{"id":22487,"date":"2026-10-30T17:31:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T16:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?p=22487"},"modified":"2026-10-30T17:31:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T16:31:47","slug":"theory-of-seeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/","title":{"rendered":"Theory of Seeing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 7:00 PM<\/strong><br><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.e-flux.com\/events\/6783400\/theory-of-seeing\">e-flux<\/a><\/strong><br>172 Classon Ave, Brooklyn NY 11205<br><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com\/e\/theory-of-seeing-tickets-2004033142075?aff=oddtdtcreator\">Tickets<\/a><\/strong>: General $12 Student $10<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Join us at e-flux on Tuesday, November 17 at 7pm for &#8222;Theory of Seeing,&#8221; a four-part film series translating W\u0142adys\u0142aw Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.e-flux.com\/books\/6192551\/theory-of-seeing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Theory of Seeing<\/a> <\/em>(1958; republished in English by e-flux Classics in 2025) to the language of moving images through new films by<strong> Wilhelm Sasnal<\/strong>,<strong> Mykola Ridnyi<\/strong>, <strong>Agnieszka Polska<\/strong>, and <strong>Anton Vidokle<\/strong> and <strong>Liam Gillick<\/strong>, with title sequences by <strong>Laura Pawela. <\/strong>The screening will be followed by a response from <strong>R.H. Quaytman<\/strong>.<strong> <\/strong>Commissioned by Muzeum Sztuki, the project does not aim merely to illustrate Strzemi\u0144ski&#8217;s theses, but to put them into practice under the premise that seeing is not an unchangeable ability, but a process shaped by history and the social conditions of life.&nbsp;Each era creates its own unique ways of seeing, and art participates in these transformations.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Translating <em>Theory of Seeing<\/em> into film demands more than simply presenting the notions contained within it. Film is not a transparent medium, but an apparatus that organizes the act of seeing through framing, editing, movement, light, and time. It is therefore a tool through which Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s ideas can be put to a practical test, demonstrating how a picture emerges at the intersection of the eye, memory, knowledge and experience. Each episode becomes an experiment, which does not so much explain the theory as set it in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each episode offers an original contemporary interpretation of Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s thought. Wilhelm Sasnal connects museum conservation and the materiality of a picture with the memory of the Holocaust, asking about the limits of abstraction in relation to historical experience. Mykola Ridnyj confronts the theory of moving vision with the optics of war, relating it to the history of Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s physical impairment and a fictional story about a sniper. Agnieszka Polska transposes his insights into the cybernetic context, the attention economy, and images generated by artificial intelligence. Anton Vidokle and Liam Gillick treat the book\u2019s theses as a series of exercises performed by an actor, a camera, and a city. The series is held together by titular sequences created by Laura Pawela using found footage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The series joins a constellation that has been taking shape over several decades and includes Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s book, the historical space of the Neoplastic Room, the Muzeum Sztuki in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a\u2019s permanent collection display&nbsp;<em>Ways of<\/em> <em>Seeing<\/em>, and contemporary interpretations formulated through film. It will be complemented by a website dedicated to the book and the series, prepared in collaboration with e-flux and featuring source materials as well as new texts by Luiza Nader and Elena Vogman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each element serves a different function: the book articulates a theory of transformations in visual consciousness, the films put its concepts to a contemporary test, the exhibitions allow them to be examined through a physical encounter with artworks in the museum space, and the website opens up a field for further research and interpretation. The elements of the constellation do not form a linear sequence, but explain and update one another. <q>Theory of Seeing<\/q> thus becomes not a closed treatise, but a still-active tool and a script for experiments in how we see and in what we have yet to learn how to see.<br><br><strong>Films<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Liam Gillick and Anton Vidokle,&nbsp;<em>Theory of Vision <\/em><\/strong>(2026, 18 minutes)<strong><em><br><\/em><\/strong>In Liam Gillick and Anton Vidokle\u2019s film, the actor\u2019s body becomes entangled in visual structures inspired by Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing, yet found in the urban spaces of \u0141\u00f3d\u017a. The protagonist\u2014a porte-parole for Strzemi\u0144ski, or perhaps an abstract viewing subject\u2014moves among planes, axes, lines, and grids, reciting passages on realism from the book. Is he performing a rehearsed role? Or are we watching the making of a theory\u2014hesitation, questioning, searching for the right words? A film that is at once hypnotic and formally rigorous.