Sławomir Rumiak

Born in Bielsko-Biała, 1972; graduated from the Katowice Branch of Krakow’s Academy of Fine Arts (1999); lectured at the Academie voor Kunst Beeldende in Enschede (Netherlands) and the Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics (at the invitation of Eikoh Hosoe). He has worked in photography since 1997. However, in recent years his interest in photography has been waning and he is now more interested in art as a dialogue and its ability to provoke a conversation. His exhibitions have been staged in both Poland and other countries (Japan, China, Netherlands and Czech Republic). He is highly respected in Japan, where his photo album Book of Love (published in Poland in 2003) was included in 246 Loaded Photography Books: The Edge of Photography, an anthology published in Tokyo in 2005, where he was the only contributor with a separate chapter devoted to him. His exhibitions at the Il Tempo Gallery in Tokyo in 1999 and 2004 were also well-known events. He got enthusiastic reviews in the Japanese press. His portfolios and photographs were published by the most important photography periodicals hitting the covers of many magazines (including the Nippon Camera monthly). He was also praised among other professionals (e.g. in August 1999 his exhibition was named the exhibition of the month by the Asahi Camera magazine). In 2007 he made a scale model of the Polish pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Art. He travelled from Katowice to Venice riding a bicycle and sleeping inside his miniature model along the way to arrive at the Polish pavilion on the day of the opening of the Biennale. Haxenabkratzen Cinema is another example of his projects. The exhibition, which was staged in 2010 by Galeria Bielska BWA, consisted of three video installations inspired by the art of cinematography or rather its perceptions along with the ability to cross or extend its illusions. In 2010 Sławomir Rumiak was the curator of an exhibition on the subject of the links of Katowice-born surrealist Hans Bellmer with Japanese Art (Galeria Kronika in Bytom and the Silesian Museum in Katowice).