Nadia Markiewicz

STO LAT is pleased to present Spiral and Fall, an exhibition of new work by Nadia Markiewicz.

Darkly humorous, Markiewicz’s work infiltrates existing forms—conventional games, performances, and narratives. In the works on view, Markiewicz borrows props and manners from recess games and magic shows to address circular logic and morbid ritual. The gallery space, transformed by a circular wall constructed from a children’s playground parachute, focuses the viewers' attention on the exhibition’s central video, in which the artist appears as a magician’s dove, chirping on the rim of a top hat.

The classic magician’s performance, pulling a bird out of a hat night after night, is a ritual invention of freedom. In reality of course, the bird's wings are clipped, a process obliquely referenced by the exhibition’s title. If a bird’s wings are not clipped equally, it will fall in a spiral.

Nadia Markiewicz (b. 1992, Warsaw, PL) received her MFA from Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw in 2020 and has exhibited and performed widely, including at the Zachęta National Gallery and the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. She is the subject of an upcoming solo exhibition at the Municipal Gallery Arsenal in Poznań, Poland and her work is permanently on view in the digital works collection of the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Poland. This is the artist’s second exhibition with the gallery.