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13/11/2011

Katarzyna Kozyra

The National Museum - The Main Building, Krakow

Nearly twenty years after Katarzyna Kozyra, one of the most interesting and well-known Polish artists of the past two decades, made her debut, the National Museum in Krakow is presenting a monographic exhibition of her works. It includes, amongst others, her Bathhouse and Men’s Bathhouse, Blood Ties, The Rite of Spring and Casting, as well as a selection of films from her In Art, Dreams Come True cycle.

Kozyra’s name has not only come to stand for critical art and contemporaneousness, but has also become synonymous with scandal and incomprehension. Her Pyramid of Animals thrust contemporary art into the full glare of the spotlight of public debate when, thanks to the manipulations of the media, a heated, nationwide discussion flared up. The voices not only of critics, but also of representatives of various milieux, were raised in dispute over the diploma project of a young artist studying under Professor Grzegorz Kowlaski. From the very outset, then, the public, either directly, as visitors to the exhibition, or indirectly, stirred up by the media, were drawn into the sphere of Kozyra’s works and, at one and the same time, her life. In her case, the two are indissolubly fused.

Katarzyna Kozyra, sculptress and creator of video installations, films and performance art, was born in 1963 and lives in Berlin and Warsaw. She studied at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts’ Department of Sculpture. Her work engages with the most profound problems of human existence; identity, transformation and death. She moves amongst the spheres of cultural taboos relating to human corporeality, among the stereotypes and behaviours encoded in the life of society. Transgressing them in all of her works, she thus exposes herself to public criticism. In 1999, one of her video installations, Men’s Bathhouse, received an honourable mention at the 48th International Biennial of Visual Art in Venice.

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The works on show at the National Museum in Kraków, together with the artist’s own commentaries:

Pyramid of Animals, 1993, video, owner: Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
Animals are put to death industrially in a civilised manner, something which occurs anonymously and out of the future consumer’s sight. The taking of an animal’s life openly, by an individual, gives rise to outrage and censure. I consciously put myself to this test. Observing the death of the horse was a hundred times more terrible than all the invective that was then heaped upon me. Wishing to be consistent, I also took the deaths of the animals which had already died upon my conscience. The composition is about death in general and about the deaths of those particular four animals.

excerpt from Katarzyna Kozyra’s letter to the editor of Gazeta Wyborcza (the Electoral Gazette), 20.08.1993, Archive KK.

Blood Ties, 1995, photographs, owner: Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
This work was created in 1995 under the impact of events in the former Yugoslavia. The blood-red cross and crescent are the symbols of humanitarian organisations bringing aid to humanity in distress. Whilst working on the piece, my thoughts were focussed on the symbolic metaphor of fratricidal rivalry and battles fought out against a backdrop of religious and ethnic ideology.

[catalogue:] Katarzyna Kozyra. Works 1993–1998, Polnisches Institut (Polish Institute), Leipzig [1999], p. 11

Olimpia, 1996, installation, owner: Barbara Kabala-Bonarska and Andrzej Bonarski, deposited at the National Museum in Krakow
This is a highly personal work and a wholly conscious piece of exhibitionism. It was a reaction to the scandal that surrounded Pyramid of Animals. The truth is that I was enraged by the fact that, to explain my work, I had to become ill. I thought, right, if this is so very fascinating, if my privacy is going to be dragged into the open against my will and my convictions, then I can do that selfsame thing.

Katarzyna Kozyra in conversation with Piotr Sarzyński, Something’s sitting at the back of my skull, in Polityka (Politics), No. 5, p. 43

Bathhouse, 1997, video installation, from the artist’s collection deposited at the Zachęta National Gallery
I was [...] at an exhibition in Budapest and, for the first time in my life, I wound up at the public Turkish baths there. The place delighted me beyond words. A dark, gloomy interior with an indescribable atmosphere. Strange women moving around and behaving in a way wholly different from what we’re accustomed to seeing in the everyday. They encapsulated everything, with the sole exception of erotica.

Katarzyna Kozyra in conversation with Piotr Sarzyński, Something’s sitting at the back of my skull, in Polityka (Politics), No. 5 (31.01), p. 43

Men’s Bathhouse, 1999, installation, owner: Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
In the men’s baths, the most interesting thing turned out to be being among men when they didn’t ‘see’ me. I was wearing an invisibility cap. And how rewarding it was to make a fool out of blokes. A woman disguises herself as a bloke. And it works. Even though everyone there observes everyone else, no one recognized me for a woman. You know what I think now? It’s a men-only sauna. So even if my towel had slipped off my tits, the thought that a member of the opposite sex could be in there with them would never have entered their heads. Nobody would catch on to the fact that the chap with the tits was really a woman. Their certainty that I was a bloke was a better cover than dressing up as a man could ever have been.

[from:] Passport to a masculine temple. Katarzyna Kozyra in conversation with Artur Żmijewski, Warsaw, 25th February 1999, [in:] Artur Żmijewski. The Trembling Body. Conversations with Artists, the Political Critiques series, vol. 2, Warsaw 2008, 2nd edition, p. 202, The Scandalous Katarzyna K., from the Encyclopedia of 20th Century Art, 1999, directed by Grażyna Bryżuk, 38 min., English translation by Jolanta Kozak

The Rite of Spring, 1999-2002, video installation, owner: Zachęta
National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
Rite of Spring sprang from my fascination with death and decay. It was the result of my earlier confrontations with death. I felt as if I were using corpses, not people.

excerpt from Katarzyna Kozyra’s autobiographical notes, made in English, for the book published by the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, 2010, to accompany the Katarzyna Kozyra. Casting exhibition.

In Art, Dreams Come True, from 2004, video installation, films, documentation of performance art works and squatting events, from the artist’s collection deposited at the Zachęta National Gallery
The works being screened:
The Cheerleader, 2006
Il Castrato, 2006
Non so piu, 2004
Summertale, 2008
The remaining films from the cycle can be viewed on request.
Please simply ask the museum guards on duty.

To start with, I wanted to sing songs like Over the Rainbow or Abba’s hits… that kind of thing… or, quite simply, something like Gloria. A bit of rock. But then I realised that the work had to have two protagonists, Gloria and Maestro, each of whom leads me into their world. I was equally as fascinated and overawed by Gloria and by Maestro… when I was a little girl.

excerpt from Katarzyna Kozyra’s autobiographical notes, made in English, for the book published by the Zachęta National Gallery of Art to accompany the Katarzyna Kozyra. Casting exhibition in 2010, Hanna Wróblewskia [in:] Katarzyna Kozyra. In Art Dreams Come True, Hatje Cantz, BWA, Wrocław 2007, p.59–62.

Curator on behalf of Zacheta, National Gallery of Art: Hanna Wróblewska
Curator on behalf of the Natioanl Museum in Krakow: Anna Budzałek
Coordinator: Grażyna Kulawik
Implementation of media: Piotr Krzaczyński
Design: Luiza Berdak

Dear Visitors,
Please be advised that some of the exhibited works by Katarzyna Kozyra might be considered controversial. Therefore, decision about participation of the younger public in the exhibition has to be taken by parents and caregivers.

Opening: November 14, 2011

The National Museum - The Main Building
al. 3 Maja 1 - Krakow

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