M10

Just back from the press view of Pasajes. Viajes por el híper-espacio [Passages. Travels in Hyperspace], an exhibition at Laboral Art and Industrial Creation Centre that showcases some 20 pieces from the collection of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Big names, big guns, and bigger egos that i've been used to.

Monika Sosnowska, M10, 2004. Image courtesy Laboral

Proper report will be online soon-ish. In the meantime, here's a few words about M10 by Monika Sosnowska an artist whose work i discovered at the 2007 Venice art biennale.

To discover M10, you have to open a very mundane door. Then another one on your right. And another one in front of you. There are ten of them, each leading to a plain, beige room so claustrophobic you quickly look for more doors that will take you out of there as the art critics mayhem pictured below demonstrates:

Monika Sosnowska, M10, 2004

While M10 might look at first like an abstract installation, it was actually inspired by low-income housing during socialist Poland, where Monika Sosnowska grew up. At the time, Polish administration was setting strict guidelines regarding the size and building of family dwellings. The first dimension of the living space were fairly decent but as living space grew scarce in the 1960s, the authorities repartitioned existing apartments to accommodate more inhabitants. A classification system based on the number of rooms rather than on size meant that an M2 (two rooms) could easily become an M4. M10 pushes the system ad absurdum with a ten-room unit fitting the size of a typical M1.

Monika Sosnowska, M10, 2004. Image courtesy Laboral

Pasajes. Viajes por el híper-espacio [Passages. Travels in Hyperspace] is open at Laboral Art and Industrial Creation Centre until February 21, 2011. You can already download the handbook of the exhibition.