Curator Name: Izabela Gola
Residency Dates: September – October 2024
Hometown: Kielce, Poland
Lives & Works: New York City
URL: LinkedIn | Instagram: @izabelagola
Education: 2015 | Hunter College, The City University of New York, Masters of Fine Arts
Recipient of Hunter MFA Award
Bio/Statement:
Izabela Gola is a New York-based curator, advisor, public speaker, and artist. Leading the Visual Arts and Design programs at the Polish Cultural Institute New York, her multidisciplinary practice engages contemporary visual arts and cultural diplomacy. Gola focuses on human rights and ecology, specifically human health and well-being—through an intersectional feminist lens, addressing today’s urgent humanitarian and environmental crises and polarized public discourse. Gola has collaborated with notable US arts institutions, including MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, The New Museum, Residency Unlimited, A.I.R., Dallas Contemporary, Hauser & Wirth, The Kitchen, NYC Parks &, Antiquities, MIT List, Hudson Valley MOCA, Thomas Erben, Armory Show, and Frieze Art Fair.
Since January 2024, Gola has curated a long-term public project by New York-based Polish artist Monika Weiss, titled Nirbhaya monument/antimonument. Scheduled to open at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in New York, this memorial is dedicated to forgotten victims of gender-based violence. The installation includes an outdoor sculpture, underwater video projection, and vocal and movement performances. Created in response to global violence against women, Weiss’ Nirbhaya provides a space for reflection and urgently calls for activism to effect change within political structures. According to the artist, “A place of meditation and stillness, Nirbhaya offers a pathway for reimagining a memorial by abandoning victorious vertical patriarchal monumentality and celebrating a horizontal and peaceful future of humanity.” Gola is developing programs addressing human rights and the elimination of violence against women, collaborating with the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations.
Since 2016, Gola has developed programs at the Polish Cultural Institute NY that foster Polish American and international dialogue through exhibitions, international initiatives, and discursive projects. One such initiative is the yearly recurring ECO Solidarity (2020-ongoing), held in May at the Javits Center in NYC. This movement focuses on ethics and sustainability in design and architecture, emphasizing restoring balance in public spaces and urban habitats concerning the natural environment and human health. The program includes an exhibit, panels, and workshops and is a provocative cultural intervention into the commercial design fair ICFF, coordinated with US and international cultural and diplomatic institutions under the European Union National Institutes for Culture.
Izabela Gola is also a visual artist working with multimedia narrative environments to explore ideas revolving around memory, identity, and displacement. Her work employs video, porcelain, sculpture, oil painting, and installation art. She holds dual Polish and US citizenship and received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree, focused on Multidisciplinary Art Installations, from CUNY Hunter College.
Selected Curatorial Projects include:
Nirbhaya monument/antimonument by Monika Weiss at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, is an ongoing public project dedicated to victims of gender-based violence. Named after Jyoti Singh Nirbhaya, it includes an outdoor sculpture, underwater video projection, and performances. Aligning with the UN’s 5th Sustainable Development Goal, it calls for
activism to end violence against women globally.
ECO Solidarity since 2020, a yearly initiative curated by Gola and Odile Hainaut at the ICFF during NYCxDESIGN week, addresses global ecological and humanitarian crises. It emphasizes ethics and sustainability in design and architecture, featuring exhibits, panels, and workshops. This provocative cultural intervention challenges the commercial design fair, promoting human-centered sustainable solutions.
Kus + Libera, a two-person exhibit at Thomas Erben Gallery (September 7-October 21, 2023), juxtaposes young figurative painter Agata Kus and renowned conceptual artist Zbigniew Libera. The exhibit contrasts their responses to different socio-political contexts, highlighting the dialogue between generations and political systems.
MoMA post presents: Art, Resistance, and New Narratives in Response to the War in Ukraine at the Museum of Modern Art (February 24, 2022). This MoMA panel explored artistic responses to the war in Ukraine from 2014 to the 2022 Russian invasion. Artists, researchers, and historians analyzed art reflecting on the Maidan revolution, Crimea’s annexation, and the Donbas occupation, offering insights into an evolving archive that documents atrocities while proposing new narratives for art history. Co-curated with Inga Lace (C-MAP MoMA) and co-moderated by Paulina Pobocha (MoMA).
Orgé by Monika Weiss, part of To Freedom exhibition at Furlong Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Stout (November 7, 2022 – January 9, 2023), is a choral site-specific interactive installation curated in resistance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Inspired by ancient lament traditions it is dedicated to the victims of wars and colonialism. Orgé will be exhibited at the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden, in September 2024.
New Renaissance in Feminist Art, a panel series in collaboration with Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, A.I.R., Barnard College, and lokal 30 gallery (March 2021), addressed women’s rights activism through visual arts. Inspired by the #MeToo movement and political events in Poland and the USA, it honored Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy. Panels featured prominent figures like Agnieszka Rayzacher, Joan Snitzer, Jenée-Daria Strand, Anna Orbaczewska, Rotem Reshef, and Sheetal Prajapati, discussing the evolution and challenges of feminist activism.