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mykola Ridnyi,&nbsp;<\/strong><em><strong>Grey Zone<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/em>(2026, 18 minutes)<em><br><\/em>\u201cThis is a film about the conflict between two identities\u2014the artist and the soldier,\u201d says Mykola Ridnyi. In <em>Grey Zone<\/em>, he evokes a biographical context absent from Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s theory: the experience of a soldier and military engineer who suffered an eye injury during the First World War. The film centres on a sniper and his perspective, mediated by a rifle scope. Ridnyi returns to questions explored in his earlier work: How do advances in viewing technologies shape contemporary warfare?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wilhelm Sasnal, <em>Cow, Pig, Flax<\/em><em> <\/em><\/strong>(2026, 17 minutes)<strong><em><br><\/em><\/strong>Wilhelm Sasnal\u2019s film holds a multilayered polemic with Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s <em>Theory of Seeing<\/em>. It is sensuous, free, corporeal. It counters abstraction with the concrete, intellect with the senses, and discourse with fairy tale. Drawing on motifs from a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, Sasnal asks: What if the landscape looks at us, just as we look at it? \u201cI wanted to put everything on an equal footing,\u201d says Sasnal. \u201cIt is not only humans who look\u2014everything looks at everyone.\u201d<br><br><strong>Agnieszka Polska,<em> The Birth of a Prediction Machine<\/em><em> <\/em><\/strong>(2026, 20 minutes)<strong><em><br><\/em><\/strong>\u201cWhat happens when our internal model of reality loses all credibility?\u201d, Agnieszka Polska asks. Her collage film essay broadens Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s thinking to encompass contemporary neuroscience and images generated by artificial intelligence. A child is born. What does he see? What will he see? In Polska\u2019s view, the contemporary iconosphere has become a space of radical uncertainty, colonized by corporations, capital and algorithms designed to exploit the brain\u2019s reward system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:26px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>ABOUT THE ARTIST <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Anton Vidokle <\/strong>is an artist and Founding Director of e-flux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Liam Gillick<\/strong> is a New York\u202fbased artist known for contributions in sculpture, video,\u202farchitecture, and text. His work focuses on contemporary management of\u202flabor, time, and aesthetics extended through a distinctive conception\u202fof exhibition as a medium in its own right.\u202fHis work is divided\u202fbetween abstraction based on social and political structures of the\u202fpresent and texts, films, and graphics that often appear to contradict\u202fand comment upon the apparent clarity of his structures. Gillick\u2019s\u202fwork has been included in numerous important\u202fexhibitions including\u202fdocumenta and the Venice, Berlin, Shanghai and Istanbul Biennales \u2014 representing Germany in 2009 in Venice. Solo museum exhibitions have\u202ftaken place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Museum\u202fof Modern Art in New York\u202fand Tate in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mykola Ridnyi<\/strong> was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He lives and works in Berlin where he holds a guest professorship in the multimedia art class at the Berlin University of the Arts. In recent films, video installations, and photography cycles, he experiments with nonlinear montage and a collage of documentary and fiction. He works with reenactment, often based on research in Ukrainian and European politics, history, and cinema. Ridnyi reflects on social and political reality and shows the contrast between the fragility and resilience of individual and collective histories. The body of his work created within the last decade addresses the question of how to talk about violence and war without multiplying its brutality in visual language. His works have been presented internationally at various institutions and festivals, including the Manifesta 16 Ruhr (2026), The Kyiv Biennial (2024, 2017, 2015), the Kochi Biennial (2022), the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) among the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wilhelm Sasnal<\/strong> (b.1972, Tarn\u00f3w, Poland\u202f) studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Krak\u00f3w, beginning in 1992, and later continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, also in Krak\u00f3w, where he received his diploma from the Department of Painting in 1999.\u202f\u202f Sasnal often starts his paintings with photographic images taken from films, art reproductions, popular culture, or his own phone, then transforms them through various degrees of distortion, reduction, and abstraction. His work addresses subjects ranging from the seriousness of historical events like the Holocaust to recognizable icons of popular culture, as well as the people, including his family, places, and everyday objects around him. His paintings often depend on the local milieu \u2014 echoing the quotidian of his home in Poland or the vibrant surroundings of his studio in California.\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Agnieszka Polska<\/strong> (b. 1985, Lublin, Poland) is a visual artist, film and theatre director based in Berlin. Polska employs computer-generated media to explore themes of individual agency, social responsibility, and the shaping of historical narratives within environments driven by rapid technological changes and the flow of information. Her work bridges the past and the digital present, using hallucinatory animations and poetic storytelling to delve into the ethical ambiguities of contemporary society. Polska\u2019s art has been showcased internationally, including exhibitions at the New Museum and MoMA in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. She has held solo exhibitions at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, M HKA in Antwerp, Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Nottingham Contemporary, and Salzburger Kunstverein. She participated in the 57th Venice Biennale, 11th Gwangju Biennale, 19th and 24th Biennale of Sydney, 14th Shanghai Biennale, and 13th Istanbul Biennial. In 2023, she premiered her first theatre play, <em>The Talking Car<\/em>, in the frame of BoCA Biennale, Lisbon.