Małgorzata Mirga-Tas

In 2022, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas came to the attention of abroad art public through her contribution to the Polish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. The walls of the pavilion were covered with handsewn textile collages that Mirga-Tas had made together with relatives. Titled Re-enchanting the World, the work symbolized the marginalization of Sinti and Roma, an ethnic group that throughout history has been cruelly persecuted, especially during the Holocaust. Małgorzata Mirga-Tas’s colorful pictures are fascinating in their form, brilliant in their condensation of narrative, and portrait-like and haunting in their depiction. The fabrics derive from the closets of the members of the artist’s community. Her patchwork technique, her use of secondhand fabrics, and the “sisterhood” (Mirga-Tas) of women who come together in the production of the works are an expression of transcultural interdependencies and changing inspirations within the European Roma and Sinti. Through the explicitly feminist and inclusive nature of Mirga-Tas’s work, women’s historiography is actively pursued and deliberately used to expand the male-determined canon.

Using needle, thread, fabric, and the cultural narratives of the Roma and Sinti, Mirga-Tas overwrites social stereotypes, conflicts, misunderstandings, and prejudices that exist toward this ethnic minority. Her textile works symbolically repair the relationships between the marginalized group in the fabric of European societies and at the same time reconcile the art canon with its folkloric sources. The examination of Mirga-Tas’s work, which uses the sensual means of visual art to create an unbiased and direct approach, enables viewers to confront their own prejudices.

For Kunsthaus Bregenz, Mirga-Tas will not only be presenting textile works but is also planning a series of newly developed, elaborately produced sculptures made of wax. These will include animals, such as bears, that reside in the artist’s hometown of Czarna Góra in the densely wooded Tatra Mountains in the south of Poland, as well as life-size figures of men. Kunsthaus Bregenz, with its impressive architecture and unique atmosphere, is the ideal place to give these new works the space they deserve.

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (b. 1978, Zakopane) lives and works in Czarna Góra. Her portrayals adopt the perspective of “minority feminism,” consciously advocating for women’s strength while also acknowledging the artist’s own cultural roots. She was the official Polish representative at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, the first Roma artist to represent any country. In 2024 she graduated from the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Her works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at Tate St Ives, Bonnefanten in Maastricht, both in 2024; the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Sevilla, Barbican in London, the Brücke Museum in Berlin, and Göteborgs Konsthall, all in 2023; the International Cultural Centre in Kraków, 2023; the Polish Sculpture Center in Oronsko and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, both in 2020; and the Moravian Gallery in Brno in 2017. Additionally, she participated at the Kortrijk Triennial in 2024, at the 14th Gwangju Biennale in 2023,
at documenta 15 in Kassel in 2022, at the Guangzhou Triennale in China in 2021, at the 3rd Autostrada Biennale in Prizren in 2021, at the Art Encounters Biennale in Timișoara in 2019 and 2021, as well as at the 11th Berlin Biennale in 2020.