Polish artist Paulina Olowska to transform room at Tate Modern

Polish artist Paulina Olowska will transform a room at Tate Modern into a theatre space this September as part of the gallery’s evening performance series, BMW Tate Live.

Olowska’s project The Mother: An Unsavoury Play in Two Acts and an Epilogue will take place within Tate Modern’s Poetry and Dream display, converting the room into a domestic space furnished with tables, chairs, wardrobes and handmade wallpaper, but also housing works by Meredith Frampton and Henri Matisse.

During the day the space will function as an installation, and at night it will become the set of Olowska’s adaptation of The Mother: An Unsavoury Play in Two Acts and an Epilogue by the avant-garde Polish artist and playwright Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.

The play portrays the dysfunctional relationship between a mother and son, played by two professional actors, while friends of Olowska take on roles including a maid, a suspicious individual and a prostitute. The action takes place in a bourgeois setting where madness and hallucination lapse into surrealist chaos.

BMW Tate Live is committed to exploring imaginative and collaborative approaches to live performance and the crossing of boundaries between artistic mediums. Olowska is notable for crossing such boundaries, as she works across installation, painting and performance. Her work is known for focusing on minor histories and forgotten figures of feminism, and for referencing familiar images and artifacts, such as agitprop posters and period fashion photography.

The performances will take place on Monday 21 September at 7pm and 8.30pm; Wednesday 23 September at 7pm and 8.30pm; and Friday 25 September at 10pm. Booking is required for these performances.

The installation will be open from 14 to 27 September and is free to visit.

Tate Modern is located at Bankside, London