Dezeen Magazine

Miles and Miles of Sticky Tape by Monika Grzymala

Polish artist Monika Grzymala will fill a London gallery with lengths of black and white sticky tape at an exhibition that opens in October.

Miles and miles of sticky tape by Monika Grzymala

The exhibition at the Sumarria Lunn gallery will follow previous shows (pictured) at MoMA in New York, the Tokyo Art Museum, the Drawing Room in London and the Donald Judd Foundation in Texas.

Miles and miles of sticky tape by Monika Grzymala

Grzymala applies adhesive tape directly to gallery walls to create three-dimensional drawings that can both wrap around corners and project outwards.

Miles and miles of sticky tape by Monika Grzymala

In previous installations kilometres of tape bridge doorways, swirl into whirlpools and spill onto the floor.

Miles and miles of sticky tape by Monika Grzymala

The exhibition runs from 12 October to 5 November.

Miles and miles of sticky tape by Monika Grzymala

Other installations featured on Dezeen in recent weeks include a stretchy web of netting and an exhibition of floating hats - see all our stories about installations here.

Photography is by Monika Grzymala.

Here's some more information from the gallery:


Monika Grzymala was born in Zabrze, Poland in 1970. Having moved to Germany with her family in 1980, she went on to study stone sculpture and restoration. It was only when a professor observed that her interest appeared to lie not in the objects themselves, but the relationships between them that the nature of her work changed. She stopped making sculpture and focused on drawing, exploring the basics of line and mark.

“Very quickly my line left the page and continued on the walls”

Western history has been preoccupied with drawing since records began. Indeed, many of these records are drawings themselves. From the illuminations in medieval manuscripts, through Renaissance depictions of the human form, to minimalist constructions made solely of lines, drawing has maintained its place in art. Grzymala references this sense of tradition, but sharply updates the practice by teasing it out of two-dimensions and out of its traditional medium.

“Her mastery and imagination have taken the liberation of drawing a step beyond what was accomplished by those who came before.”

Describing her use of materials in terms of distance rather than weight or amount, Grzymala claims her works are more akin to performance than conventional installation. By measuring her used spools of tape in length rather than number, she documents the physical effort she invests in every work.

“Time is a very important component of my work. The pieces are all like time capsules.”

Each work is site-specific – created in response to the conditions and configuration of a given space. For an exhibition in New York 8.3 kilometers of black and white adhesive tape seemed to hurtle across the gallery walls, turn corners, then leap off the wall to wrap around a pillar. At London’s The Drawing Room the artist’s installation documented her response to the chaotic London skyline using kilometers of white and grey sticky tape to fill each corner of the gallery.

"Whenever I leave a work, I feel as if I leave a part of me, a part of my body behind… there's a connection - an invisible line from Berlin to London to New York."

Grzymala’s upcoming solo exhibition at Sumarria Lunn Gallery follows shows at the Donald Judd Foundation in Texas (2008), The Drawing Room in London (2009), Tokyo Art Museum (2010) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York (2010).

Exhibition details:

Title: Monika Grzymala
Location: Sumarria Lunn Gallery, 36 South Molton Lane, Mayfair, London W1K 5AB
Exhibition runs: October 12th to November 5th 2011