Christian Jankowsk i came to prominence with thought-provoking work that satirizes reality TV and the media. His latest exhibition, Heavy Weight History, at Lisson Gallery in London, is an installation of photographs and a 30-minute film that documents a group of Polish weightlifters attempting to lift public monuments in Warsaw. In this excerpt from the short, the Berlin-based Jankowski captures a famous Polish TV sports commentator following the sportsmen as they attempt to raise five individual sculptures. There is a political aspect here, touching on communism, masculinity and Poland’s self-image. “Warsaw was a city completely destroyed after the war. It had to find a new identity; maybe that was partly through sculpture,” says the German artist, whose performance pieces have included Art Market TV, in which a man sells artworks at a fair in the style of a home shopping channel presenter. Appropriately, Heavy Weight History also comments on how our view of the past is formed. “When you tell history, you can only have so many sentences. If you repeat and repeat the same perspective it becomes more concrete, not dynamic,” says Jankowski of the curious and often accidentally humorous project. “A good joke connects thoughts that come as a surprise.”