Wilhelm Sasnal

Painting as Prop

Coinciding with the eponymous exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Painting as Prop features four new essays and a conversation with Polish painter Wilhelm Sasnal. Throughout his career, the artist has consistently offered reinterpretations of existing imagery, whether an artwork, a newspaper image, or a book. Other paintings, some of which played a role as props in Sasnal’s recent film project, “The Assistant”, take cues from archival images, banal snapshots, popular culture, and art history. All of the paintings were made between 2002 and 2024. The texts introduce Sasnal’s distinct portraiture, modernist inspirations, and the evolution of his first feature film.