Robert Rumas Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1966 -

Artist, curator, activist, socio-cultural animator, exhibition space designer. Born in 1966 in Kielce, Poland.

Although he trained as a painter, Robert Rumas soon changed this medium for other media, especially installations. He usually deals with the problem of contemporary identity of Polish society, based on a traditionally strong role of religion and the Catholic Church and other elements of contemporary Polish mythology. Common themes in his works are social manipulation tactics,reli starting with his work in the public space (beyond the boundaries of galleries and museums), creating artistic events and observing the public's reaction to them.

In the years 1987-1991 he studied at the Faculty of Painting, National Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, where he studied under prof. Witoslaw Czerwonka, among others. He was an exhibition curator with Galeria Wyspa in Gdansk (1988-1990), the National Gallery of Art in Sopot (1993-1995), the Baltic-Sea Cultural Centre in Gdansk (1996-2001) as well as the Laznia Contemporary Art Centre in Gdansk (2000-2003). In recent years, he also cooperated with the Torun Centre for Contemporary Art. The artist also created the "Antyciala" exhibition at the Contemporary Art Centre in Warsaw in 1995. He lives and works in Gdansk.

In his early work at the end of the 1980s, there is a visible connection between his painting and expressionist aesthetic characteristic of this period (Reka / Hand, 1988). He also used a variety of materials, such as wood, neon tubes and ropes (Wszyscy dla jednej, jedna dla wszystkich / All for one, one for all, 1989). During this period, the artist also created monumental building-like structures, which progressively grew with new features. The best example of this was a huge installation at the National Gallery of Art in Sopot in 1993 – Watki / Plots. Rumas built a 50-metre platform, on which he placed three water-filled pools. Each had a different theme: a glass bottle floating with a digital image of a goldfish, a harpist playing, while the third included a glowing, plastic statue of the Virgin Mary.

For the 1994 exhibition Europa, Europa, Rumas built four objects (Helicopter X 4) referring to the characteristic cone-shaped domes of the Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn, on the roof of which it was set. Each of the cone structures, contained a steel turbine which rotated and let out tones of varying pitch.

Over time, Rumas's work dealt increasingly with social topics. The purpose of his art became the disclosure of the socio-political reality: