Blue Evening 2021

Iwo Zaniewski created this painting, "Blue Evening", with pastels. It shows a house and the people within, at leisure. The house, however, seems to be a house of art. The question of who gets to make art, and whose vision is privileged, is at the heart of institutional critique. Zaniewski paints a painter painting a house. The painting on the easel stands as a symbol of artistic creation and representation, but also of the art market, its institutions, and its values. The figures are consumed by the process of art making but also by the culture that surrounds it. To fully appreciate Zaniewski’s painting, we need to look at the history of art institutions. Exhibition catalogues, gallery records, and artist biographies can reveal a great deal about the social conditions that shaped Zaniewski's work.