Małgorzata Mirga-Tas

Family, community, solida­rity, and self-empower­ment, as well as exclusion and perse­cu­tion, are the defining themes in the work of the artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (born 1978 in Zakopane, Poland). Through her textile “paintings,” she connects the past and the present and tells a different, alter­na­tive story of unseen and margi­na­lized people.

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas focuses on the lives of the Romani people, Europe’s largest ethnic minority, who have been margi­na­lized, discri­mi­nated against, and perse­cuted in Europe since the fourte­enth century—and often still are today. Through her visually powerful combi­na­tion of different textiles and patterns, she paints an intimate picture of the everyday life of the Romani, often linked to histo­rical narra­tives that frequently perpe­tuate stereo­types as external repre­sen­ta­tions. Mirga-Tas contrasts her powerful and sensitive images with the negative and stereo­ty­pical percep­tions of Romani people that still prevail today. In doing so, she brings to the fore voices and stories that are otherwise rarely heard.

For Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, the perspec­tive of women in parti­cular plays an important role—in the sense of a herstory. Thus, well-known public figures from the Romani community frequently appear in her work. Mirga-Tas, a Romani activist herself, also devotes herself inten­si­vely to the women in her immediate environ­ment, including her friends and family members, such as her aunts and grandmother.

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas’s works, some of which are large-format, are created in a collec­tive process that begins with the material itself. The artist uses clothing and household textiles, such as curtains and towels, that she collects from her surroun­dings. She works with mostly used fabrics that already carry the stories of their previous owners. This lends her pictures a certain double authen­ti­city. Together with other women from her community, Mirga-Tas carefully assembles the textiles to create her colorful works.

With this exhibi­tion, the Kunst­mu­seum Wolfsburg is showing the work of this extra­or­di­nary artist on this scale for the first time in Germany, including almost the entire cycle Re-enchan­ting the World, with which Małgorzata Mirga-Tas caused an inter­na­tional sensation since her appearance in the Polish Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale. There, she became the first Romani artist to exhibit in a national pavilion.

The exhibi­tion was created in close colla­bo­ra­tion with Małgorzata Mirga-Tas and is an inter­na­tional coope­ra­tion with the Kunst­mu­seum Luzern (Switz­er­land) and the Henie Onstad Kunst­senter (Norway).

Curator
Andreas Beitin

Curato­rial Assistant
Veronika Mehlhart