Joanna Rajkowska was born in Poland in 1968 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Kraków, graduating with a Master’s Degree in mural painting in 1993, and completed an MA in History of Art from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She extended her education at the State University of New York. Her films, sculpture and installations have been exhibited in major museums, international festivals and biennials. Her public sculpture Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue, a 15-meter palm tree, is permanently installed in the centre of Warsaw and is considered one of the most iconic works of Polish
public art.

Some of Rajkowska’s most acclaimed public art projects include The Hatchling – The Line, London (2019), I shall not enter into your haven, Open City, Crossroads, Lublin (2017), Trafostation, Wrocław, Poland (2016), Rosa’s Passage in Łódź (2014), Soundlessness, Gdynia, Poland (2014), All-Seeing
Eye, Open Art Projects, Brasilioa, Brazil, (2013), Forcing a Miracle, Frieze Projects, UK (2012), Benjamin in Konya, British Council, Turkey (2010), Chariot, The Showroom, London, UK (2010), Oxygenator, Warsaw, Poland, (2007), Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue, Warsaw, Poland (2002).
Amongst most notable Awards and Fellowships are Nomination for Anni and Heinrich Sussmann Award 2019, Austria; 2012 Award of the City of Warsaw; 2010 Grand Prize, Fundacja Kultury, Warsaw, Poland; 2009 Pro Helvetia grant and residency, PROGR, Bern, Switzerland; 2007 Paszport Polityki for Best Visual Artist; Visegrad Artist Residency, Budapest, Hungary; 2006 The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship IASPIS grant and residency, Umeå, Sweden; 2001 The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship; 1998 The Civitella Ranieri Fellowship; 1997 The
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship; 1996 The ArtsLink Partnership, Buffalo, USA; President’s Award of the City of Kraków; 1992 Kunsthaus Horn, Austria.

Click to download the artist’s CV  

Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman, A disruptive desire to be where it stands, 2020

Tom Jeffreys, What branches grow out of this stony rubbish, 2019

Tom Jeffreys, Joanna Rajkowska, Suiciders, 2018

Killing Pain with Language, Alice Butler, 2015  (on Painkillers)

Dedicated to the Polis, Jan Verwoert, 2012  

The Plastic Palm and Memories in the Making: Conceptual Art Work on Warsaw’s Jerusalem Avenue, Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer, 2010

General Press

The Failure of Mankind (2019)

FAD Magazine, 2019

The Hatchling (2019)

 Death of the Palm Tree (2019)

Suiciders (Polish) (2018)

Trafostation (2016)

Painkillers (2014-2015)

Forcing a Miracle (2012)

Greetings from Jerusalem (2002)

Joanna Rajkowska, The Hatchling, Cody Dock, The Line, London

Death of the Palm Tree, 1-14 June 2019, Warsaw, Poland

Chariot, Art Night 2018, London, UK  

I shall not enter into your heaven, Teatr Powszechny, Warsaw, 18-19 November 2017  

Forcing a Miracle, Museum of History of Polish Jews POLIN, Warsaw, Poland, 2016  

Trafostation, 2016  

Rosa’s Passage, 2014  

Soon Everything Will Change, 2014   

The Light of The Lodge, 2014  

All-Seeing Eye, 2013  

The Peterborough Child, 2012, permanent  

Forcing a Miracle, 2012   

Benjamin in Konya, 2010  

Chariot, 2010  

Camping Jenin, 2008  

Oxygenator, 2007  

Greetings from Jerusalem, 2002, ongoing  

Let Me Wash Your Hands, 1994  

Joanna Rajkowska Unflattening, group show, The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art MMCA, Seoul (KR) 25 June – 20 September 2020

Joanna Rajkowska, The Penubral Age . Art in the  Time of Planetary change,  Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. Group show, 5 June – 13 September, 2020

Joanna Rajkowska, Every Day Forms of Resistance, The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw. Group show, 24 April  – 28 August, 2020

Joanna Rajkowska, Far Too Many Stories to Fit into so Small a Box, The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw. Group show,  25 October, 2019 – 3 May, 2020 

Joanna Rajkowska, The Hatchling, Cody Dock, The Line, London

Joanna Rajkowska, Nomination for the International Anni and Heinrich Sussmann Artist Award 2019

Joanna Rajkowska in conversation with prof. Ken Gemes

Frieze Sculpture, (The Hatchling), Regents Park, London, UK
, 2019

Joanna Rajkowska, The Hatchling, 3 July – 6 October 2019, Frieze Sculpture, Regent’s Park, London, UK

Female Artists and the Moving Image in Art in Poland: From 1970s to the Present, TOP Museum, Tokyo Japan

Joanna Rajkowska, Death of the Palm Tree, on the occasion of The World Environment Day, 1-14 June, 2019

Joanna Rajkowska, Illness as a Source of Art, National Museum Poznań, Poznań, Poland 

Joanna Rajkowska, Painkillers, Permanent exhibition, Susch Muzeum, Switzerland

Joanna Rajkowska, Skip the Line! Populism and Unfulfilled Promises, 26 October – 30 November 2018

Joanna Rajkowska, The Peterborough Child in Hyperallergic Magazine. Five Artists Explore the Aesthetics of Mourning, June 2018

Joanna Rajkowska, Chariot, Art Night, London, 7 July 2018

Art Brussels, Solo presentation, Discovery Section, Booth D12 – 22 April 2018

Architecture After the Sunset, Solo exhibition, SKALA Poznań – 13 April – 15 May 2018  

Suiciders, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland  

I shall not enter into your heaven, Teatr Powszechny, Warsaw, 18-19 November 2017  

I shall not enter into your heaven, In the frame of the project Open City, Crossroads, Poland, 2017  

Faces, The Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, Germany, 2017 

Konteksty, Event Horizon, 2017  

Stitching and unstitching, Markiewicz / Rajkowska, 2017

THE FACE. A SEARCH FOR CLUES, The Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, Germany, 2017  

The Beguiling Siren is Thy Crest, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland, 2017  

Painkillers, Rampa, Istanbul, Turkey, 2017  

Joanna Rajkowska, SALT Ulus, Ankara, 2016  

Making use: Life in Post-artistic Times, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland, 2016  

Medicine in Art, MOCAK, Museum of Modern Art, Krakow, Poland, 2016  

Hybridizing Earth, Discussing Multitude, Busan Biennale, Busan, South Korea, 2016  

DE-MO-CRA-CY, Labirynt Gallery, Lublin, Poland, 2016  

Hommage to Kantor, Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, Japan, 2015  

A Beautiful Darkness, 26 October – 30 October 2015, Central St. Martins, London, 2015  

I am burning Paris (Je brûle Paris), Cité international des Arts, Paris, France, 2015  

We knew the world not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent,

Goldsmiths, 2015  

Progress and Hygiene, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2015  

Vot Ken You Mach, Muzeum Współczesne, Wrocław, Poland, 2015  

The Wall. Art Face To Face With Borders, Careof DOCVA in Milan, Italy, 2015
  

The Light of the Lodge, Charim Gallery, Vienna, Austria, 2014  

A tourist in Other People’s Reality, Vestry House Museum, London, 2013  

L’ HALLALI, La Station, Nice, 2013