Krzysztof Wodiczko

Polish-Canadian "tactical media" and conceptual artist, industrial designer and educator (b. 16 April 1943, Warsaw); based in New York City. Krzysztof Wodiczko is widely renowned for his extensive cross-disciplinary art practice and broad theoretical research, including the Interrogative Design movement and "xenology" philosophy. He staged 80+ large-scale slide/video "exterior" projections on architectural facades and monuments worldwide since 1980 and commissioned a large corpus of work across other mediums. Krzysztof is the son of a prolific orchestra conductor, Bohdan Wodiczko (1911—1985). He has been teaching at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design (GSD) since 2010 and formerly served as a Professor of the Visual Arts Program at MIT (1992–2010). Krzysztof Wodiczko was born amidst the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and grew up in post-war communist Poland. In 1967, while studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, he began collaborating on sound performances with musicologist and composer Józef Patkowski (1929—2005), Experimental Studio co-founder and director. Wodiczko graduated from Akademia Sztuk Pięknych in 1968 with his Master's degree. He soon began working as an industrial designer of consumer electronics at UNITRA, further continuing to collaborate on audio-visual performances with local musicians and artists. In 1973, Krzysztof had his first exhibitions at Edward Krasiński's Foksal Gallery. In 1975, Wodiczko traveled to the USA for the first time as an artist-in-residence at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign; Krzysztof also exhibited at N.A.M.E. Gallery in Chicago during his stay. The following year, he joined an artistic residency at the Nova Scotia College Of Arts And Design and decided to stay in Canada permanently. Wodiczko naturalized as a Canadian citizen in 1984 and received a US alien resident status (i.e., "green card") two years later. In the late 1980s, Wodiczko developed a "xenology" concept, which he defined as a "new, nomadic, and [...] undeveloped form of understanding and expression." (The name is derived from Greek words xeinos, "guest," and xeinodokos, a "welcoming host.") Drawing parallels with Pláto's Eleatic Stranger, or "Xenos" from The Sophist, Krzysztof defined the artist who adhered to xenology principles as a "nomadic Sophist." (A "practitioner of democracy, who recreates an agora, or forum, each time they wish to speak or listen.") Wodiczko first applied xenology in his Homeless Vehicle Project (1987–89) in New York City and Philadelphia. He built a mobile "cart," consisting of a storage area for personal belongings, a washbasin doubling as a table support, a dedicated bin for cans and bottles, and "just enough space for a desperate homeless man to sleep." In several instances, the Homeless Vehicle sparked public outrage and complaints from residents, who thought the cart was "taking too much space" or attracting vagrants; Wodiczko thoroughly documented the audience's disgruntled reactions, incorporating them as part of the artwork. Over the years, Krzysztof Wodiczko held numerous faculty positions, including Warsaw Polytechnic Institute (1970–76), University of Guelph (1977–79), Ontario College Of Art (79), NSCAD (79–1981), New York Institute Of Technology (1983–91) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where he founded and directed the Interrogative Design Group. In 2010, he became a Professor-in-Residence of Art & Public Domain at Harvard's GSD. He holds honorary Doctorates from the Maine School of Art (2007) and Poznan Academy of Fine Arts (08) and earned his Ph.D. (2013) from Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts.