Krzysztof Wodiczko

Born 1943 in Warsaw (Poland). Lives and works in New York and Cambridge (United States).  

Krzysztof Wodiczko worked in his hometown as an industrial designer from 1968 to1977, then started to develop a concept for projections in urban space. An ardent upholder of truth and justice, his works set out to keep us from forgetting those we are all to inclined not to see – the victims of war, the homeless, immigrants. His public projections achieve this in a spectacular way by using buildings and monuments that usually represent a key moment in History and symbolise collective memory.

At Espace Croix-Baragnon he is transforming the Arc de Triomphe, a famous Parisian monument and homage to the glory of Napoleonic victories, into a “World Institute for the Abolition of War.” In doing so he decries the very existence of war memorials, which sustain the idea that there is something glorious and heroic about bloody conflicts.
The work takes the form of a transparent structure surrounding the Arc de Triomphe, which as a result is encircled and contained. At the top, the artist plans to have a map of the world displaying the evolution of war zones, with zones in the aftermath of war and zones that enjoy lasting peace.