Collection

Sculptor, creator of installations and site-specific works. A secondary school of arts graduate, he initially favoured smaller-scale work with cardboard and paper, but ultimately shifted to large wooden and metal forms. He creates objects based on actual items, their immediate environment, and phenomena filling their space. He participated in Manifesta 7 in 2008, and the next year his works appeared in Phaidon’s publication Vitamin 3-D: New Perspectives in Sculpture and Installation by Nancy Adajania and Anne Ellegood. He lives and works in Warsaw.

Critics refer to Michał Budny’s works as “visual haiku”, poetry enclosed in austere geometric form. Urban Composition follows suit in terms of styling: the cardboard surface structure morphs into a study of urban space, an abstract puzzle of buildings, low walls, streets, passages. Yet exteriors and interiors are indiscernible; it remains unknown whether the wall will protect or expose us. Jan Verwoert wrote of the work in the artist’s biography, “In emulation of a classic labyrinth, walls determine the potential direction of movement, invariably along the wall demarcating the street line.”