Robert Kusmirowski

At first glance, this young Polish artist's sculptures and installations seem to be readymades, but on closer inspection they are three-dimensional trompe l'oeil objects of paper, wood, cardboard and Styrofoam, replicas of everything from communist-era artists' studios to full-size train cars, with a specialty in any documents those scenes might require, from newsprint to government paperwork. Kusmirowski works not only in prints, objects and spaces, but also in complex actions--in 2003 he rode a 1920s bicycle from Paris to Leipzig, documented the tour in photographs, antiqued the prints and then exhibited an unusable reproduction of the bicycle with the photographs and his own drawings, yellowed in order to simulate newspaper articles on the various stages of the tour. He explains the roots of this work in communist Poland: "There was nothing in kiosks, and also we lacked money--one had to Îorganize' toys for oneself." In 2003, he was named Poland's top emerging artist, and he is represented by Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York. This book documents all of Kusmirowski's exhibitions through 2005.