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>R. H. Quaytman<\/strong> (b. 1961, Boston) lives and works in Guilford, CT and New York. Quaytman studied at Bard College and at the Institut des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris, and received the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in 2001. In 2005, she co-founded Orchard, a cooperatively-run exhibition and event space that concluded its three-year run on the Lower East Side in 2008. Quaytman\u2019s work was featured in the 15th Shanghai Biennale (2025), documenta 14 (2017), the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have taken place at Glenstone, Potomac, MD (2022), WIELS, Brussels (2021), a two-part exhibition at the Serralves Museum, Porto (2020) and Muzeum Sztuki, L\u00f3dz (2019), Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2019), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2018), Galerie Buchholz, Berlin and Cologne (2018, 2011), Secession, Vienna (2017), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016), Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2025, 2015, 2008), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2015), Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels (2014, 2012), Renaissance Society, Chicago (2013), the Museum Abteiberg, M\u00f6nchengladbach (2012), the Kunsthalle Basel (2011), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2010), and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2009), among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Laura Pawela<\/strong> is a Polish visual and video artist, sculptor, film editor and lecturer at Lodz Film School. Born in 1977 in Upper Silesia, she lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. Pawela graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw (2004, Sculpture). She recently defended her PhD in art in Lodz Film School, where she conduct classes in video art and found footage films. She is a member of both Polish and European Film Academy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland as part of the Inspiring Culture 2025\u20132026 program, within the framework of the project Theory of Seeing, implemented in cooperation with e-flux and the Polish Cultural Institute New York.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"379\" src=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/Colorful-Geometric-Illustration-Eggs-Best-Easter-Wishes-Facebook-Cover-2-1024x379.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22497\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2.701914861536915;width:676px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/Colorful-Geometric-Illustration-Eggs-Best-Easter-Wishes-Facebook-Cover-2-1024x379.png 1024w, https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/Colorful-Geometric-Illustration-Eggs-Best-Easter-Wishes-Facebook-Cover-2-300x111.png 300w, https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/Colorful-Geometric-Illustration-Eggs-Best-Easter-Wishes-Facebook-Cover-2-768x284.png 768w, https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/Colorful-Geometric-Illustration-Eggs-Best-Easter-Wishes-Facebook-Cover-2.png 1064w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Lead image:  Agnieszka Polska, <em>The Birth of a Prediction Machine<\/em> (still), 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 7:00 PMe-flux172 Classon Ave, Brooklyn NY 11205Tickets: General $12 Student $10 Join us at e-flux on Tuesday, November 17 at 7pm for &#8222;Theory of Seeing,&#8221; a four-part film series translating W\u0142adys\u0142aw Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing (1958; republished in English by e-flux Classics in 2025) to the language of moving images through [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":22488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-visual-arts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Theory of Seeing - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pl_PL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Theory of Seeing - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 7:00 PMe-flux172 Classon Ave, Brooklyn NY 11205Tickets: General $12 Student $10 Join us at e-flux on Tuesday, November 17 at 7pm for &#8222;Theory of Seeing,&#8221; a four-part film series translating W\u0142adys\u0142aw Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing (1958; republished in English by e-flux Classics in 2025) to the language of moving images through [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-10-30T16:31:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-30T16:31:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"810\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"stypulkowskaa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Napisane przez\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"stypulkowskaa\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Szacowany czas czytania\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"12 minut\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"event\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/\",\"name\":\"Theory of Seeing\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb-300x169.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb-1024x576.