Quick Facts
Biography
Piotr Kowalski was an artist, sculptor, and architect. He was born 2 March 1927, in Poland, and died 7 January 2004 in Paris, France.
Piotr Kowalski worked in non-traditional materials including electronic and mechanical devices, neon art, large earth works, explosions and other natural phenomena including plant growth and gravity. His work often expressed science or natural laws in direct and tangible ways, immediate to the senses.
A refugee of World War II, a graduate of MIT, he immigrated to France as an architect for UNESCO and spent most of the rest of his life in Paris. Along with gallery works, he installed several large outdoors projects.
Biography
Piotr Kowalski was born 2 March 1927 in Lviv, then in Poland,now Ukraine. By 1946 he was a refugee of the war living in Brazil. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1947 to 1952, receiving a Bachelors in Architecture, and maintained relations with MIT throughout his life. He worked as an architect for I. M. Pei from 1952 until 1953, then joined Marcel Breuer as an architect at UNESCO in Paris.
He became a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in 1978, and continued in that position until 1985.
In 1985, he became president of the Ars Technica Association connected to the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie uniting philosophers, artists, scientists such as Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond, Claude Faure, Jean-Max Albert, Sara Holt, Piero Gilardi, Jean-Claude Mocik, reflecting on the relationship between art and new technologies.
He was named professor at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1987.
Filmography
- Deux temps, trois mouvements, Gisèle et Luc Meichler, Centre Georges Pompidou et EXLGM©, Paris, 1982
- In Situ Kowalski, Gisèle et Luc Meichler, Paris, EXLGM©, Paris, 1993
- Le Cube de la Population, Gisèle et Luc Meichler, Paris, EXLGM©, Paris, 1995
- Piotr Kowalski entretien avec Claude Guibert, Encyclopédie audiovisuelle de l'art contemporain, Paris, 1996
- Piotr Kowalski, entretiens à propos des projets, Gisèle et Luc Meichler, EXLGM©, Paris, 2000
Outdoor works
- Now 33° 46' 52.24 N 118° 06' 46.07" W, 1965.
- L'Axe de la Terre 48° 50' 25.21" N 2° 35' 04.17" E. 1992.
- L'Axe de la Terre Université de Marne la Vallée,
- L'Arche de Saint-Quentin en Yvelines 48° 47' 23.55" N 2° 02' 08.92" E
- Place des Degrés (Place Blaise Pascal) 48° 53' 22.93 N 2° 14' 08.40" E (image)
- Le Grand Escalier 48° 53' 29" N 2° 14' 11" E. 1991-1993.
- Signal (Tour de Vitry), 48° 47' 19" N 2° 23' 25" E. 1974. (image)
- Bimetallic, the Metal Forum in Danube Park, (Thermocouple, forum metall Donaulande) Linz, Austria
- Tour de Créteil 1990. (image)
- Totem Holographique 1993. (image)
- Windmill, Yamaguchi Beach 34°00'19.16" N 131°22'25.35" E Image Panoramic image, 2001.
- Sunflower, Daikanyama, Tokyo 35°38'56.39" N 139°42'08.29" E
- Oike Dori Fountain, Kyoto 35°00'39.40" N 135°46'11.22" E. 1997.
- Electronic Tree, Morioka Japan Image