A collaboration with Frieze Studios

Artist Paulina Olowska invited Frieze Magazine into her studio at the Villa Kadenowka earlier this summer, providing a background for her show ‘Destroyed Woman’ at Simon Lee Gallery, London.

‘What is maybe considered a leftover or a dumb story, could actually have a hidden meaning’, says artist Paulina Olowska. In this video, filmed in in Rabka-Zdroj, Poland around the artist’s studio and the Villa Kadenowka, a 1930s villa she has transformed into a space for artists events, Olowska discusses the complex relations of her practice to art history, tradition, place, dress and processes of mediation.

Revealing the rich diversity of her work and expression, the video includes footage of Olowska excavating fabric she had buried in the ground near Kadenowka, which have been incorporated into a sculpture displayed in ‘Destroyed Woman’. Its title a reference to a pivotal text by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, Olowska explains her particular concern for making room for vulnerability in the representation of female experience. ‘I’m tired of calling women ‘strong’ and “superwoman”', she says, 'there is still a sense of doing a lot for female place in culture’.

The exhibition is on view till 16 November.