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg\"],\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-10-30T16:31:34+01:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-10-30T16:31:47+01:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/\"]}],\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"startDate\":\"2026-11-17\",\"endDate\":\"2027-11-17\",\"eventStatus\":\"EventScheduled\",\"eventAttendanceMode\":\"OfflineEventAttendanceMode\",\"location\":{\"@type\":\"place\",\"name\":\"\",\"address\":\"\",\"geo\":{\"@type\":\"GeoCoordinates\",\"latitude\":\"\",\"longitude\":\"\"}},\"description\":\"Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 7:00 PMe-flux172 Classon Ave, Brooklyn NY 11205Tickets: General $12 Student $10\\nJoin us at e-flux on Tuesday, November 17 at 7pm for \\\"Theory of Seeing,\\\" a four-part film series translating W\u0142adys\u0142aw Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing (1958; republished in English by e-flux Classics in 2025) to the language of moving images through new films by Wilhelm Sasnal, Mykola Ridnyi, Agnieszka Polska, and Anton Vidokle and Liam Gillick, with title sequences by Laura Pawela. The screening will be followed by a response from R.H. Quaytman. Commissioned by Muzeum Sztuki, the project does not aim merely to illustrate Strzemi\u0144ski's theses, but to put them into practice under the premise that seeing is not an unchangeable ability, but a process shaped by history and the social conditions of life. Each era creates its own unique ways of seeing, and art participates in these transformations.   \\nTranslating Theory of Seeing into film demands more than simply presenting the notions contained within it. Film is not a transparent medium, but an apparatus that organizes the act of seeing through framing, editing, movement, light, and time. It is therefore a tool through which Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s ideas can be put to a practical test, demonstrating how a picture emerges at the intersection of the eye, memory, knowledge and experience. Each episode becomes an experiment, which does not so much explain the theory as set it in motion.\\nEach episode offers an original contemporary interpretation of Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s thought. Wilhelm Sasnal connects museum conservation and the materiality of a picture with the memory of the Holocaust, asking about the limits of abstraction in relation to historical experience. Mykola Ridnyj confronts the theory of moving vision with the optics of war, relating it to the history of Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s physical impairment and a fictional story about a sniper. Agnieszka Polska transposes his insights into the cybernetic context, the attention economy, and images generated by artificial intelligence. Anton Vidokle and Liam Gillick treat the book\u2019s theses as a series of exercises performed by an actor, a camera, and a city. The series is held together by titular sequences created by Laura Pawela using found footage.\\nThe series joins a constellation that has been taking shape over several decades and includes Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s book, the historical space of the Neoplastic Room, the Muzeum Sztuki in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a\u2019s permanent collection display Ways of Seeing, and contemporary interpretations formulated through film. It will be complemented by a website dedicated to the book and the series, prepared in collaboration with e-flux and featuring source materials as well as new texts by Luiza Nader and Elena Vogman.\\nEach element serves a different function: the book articulates a theory of transformations in visual consciousness, the films put its concepts to a contemporary test, the exhibitions allow them to be examined through a physical encounter with artworks in the museum space, and the website opens up a field for further research and interpretation. The elements of the constellation do not form a linear sequence, but explain and update one another. Theory of Seeing thus becomes not a closed treatise, but a still-active tool and a script for experiments in how we see and in what we have yet to learn how to see.Films\\nLiam Gillick and Anton Vidokle, Theory of Vision (2026, 18 minutes)In Liam Gillick and Anton Vidokle\u2019s film, the actor\u2019s body becomes entangled in visual structures inspired by Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing, yet found in the urban spaces of \u0141\u00f3d\u017a. The protagonist\u2014a porte-parole for Strzemi\u0144ski, or perhaps an abstract viewing subject\u2014moves among planes, axes, lines, and grids, reciting passages on realism from the book. Is he performing a rehearsed role? Or are we watching the making of a theory\u2014hesitation, questioning, searching for the right words? A film that is at once hypnotic and formally rigorous. \\nMykola Ridnyi, Grey Zone (2026, 18 minutes)\u201cThis is a film about the conflict between two identities\u2014the artist and the soldier,\u201d says Mykola Ridnyi. In Grey Zone, he evokes a biographical context absent from Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s theory: the experience of a soldier and military engineer who suffered an eye injury during the First World War. The film centres on a sniper and his perspective, mediated by a rifle scope. Ridnyi returns to questions explored in his earlier work: How do advances in viewing technologies shape contemporary warfare? \\nWilhelm Sasnal, Cow, Pig, Flax (2026, 17 minutes)Wilhelm Sasnal\u2019s film holds a multilayered polemic with Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing. It is sensuous, free, corporeal. It counters abstraction with the concrete, intellect with the senses, and discourse with fairy tale. Drawing on motifs from a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, Sasnal asks: What if the landscape looks at us, just as we look at it? \u201cI wanted to put everything on an equal footing,\u201d says Sasnal. \u201cIt is not only humans who look\u2014everything looks at everyone.