Elżbieta Jabłońska (born 1970)[1] is a Polish contemporary visual artist, and professor.[2][3] She has served as the Chair of Drawing and has taught art at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń since 1996.[4] Jablonska is known for photography, film, installation art, and performance art.[3] Her artwork engages with Polish stereotypes and myths of women, mothers, and the Catholicism.[5][6][7] She lives in Bydgoszcz in northern Poland, in a farming cooperative.[4][8]
Early life, education, and family
Elżbieta Jabłońska was born in 1970 in Olsztyn, Poland.[1] She studied at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where she graduated with a MA degree in 1995.[4]
She is the widow of Polish musician Jacek Majewski [pl] (1966–2006), who co-founded the Mózg Club in Bydgoszcz.[9] Together they have a son that is a noted musician and the subject of many of her photographs, Antoni (Antek) Majewski.[9][6]
Career
Her artwork deals with clichés of femininity found in Catholicism, as artists, and in motherhood in Poland, as well as various types of social exclusion.[7][10][11] Jablonska's most famous work is a self-portrait of the artist dressed as Superman with her son Antek on her lap, in the pose of Virgin Mary with the baby; from the "Supermatka" (English: Supermother) (2002) photo series.[6][12] Her photo series "Przypadkowa Przyjemność" (English: Accidental Pleasure) (2006) documented the food remains of the artist's culinary activities.[4]
Her public artwork "Nowe Zycie" (English: New Life) (2014) is an oversized neon sign mounted on an Agricultural Production Cooperative found in the village Trzeciewiec in Poland.[13][14] From May to June 2002, her work "Gry Domowe" (English: Household Games) was presented as part of the AMS Outdoor Gallery, a project shown on 400 billboards in the largest Polish cities and led by Marek Krajewski, Dorota Grobelna, and Lechosław Olszewski.[15]
Jablonska's work was recognized through its inclusion in a major international surveys, including the 7thConstruction in Process (2000) held at the Regional Museum, Bydgoszcz in Bydgoszcz;[16] and Global Feminisms (2007) held at the Brooklyn Museum, and curated by Maura Reilly and Linda Nochlin.[17] Her work was also part of the group exhibitions "Architectures Of Gender: Contemporary Women’s Art In Poland" at SculptureCenter in Long Island;[18] "Hero Mother: Contemporary Art by Post-Communist Women Rethinking Heroism" (2016) at MOMENTUM Berlin in Berlin, curated by Bojana Pejic and Rachel Rits-Volloch;[19][20] and "Part 2: Maternality" (2020) at Richard Saltoun Gallery in London.[2]