Zuzanna Bartoszek

Film Noir @Klemm's Downstairs

For her first solo exhibition in Germany, Film Noir, Zuzanna Bartoszek unveils a powerful body of new paintings that delve into the most romantic, fevered dimensions of love — longing, mourning, desire, and intoxicating blindness. In Film Noir, Bartoszek shifts her gaze to the often-overlooked figures and spaces on the periphery of love stories: the third-wheel friends, the widows, the quietly grieving, the shelters (for lovers and loners). The exhibition will open on May 23 at Klemm’s Downstairs and runs through July 5. The exhibition will also include a reading performance by Tess Sahara on June 5.

Born in 1993 in Poznań, Poland, and currently based in Berlin, Zuzanna Bartoszek is a painter and a poet whose multidisciplinary work defies simple categorization. While her paintings have been exhibited, among others, at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Kunsthalle Zurich, Gaylord Apartments in Los Angeles, and Cabin Gallery in New York, this practice is complemented by a strong literary presence. In 2016, she published her debut poetry collection Niebieski Dwór with Disastra Publishing, which was followed in 2021 by Klucz wisi na Słońcu, released by WBPiCAK Publishing House and nominated for the 2022 Wisława Szymborska Award. 2025 also marks the forthcoming of her third book, slated for release by Hela Press at the end of the year.

Bartoszek’s unique interplay between word and image can be seen in the way her paintings delve into poetic landscapes, often imbued with a literary sensibility, while on the other hand her poetry conjures vivid visual tableaux. This reciprocal relationship creates a distinct aesthetic language — intimate yet elusive, grounded in a biographical experience, yet filtered through a fictional, dreamlike lens. Her paintings often resemble cinematic sketches: anonymous interiors, half-remembered landscapes, or imagined refuges that suggest both sanctuary and escape. These scenes often exude a quiet bohemianism — evoking states of restlessness, desire, hunger, and fleeting comfort.

In 2021, Bartoszek was awarded the prestigious ING Polish Art Foundation Prize for her solo exhibition at Stereo Gallery, affirming her as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary Polish art. Film Noir offers a new chapter in her evolving practice — one that centers those caught in the emotional margins, and invites viewers to linger in the soft, ambiguous spaces of love, loss, and everything in between.