\u201dAgnieszka Polska, The Birth of a Prediction Machine (2026, 20 minutes)\u201cWhat happens when our internal model of reality loses all credibility?\u201d, Agnieszka Polska asks. Her collage film essay broadens Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s thinking to encompass contemporary neuroscience and images generated by artificial intelligence. A child is born. What does he see? What will he see? In Polska\u2019s view, the contemporary iconosphere has become a space of radical uncertainty, colonized by corporations, capital and algorithms designed to exploit the brain\u2019s reward system. \\nABOUT THE ARTIST \\nAnton Vidokle is an artist and Founding Director of e-flux.\\nLiam Gillick is a New York\u202fbased artist known for contributions in sculpture, video,\u202farchitecture, and text. His work focuses on contemporary management of\u202flabor, time, and aesthetics extended through a distinctive conception\u202fof exhibition as a medium in its own right.\u202fHis work is divided\u202fbetween abstraction based on social and political structures of the\u202fpresent and texts, films, and graphics that often appear to contradict\u202fand comment upon the apparent clarity of his structures. Gillick\u2019s\u202fwork has been included in numerous important\u202fexhibitions including\u202fdocumenta and the Venice, Berlin, Shanghai and Istanbul Biennales \u2014 representing Germany in 2009 in Venice. Solo museum exhibitions have\u202ftaken place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Museum\u202fof Modern Art in New York\u202fand Tate in London.\\nMykola Ridnyi was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He lives and works in Berlin where he holds a guest professorship in the multimedia art class at the Berlin University of the Arts. In recent films, video installations, and photography cycles, he experiments with nonlinear montage and a collage of documentary and fiction. He works with reenactment, often based on research in Ukrainian and European politics, history, and cinema. Ridnyi reflects on social and political reality and shows the contrast between the fragility and resilience of individual and collective histories. The body of his work created within the last decade addresses the question of how to talk about violence and war without multiplying its brutality in visual language. His works have been presented internationally at various institutions and festivals, including the Manifesta 16 Ruhr (2026), The Kyiv Biennial (2024, 2017, 2015), the Kochi Biennial (2022), the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) among the others.\\nWilhelm Sasnal (b.1972, Tarn\u00f3w, Poland\u202f) studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Krak\u00f3w, beginning in 1992, and later continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, also in Krak\u00f3w, where he received his diploma from the Department of Painting in 1999.\u202f\u202f Sasnal often starts his paintings with photographic images taken from films, art reproductions, popular culture, or his own phone, then transforms them through various degrees of distortion, reduction, and abstraction. His work addresses subjects ranging from the seriousness of historical events like the Holocaust to recognizable icons of popular culture, as well as the people, including his family, places, and everyday objects around him. His paintings often depend on the local milieu \u2014 echoing the quotidian of his home in Poland or the vibrant surroundings of his studio in California.\u202f\u202f\\nAgnieszka Polska (b. 1985, Lublin, Poland) is a visual artist, film and theatre director based in Berlin. Polska employs computer-generated media to explore themes of individual agency, social responsibility, and the shaping of historical narratives within environments driven by rapid technological changes and the flow of information. Her work bridges the past and the digital present, using hallucinatory animations and poetic storytelling to delve into the ethical ambiguities of contemporary society. Polska\u2019s art has been showcased internationally, including exhibitions at the New Museum and MoMA in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. She has held solo exhibitions at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, M HKA in Antwerp, Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Nottingham Contemporary, and Salzburger Kunstverein. She participated in the 57th Venice Biennale, 11th Gwangju Biennale, 19th and 24th Biennale of Sydney, 14th Shanghai Biennale, and 13th Istanbul Biennial. In 2023, she premiered her first theatre play, The Talking Car, in the frame of BoCA Biennale, Lisbon.\u202f\\nR. H. Quaytman (b. 1961, Boston) lives and works in Guilford, CT and New York. Quaytman studied at Bard College and at the Institut des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris, and received the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in 2001. In 2005, she co-founded Orchard, a cooperatively-run exhibition and event space that concluded its three-year run on the Lower East Side in 2008. Quaytman\u2019s work was featured in the 15th Shanghai Biennale (2025), documenta 14 (2017), the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have taken place at Glenstone, Potomac, MD (2022), WIELS, Brussels (2021), a two-part exhibition at the Serralves Museum, Porto (2020) and Muzeum Sztuki, L\u00f3dz (2019), Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2019), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2018), Galerie Buchholz, Berlin and Cologne (2018, 2011), Secession, Vienna (2017), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016), Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2025, 2015, 2008), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2015), Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels (2014, 2012), Renaissance Society, Chicago (2013), the Museum Abteiberg, M\u00f6nchengladbach (2012), the Kunsthalle Basel (2011), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2010), and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2009), among others.