröller-Müller, Otterlo; EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź; Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Between 1986 and 1989 together with Miroslaw Filonik and Marek Kijewski he established the artistic group Consciousness Neue Bieremiennost.

Mirosław Bałka has exhibited with Galerie Nordenhake since 1990; his first solo exhibition outside of Poland.

Installation view, 'ARBEIT', Common Arts Foundation, Warsaw, 2025. Photo : Courtesy of the artist and Common Arts Foundation, Warsaw. Photo by Błażej Pindor.

Installation view, 'ARBEIT', Common Arts Foundation, Warsaw, 2025. Photo : Courtesy of the artist and Common Arts Foundation, Warsaw. Photo by Błażej Pindor.

Play Video

Mirosław Bałka in conversation with curator and critic Julian Heynen, Sept 16 - Nov 18, 2017, at Galerie Nordenhake Berlin.

Installation view "Mirosław Bałka - 690 x 190 x 102", 2006, Galerie Nordenhake Berlin 2017, steel, wood, felt, 102 x 690 x 190 cm

690 x 190 x 102, 2006, steel, wood, felt, 102 x 690 x 190 cm, detail

41 x 31 x 1, 190 x 60 x 54, 1992, steel, earth, electric blanket, felt, dimensions same as title in cm

41 x 31 x 1, 190 x 60 x 54, 1992, detail

Installation view "Mirosław Bałka – CROSSOVER/S", 2017, Pirelli HangarBicocca

229 x 118 x 75 , 1975/2017, steel, terrazzo, felt, 75 x 118 x 229 cm

229 x 118 x 75, 1975/2017, steel, terrazzo, felt, 75 x 118 x 229 cm

90 x 33 x 31, 2017, terrazzo, steel, brass, dimensions same as title in cm

90 x 33 x 31, 2017, detail

Installation view "Mirosław Bałka – CROSSOVER/S", 2017, Pirelli HangarBicocca

56 x 30 x 8, 2017, wood, plywood, steel, dimensions same as title in cm

185 × 55 × 15, 1990, wood, steel, 185 x 55 x 15 cm

133 x 34 x 190, 2011, steel, concrete, leather, plastic, dimensions same as title in cm

Installation view "Mirosław Bałka – How It Is", 2009, Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern London 2009, Photo: Tate Photography

120 x 80 x 15 / DB, 2008, wood, light, dimensions same as title in centimeters [lit]

120 x 80 x 15 / DB, 2008, wood, light, dimensions same as title in centimeters [not lit]

232 x 209 x 150, 2007, steel, concrete, 232 x 209 x 105 cm

277 x 21 x 11, 277 x 21 x 11, Ø 17 x 26 + 23 x 16 x 19, 1991, wood, foam rubber, steel, dimensions same as title in centimeters, two wooden structures + 2 elements, one hanging

Ø 16 × 25.5, 1992, steel, plaster, h = 25.5, Ø 16 cm

204 x 25 x 17 and 11 x ø 13 x ø 7.5, 1990/1991, painted wood and iron, ceramic pot, fir's needles, concrete, dimensions same as title in cm

11 x ø 13 x ø 7.5, 1990/1991, detail

82 x 40 x 16, 2010, steel, plastic, wood, dimensions same as title in cm

Installation view "Mirosław Bałka - Landschaftsabfälle", Galerie Nordenhake Berlin 2008

56 x 72 x 72, 2008, concrete, plastic, schnapps, pump, dimensions same as title in cm

106 x 151 x 194, 2008, concrete, steel, dimensions same as title in cm

2 x (7 x 2.5 x 15), 2 x (7 x 2.5 x 15), 1994, steel, linoleum, soap, dimensions same as title in cm

2 x (170 x 35 x 13), 1996, steel, soap, dimensions same as title in cm

2 x (170 x 35 x 13), 1996, detail

Sch, 2000, glue, paper, steel, dimensions variable

Sch, 2000, detail

Sch, 2000, detail

Pause, 1996, " 2 x (35 x 14 x 13), 190 x 240 x 30 "; steel, steel mesh, felt; " 2 x (60 x 30 x 10), 2 x (60 x 30 x 9), 50 x 11 x 60 "; steel, felt, heating cables, ash; " O 1 x 2467 " steel, soap, detail