Tomasz Kitliński new fellow at the Institute of Art and Music

Tomasz Kitliński is an academic, artivist, and socially engaged art curator. And a non-binary self. From May to October 2023, s/he is a Senior Fellow at the Art History Departement at TU Dresden.

Short bio

Kitliński studied Text and Image in Paris with H. Cixous and J. Kristeva, earning her/his Dîplome d’Études Approfondies; s/he also conducted research at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Kitliński holds her/his Ph.D. and Habilitation from Warsaw's Polish Academy of Sciences. S/he served as a Fulbright scholar, Marie Curie Actions grantee, and Academy in Exile/New University in Exile Consortium fellow. S/he has written in Art in America, The Advocate, taz and was cited in the New York Times and Der Spiegel. Her/his scholarly texts have appeared in volumes, published by Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and New York University Press; s/he has also authored 4 English- and Polish-language books.

Artivist and Academic in Exile

After serving 25 years as lecturer and researcher at Lublin’s Curie University, s/he was targeted by the far-right party, currently ruling in Poland, for commissioning and exhibiting Dorota Nieznalska's memorial [commemoration of, memorialization of] to pogroms, perpetrated by Poles on their Jewish neighbors and for exposing in public the anti-Semitism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and LGBTQI+phobia of the Polish government today: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2019/12/09/lublin-governor-files-defamation-suit-against-art-historian-sparking-free-speech-fears-in-poland 

Kitliński invited to Lublin feminist art historian Griselda Pollock, Holberg Prize winner; feminist visual culture analyst and filmmaker Christina von Braun; ha-Shoah scholar Irena Grudzinska-Gross of Princeton University; and Sarah Wilson of the Courtauld Institute of Art, curator and author of The Visual World of French Theory. At Curie University, s/he spearheaded a successful protest against the planned lay-off of auxiliary personnel: the jobs of all the 400 “cleaning ladies” have remained safe. Angus Reid highlighted her/his struggle for human rights in an exhibition at Edinburgh’s Summerhall. 

Kitliński’s Projects @TUD

At TU Dresden, Tomasz Kitliński is realizing her/his project A Comparative Study of the Politics of Women's, Queer, and Refugees' Protest Art and Visual Culture in Poland 2015-present in the framework of the methodology of Bildproteste, introduced by Kerstin Schankweiler; her/his curatorial project has a working title: Bildproteste aus Osteuropa.         
S/he has lived with her/his husband, art curator and historian Pawel Leszkowicz, for thirty years. Kitliński: “I am looking forward to collaborating closely with the Students and Staff of the Art History Department.”