\\nLaura Pawela is a Polish visual and video artist, sculptor, film editor and lecturer at Lodz Film School. Born in 1977 in Upper Silesia, she lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. Pawela graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw (2004, Sculpture). She recently defended her PhD in art in Lodz Film School, where she conduct classes in video art and found footage films. She is a member of both Polish and European Film Academy.\\nCo-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland as part of the Inspiring Culture 2025\u20132026 program, within the framework of the project Theory of Seeing, implemented in cooperation with e-flux and the Polish Cultural Institute New York.\\nLead image:  Agnieszka Polska, The Birth of a Prediction Machine (still), 2026.\",\"offers\":{\"@type\":\"Offer\"}},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg\",\"width\":1440,\"height\":810},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Theory of Seeing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/\",\"name\":\"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\",\"description\":\"Instytuty Polskie\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1\",\"name\":\"stypulkowskaa\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a28cee30023e60aaadd7265c034712e0bff48f0104612319d472cc274e96a303?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a28cee30023e60aaadd7265c034712e0bff48f0104612319d472cc274e96a303?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"stypulkowskaa\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/author\/stypulkowskaa-2\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Theory of Seeing - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/","og_locale":"pl_PL","og_type":"article","og_title":"Theory of Seeing - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","og_description":"Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 7:00 PMe-flux172 Classon Ave, Brooklyn NY 11205Tickets: General $12 Student $10 Join us at e-flux on Tuesday, November 17 at 7pm for &#8222;Theory of Seeing,&#8221; a four-part film series translating W\u0142adys\u0142aw Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing (1958; republished in English by e-flux Classics in 2025) to the language of moving images through [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/","og_site_name":"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","article_published_time":"2026-10-30T16:31:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-10-30T16:31:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1440,"height":810,"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"stypulkowskaa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Napisane przez":"stypulkowskaa","Szacowany czas czytania":"12 minut"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"event","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/","name":"Theory of Seeing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#primaryimage"},"image":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb-300x169.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb-1024x576.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg"],"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg","datePublished":"2026-10-30T16:31:34+01:00","dateModified":"2026-10-30T16:31:47+01:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pl-PL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/"]}],"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","startDate":"2026-11-17","endDate":"2027-11-17","eventStatus":"EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"OfflineEventAttendanceMode","location":{"@type":"place","name":"","address":"","geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"","longitude":""}},"description":"Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 7:00 PMe-flux172 Classon Ave, Brooklyn NY 11205Tickets: General $12 Student $10\nJoin us at e-flux on Tuesday, November 17 at 7pm for \"Theory of Seeing,\" a four-part film series translating W\u0142adys\u0142aw Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing (1958; republished in English by e-flux Classics in 2025) to the language of moving images through new films by Wilhelm Sasnal, Mykola Ridnyi, Agnieszka Polska, and Anton Vidokle and Liam Gillick, with title sequences by Laura Pawela. The screening will be followed by a response from R.H. Quaytman. Commissioned by Muzeum Sztuki, the project does not aim merely to illustrate Strzemi\u0144ski's theses, but to put them into practice under the premise that seeing is not an unchangeable ability, but a process shaped by history and the social conditions of life. Each era creates its own unique ways of seeing, and art participates in these transformations.   \nTranslating Theory of Seeing into film demands more than simply presenting the notions contained within it. Film is not a transparent medium, but an apparatus that organizes the act of seeing through framing, editing, movement, light, and time. It is therefore a tool through which Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s ideas can be put to a practical test, demonstrating how a picture emerges at the intersection of the eye, memory, knowledge and experience. Each episode becomes an experiment, which does not so much explain the theory as set it in motion.