In November and December, in the latest edition of our project Thursdays with the Collection we present Mirosław Bałka’s work Audi HBE F144, purchased for the Museum’s Collection in September.

The work is a montage of TV screenshots showing the visit of Benedict XVI to Auschwitz in 2006. The Pope moved around the site of the former German death camp in a luxurious Audi car, surrounded by a security cordon. The title of the work is the registration number of the Pope’s car. The concern for the safety of the head of the Catholic Church was confronted with the history of a place where human life had no value during World War II.

This edition of Thursdays with the Collection accompanies the exhibition World War II – Drama, Symbol, Trauma. The work of Mirosław Bałka is also part of the MOCAK programme including exhibitions as well as publishing, academic and educational projects related to processing the memory of the Holocaust.

Mirosław Bałka (b. 1958, Poland) – sculpture, object, installation. The language of his artistic expression has evolved from figurative representations, characteristic of the 1980s, to abstract and at the same time minimalist forms created since the 1990s. The subject matter of his works is related to concepts such as the body, transience and memory. The works often draw on the artist’s own biography. The materials used in his sculptures – metal, concrete, soap, terrazzo, ash, and felt – are also very important. Equally significant is the scale of the objects – as the module is the size of the artist’s body.

The screenings take place throughout the day during the Museum’s opening hours: 11 am – 7 pm. Admission to the MOCAK Collection exhibitions is free of charge on Thursday.