MOULD / FORMA
Agnieszka Mastalerz
exhibition, WGW+
Mould / Forma
Agnieszka Mastalerz
18.09—16.11.2025
Curator: Krzysztof Miękus
Partner:
Opening: September 18, 2025, 7:00 PM
Admission: free
Exhibition for Warsaw Gallery Weekend + 2025, curated by Krzysztof Miękus.
At Fort, Mastalerz presents two premiere video works, Mould and Ὁδός, which revolve around the idea of vitality, staging encounters between the human body and the choreography of machines, where organic rhythm meets mechanical cadence. Mould, a 35mm film projected by a 300-kilogram analog machine – rattling and monumental – becomes both image and object, a sculptural form resonating with the pulsing rhythm of the film itself. In parallel, Ὁδός transports viewers into the space of inorganic transformation — metallic alloys, thermal energy, and a paradoxical vitality.
This is an exhibition to be experienced – a play of illusions and questions, where physical perception becomes a guide through the works. As curator Krzysztof Miękus notes, the analog film itself is a perceptual trick enabled by the Latham loop mechanism: frames are replaced so quickly that their boundaries dissolve, creating a sense of continuity.
The starting point for these works was the figure of Danuta Kwapiszewska (1922–1999) — a choreographer and dancer who, after an accident, was forced to end her stage career and redirected her creative expression toward figurative sculpture. Forty years after her exhibition My Sculptures Dance for Me at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Mastalerz revisits the theme of the transformation of both creative and vital energy.
Curatorial text
Krzysztof Miękus
wo long takes. Their duration is limited by the length of the 35mm film strip.
In the first take, the dancer is alone. The camera moves in a circle, the lens gradually pulling away from the figure until it finally reveals a wide shot.
In the second take, a new person appears. Her body is moulded by the first dancer. The camera continues to move in a circle, but this time it begins with a wide shot and ends by focusing on the details of their bodies and movement.
And a loop. Circular movement, zooming in, zooming out, inhalation, exhalation, repetition.
The film is looped. Not a digital file, but a physical, analogue film on 35mm celluloid. The strip seems to move continuously, but that is an illusion.
Biography
Agnieszka Mastalerz
Agnieszka Mastalerz (born 1991) – visual artist
Graduate of the Studio of Spatial Activities by Mirosław Bałka at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2018), former student of Candice Breitz and Eli Cortiñas at the HBK in Braunschweig (DAAD Scholarship for 2019/2020), and a guest by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin at the HFBK in Hamburg (2017/2018). I also obtained my BA in Cultural Studies at the University of Warsaw (2013) and was a participant of the Autumn Intensive at the Malmö Art Academy (2024).
Her artistic practice focuses on mechanisms of control and processes that influence and exploit the individual. She uses a poetic visual language to explore restrictive rules established within intimate relationships, communities, states, corporations, and in relation to the natural environment. She primarily works with video, often combining scientific imaging techniques with performative elements.
Agnieszka Mastalerz’s projects have been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Kosovo, and Romania. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Museum Susch in Switzerland and at the European Investment Bank Institute in Luxembourg. Her works are included in several collections, a.a. the Fondazione In Between Art Film by Beatrice Bulgari.
Credits
Mould
Director: Agnieszka Mastalerz
Director of Photography: Marcin Gołąb
Second Director: Kuba Gryżewski
Choreography & Performer I: Adrianna Mrowiec
Performer II: Agnieszka Janosz
Production Company: Papaya Films
Executive Producers: Sebastian Jurczek, Tomasz Skrodzki
Producer: Małgorzata Kozieł
Production Assistant: Zofia Kszczotek
Focus Puller: Tomasz Czerwiński
2nd AC/Loader: Kuba Żukowski
Grip: Piotr Wicik, Adrian Kubicki, Marek Rumak
Gaffer: Grzesiek Strzelecki
Lighting Technicians: Kamil Gajewski, Artur Nowak
Set Rigging: Mikołaj Miłkowski
Costumes: Monika Tomczak
Make-up: Aneta Paciorek
PJM Interpreters: Magdalena Schromova, Elżbieta Żurawska
Stills: Oliwia Zając
Camera Equipment: Panavision
Lighting Equipment: Heliograf
Studio: Transcolor Lucjan Siwczyk
On-Set Sound: Alex Banaszkiewicz
Sound Post-Production: Natalia Ptak (ptakova)
Post-Production: BlackPhoton (Kamil Rutkowski, Michał Krajewski, Maciej Mika, Andrzej Hajdaniak)
Post-Producer: Zosia Krajewska
Conforming: Bartłomiej Kuszpit
Color Grading: Hania Rudkiewicz
VFX: Julinna Lachowicz-Wróbel, Iwona Borucka
Mastering: Iwona Borucka
Film Stock: Piotr Karniewicz, Kodak Polska Sp. z o.o.
Film Processing & Scanning: Film Laboratory / WFDiF
Film Output: Cinelab Bucharest
Historical Consultation on Danuta Kwapiszewska: Marta Zaborowska / Fryderyk Chopin Institute
Special thanks to Tomek Kozera / RIOTS Film
Project “Mould” realized as part of the Młoda Polska scholarship program, financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Ὁδός
Director & Editor: Agnieszka Mastalerz
Director of Photography & Color Grading: Marcin Gołąb
Partners
Supported by