\nEach episode offers an original contemporary interpretation of Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s thought. Wilhelm Sasnal connects museum conservation and the materiality of a picture with the memory of the Holocaust, asking about the limits of abstraction in relation to historical experience. Mykola Ridnyj confronts the theory of moving vision with the optics of war, relating it to the history of Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s physical impairment and a fictional story about a sniper. Agnieszka Polska transposes his insights into the cybernetic context, the attention economy, and images generated by artificial intelligence. Anton Vidokle and Liam Gillick treat the book\u2019s theses as a series of exercises performed by an actor, a camera, and a city. The series is held together by titular sequences created by Laura Pawela using found footage.\nThe series joins a constellation that has been taking shape over several decades and includes Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s book, the historical space of the Neoplastic Room, the Muzeum Sztuki in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a\u2019s permanent collection display Ways of Seeing, and contemporary interpretations formulated through film. It will be complemented by a website dedicated to the book and the series, prepared in collaboration with e-flux and featuring source materials as well as new texts by Luiza Nader and Elena Vogman.\nEach element serves a different function: the book articulates a theory of transformations in visual consciousness, the films put its concepts to a contemporary test, the exhibitions allow them to be examined through a physical encounter with artworks in the museum space, and the website opens up a field for further research and interpretation. The elements of the constellation do not form a linear sequence, but explain and update one another. Theory of Seeing thus becomes not a closed treatise, but a still-active tool and a script for experiments in how we see and in what we have yet to learn how to see.Films\nLiam Gillick and Anton Vidokle, Theory of Vision (2026, 18 minutes)In Liam Gillick and Anton Vidokle\u2019s film, the actor\u2019s body becomes entangled in visual structures inspired by Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing, yet found in the urban spaces of \u0141\u00f3d\u017a. The protagonist\u2014a porte-parole for Strzemi\u0144ski, or perhaps an abstract viewing subject\u2014moves among planes, axes, lines, and grids, reciting passages on realism from the book. Is he performing a rehearsed role? Or are we watching the making of a theory\u2014hesitation, questioning, searching for the right words? A film that is at once hypnotic and formally rigorous. \nMykola Ridnyi, Grey Zone (2026, 18 minutes)\u201cThis is a film about the conflict between two identities\u2014the artist and the soldier,\u201d says Mykola Ridnyi. In Grey Zone, he evokes a biographical context absent from Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s theory: the experience of a soldier and military engineer who suffered an eye injury during the First World War. The film centres on a sniper and his perspective, mediated by a rifle scope. Ridnyi returns to questions explored in his earlier work: How do advances in viewing technologies shape contemporary warfare? \nWilhelm Sasnal, Cow, Pig, Flax (2026, 17 minutes)Wilhelm Sasnal\u2019s film holds a multilayered polemic with Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s Theory of Seeing. It is sensuous, free, corporeal. It counters abstraction with the concrete, intellect with the senses, and discourse with fairy tale. Drawing on motifs from a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, Sasnal asks: What if the landscape looks at us, just as we look at it? \u201cI wanted to put everything on an equal footing,\u201d says Sasnal. \u201cIt is not only humans who look\u2014everything looks at everyone.\u201dAgnieszka Polska, The Birth of a Prediction Machine (2026, 20 minutes)\u201cWhat happens when our internal model of reality loses all credibility?\u201d, Agnieszka Polska asks. Her collage film essay broadens Strzemi\u0144ski\u2019s thinking to encompass contemporary neuroscience and images generated by artificial intelligence. A child is born. What does he see? What will he see? In Polska\u2019s view, the contemporary iconosphere has become a space of radical uncertainty, colonized by corporations, capital and algorithms designed to exploit the brain\u2019s reward system. \nABOUT THE ARTIST \nAnton Vidokle is an artist and Founding Director of e-flux.\nLiam Gillick is a New York\u202fbased artist known for contributions in sculpture, video,\u202farchitecture, and text. His work focuses on contemporary management of\u202flabor, time, and aesthetics extended through a distinctive conception\u202fof exhibition as a medium in its own right.\u202fHis work is divided\u202fbetween abstraction based on social and political structures of the\u202fpresent and texts, films, and graphics that often appear to contradict\u202fand comment upon the apparent clarity of his structures. Gillick\u2019s\u202fwork has been included in numerous important\u202fexhibitions including\u202fdocumenta and the Venice, Berlin, Shanghai and Istanbul Biennales \u2014 representing Germany in 2009 in Venice. Solo museum exhibitions have\u202ftaken place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Museum\u202fof Modern Art in New York\u202fand Tate in London.\nMykola Ridnyi was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He lives and works in Berlin where he holds a guest professorship in the multimedia art class at the Berlin University of the Arts. In recent films, video installations, and photography cycles, he experiments with nonlinear montage and a collage of documentary and fiction. He works with reenactment, often based on research in Ukrainian and European politics, history, and cinema. Ridnyi reflects on social and political reality and shows the contrast between the fragility and resilience of individual and collective histories. The body of his work created within the last decade addresses the question of how to talk about violence and war without multiplying its brutality in visual language. His works have been presented internationally at various institutions and festivals, including the Manifesta 16 Ruhr (2026), The Kyiv Biennial (2024, 2017, 2015), the Kochi Biennial (2022), the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) among the others.