"Beware of artists bearing gifts" The Mission of Krzysztof Wodiczko

Abstract

The article concerns projects of Krzysztof Wodiczko designed for public space. It shows how his works bring to light the excluded from the social life and criticize the rules that govern the existence of individuals within capitalist public space. His art is perceived through a general tendency in conceptual art toward more socially and politically conscious art. Moreover, Wodiczko’s public works and texts appear to precede Polish critical art as a genre and are seen as one of the most important voices in the postmodern critique of universalisms of modernity.