A sculptor, performer, and video maker, Paweł Althamer (b. 1967, Warsaw) bases his artistic practice on a participatory approach to art, rooted in the belief that art can provide a vehicle for change as well as individual and social growth. After training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw between 1988 and 1993 and graduating in sculpture with Professor Grzegorz Kowalski, in the early 1990s, he began exhibiting his work together with fellow students such as Katarzyna Kozyra, Jacek Markiewicz, Jacek Adamas, and Artur Żmijewski.
He has participated in major international exhibitions and festivals—such as Documenta in 1997, Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana in 2000, and the Venice Art Biennale in 2013—and has held solo exhibitions in museums all over the world, including the New Museum in New York, the Deste Foundation in Athens, the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, the Musée National d’Art Moderne—Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Helsinki Art Museum.