\nWilhelm Sasnal (b.1972, Tarn\u00f3w, Poland\u202f) studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Krak\u00f3w, beginning in 1992, and later continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, also in Krak\u00f3w, where he received his diploma from the Department of Painting in 1999.\u202f\u202f Sasnal often starts his paintings with photographic images taken from films, art reproductions, popular culture, or his own phone, then transforms them through various degrees of distortion, reduction, and abstraction. His work addresses subjects ranging from the seriousness of historical events like the Holocaust to recognizable icons of popular culture, as well as the people, including his family, places, and everyday objects around him. His paintings often depend on the local milieu \u2014 echoing the quotidian of his home in Poland or the vibrant surroundings of his studio in California.\u202f\u202f\nAgnieszka Polska (b. 1985, Lublin, Poland) is a visual artist, film and theatre director based in Berlin. Polska employs computer-generated media to explore themes of individual agency, social responsibility, and the shaping of historical narratives within environments driven by rapid technological changes and the flow of information. Her work bridges the past and the digital present, using hallucinatory animations and poetic storytelling to delve into the ethical ambiguities of contemporary society. Polska\u2019s art has been showcased internationally, including exhibitions at the New Museum and MoMA in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. She has held solo exhibitions at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, M HKA in Antwerp, Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Nottingham Contemporary, and Salzburger Kunstverein. She participated in the 57th Venice Biennale, 11th Gwangju Biennale, 19th and 24th Biennale of Sydney, 14th Shanghai Biennale, and 13th Istanbul Biennial. In 2023, she premiered her first theatre play, The Talking Car, in the frame of BoCA Biennale, Lisbon.\u202f\nR. H. Quaytman (b. 1961, Boston) lives and works in Guilford, CT and New York. Quaytman studied at Bard College and at the Institut des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris, and received the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in 2001. In 2005, she co-founded Orchard, a cooperatively-run exhibition and event space that concluded its three-year run on the Lower East Side in 2008. Quaytman\u2019s work was featured in the 15th Shanghai Biennale (2025), documenta 14 (2017), the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have taken place at Glenstone, Potomac, MD (2022), WIELS, Brussels (2021), a two-part exhibition at the Serralves Museum, Porto (2020) and Muzeum Sztuki, L\u00f3dz (2019), Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2019), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2018), Galerie Buchholz, Berlin and Cologne (2018, 2011), Secession, Vienna (2017), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016), Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2025, 2015, 2008), Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2015), Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels (2014, 2012), Renaissance Society, Chicago (2013), the Museum Abteiberg, M\u00f6nchengladbach (2012), the Kunsthalle Basel (2011), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2010), and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2009), among others.\nLaura Pawela is a Polish visual and video artist, sculptor, film editor and lecturer at Lodz Film School. Born in 1977 in Upper Silesia, she lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. Pawela graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw (2004, Sculpture). She recently defended her PhD in art in Lodz Film School, where she conduct classes in video art and found footage films. She is a member of both Polish and European Film Academy.\nCo-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland as part of the Inspiring Culture 2025\u20132026 program, within the framework of the project Theory of Seeing, implemented in cooperation with e-flux and the Polish Cultural Institute New York.\nLead image:  Agnieszka Polska, The Birth of a Prediction Machine (still), 2026.","offers":{"@type":"Offer"}},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/10\/7c105357-9ba1-4690-a86d-17cdc064a9bb.jpg","width":1440,"height":810},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2026\/10\/30\/theory-of-seeing\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Theory of Seeing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/","name":"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","description":"Instytuty Polskie","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"pl-PL"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1","name":"stypulkowskaa","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a28cee30023e60aaadd7265c034712e0bff48f0104612319d472cc274e96a303?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a28cee30023e60aaadd7265c034712e0bff48f0104612319d472cc274e96a303?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"stypulkowskaa"},"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/author\/stypulkowskaa-2\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22487"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22498,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22487\/revisions\/22498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}