Ewa Partum belongs to the first generation of conceptual artists in Poland. She is the author of installations in public space and ephemeral activities. The artist expresses herself through photography, film and visual poetry, mail-art as well as performance.

Ewa Partum’s creative experiments focus on the problems connected with new language of art and feminism. The artist, critically analyzing the role of women in society and exposing the limitations that tie them, was one of the forerunner not only of feminist art in Poland but also of body-art and activities of critical character. Towards the end of the 60s, while looking for a suitable form of artistic expression, Partum undertook linguistic activities. At the beginning of the 70s the artist started work on the project Poem by Ewa, which consisted of objects which were a combination of the lip-print, particular letters, and even whole phrases. Soon afterwards she made a series of short films of the same title – Film by Ewa (Tautological Cinema) in which she analyzed the structure of the language of cinematography. The 70s also brought many actions in public space, among others The Legality of Space (1971), Breakfast on the Grass (1971), Active Poetry (1971), Meta-poetry (1972). In 1974 she made the performance Change, whose continuation was the project Change – My Problem is a Woman’s Problem (1978 – 1979). During the first action, the artist with the help of a make-up person ‘aged’ a half of her face, and in later activities she gave this treatment to her whole body. Undertaking the theme of passing away and the changes that happen in a woman’s body, Partum attacked the stereotype of perceiving women from the angle of physical attraction. Her next projects also belonged to the feminist discourse: Self-identification (1980), Women, Marriage Is Against You (1980), Stupid Woman (1981). In 1982 she made the performance Hommage a Solidarność, later repeated at the Wewerka Gallery (1983); after pronouncing particular sounds the artist kissed a white cardboard, leaving a print of lipstick. Two years later, in the work Ost-West Schatten, the naked Ewa Partum stood against the background of the Berlin wall, holding in her hands two letters ‘W’ and ‘O’. In 1992, during the exhibition Polish Avant-garde 1930 – 1990 in Berlin, the artist distributed among the gathered crowd black envelopes, in which there were notes saying: Polish avant-garde women artists have their great chance only as corpses. In this way she wanted to express her protest against the choice of presented works, whose authors were only men (except the late Katarzyna Kobro).

Ewa Partum (born 1945) in the years 1963 – 1965 studied at the State College of Fine Arts in Łódź, and then (1965 – 1970) at the Painting Department of Art Academy in Warsaw. In 1972 she set up her own original Adres Gallery, a gallery of conceptual art, theory of art and mail-art. She conducted it for the next five years in her own flat. The activity of this gallery was forbidden by the Association of Polish Artists in Łódź. At the beginning of the 80s, during the martial law in Poland, the artist’s family got rid of the whole Adres archive. In 1982 the artist left Poland. Now she lives and works in Berlin.
Her works were presented during many group and individual exhibitions in Poland and abroad, among others in Warsaw, 1970, 2006, 2008; Łódź, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1977; Wrocław, 1976, 2007; Poznań, 1980, 2007; Krakow, 1981; Bochum, 1982; Milan, 1982; Berlin, 1983,1997, 2000; Dusseldorf, 1990; Paris, 1990, 2008; Bonn, 1991; Hamburg, 1991; Malpartida de Caceres, 1992, 2006; Karlsruhe, 2001, 2006; Freiburg, 2002; Vienna, 2002, 2004, 2008; Madrid, 2004, 2006; New York, 2004, 2008; London, 2004, 2006; Gdańsk, 2006; Los Angeles, 2007; Grenoble, 2008; Washington, 2008; and recently as part of Manifesta 7 in Roverto, 2008.