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Katarzyna Kozyra (born 1963) is a Polish
video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
ist. She studied German studies at the
University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields o ...
(1985–1988). In 1993, she also graduated from the
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw ( pl, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie) is a public university of visual arts and applied arts located in the Polish capital. The Academy traces its history back to the Department of Arts founded at the Warsaw ...
where she studied sculpture and Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst in
Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
. Kozryra received a ''
Paszport Polityki Paszport Polityki (Polityka's Passport) is an annual Polish cultural award presented by the weekly magazine ''Polityka'' since 1993. It is presented in six major categories: literature, film, theatre, classical music, popular music, visual art ...
'' award in 1997 as the most promising artist in Poland. She has exhibited internationally since 1997, at venues including Brown University and Carnegie International in the U.S. Her art was involved in a 1999
censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
incident in Poland. Her photo portrait of Slawomir Belina in a
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
exhibition in 2000 was also controversial for its alleged
eroticism Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, sc ...
, as his anus was in the centre of the composition. Since 2003 Kozyra has received a DAAD grant, and has developed a new form of performance involving operatic singing. In 1999, she represented Poland in the 48th
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
where she won an honorable mention and commendation for video installation "Men’s Bathhouse". In September 2011 she received the
Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego) is a governmental administration office concerned with various aspects of Polish culture. It was formed on 31 October 20 ...
grant.


Artistic activity

"Pyramid of Animals" was her 1993 graduate piece, which became a sensation and "object of violent controversy" in
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
at the time. The piece consisted of the
dissected Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause ...
and taxidermied animal bodies of a horse, dog, cat, and rooster and a video depicting the killing of the horse. While quoting a theme from Grimm Brother’s fairy tale ''
The Bremen Town Musicians The "Town Musicians of Bremen" (german: link=no, Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' in 1819 (KHM 27). It tells the story of four aging domestic animals, w ...
'', the work concerns human involvement in industrial
animal killing The killing of animals is animal euthanasia (for pain relief), animal sacrifice (for a deity), animal slaughter (for food), hunting (for food, for sport, for fur and other animal products, etc.), blood sports, roadkill (by accident) or self-d ...
procedure and the normalization of murder when part of the food chain. It was also said that this piece wasn't just, "a work about animals, but a work about
death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
, about killing, and their significance in present day culture". Kozyra became known as a controversial artist because of the notoriety with the installation, but also because of her other works: "Blood Relationship" (1995), "Olympia" (1996), "Bathhouse" (1997), and "Man’s Bathhouse" (1999). In "Olympia" (1996), Kozyra put her fight with cancer and the taboo of naked female bodies on display. As an attempt to restore dignity to an ailing, moribund body by exposing social stereotypes of the aging
female body Female body shape or female figure is the cumulative product of a woman's skeletal structure and the quantity and distribution of muscle and fat on the body. There is a wide range of normality of female body shapes. Female figures are typicall ...
, Kozyra juxtaposed
Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bo ...
’s “ Olympia” (1863), an image of a healthy, strong, and beautiful body, with her own
chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothe ...
treatment. It was a protest against the belief that body illnesses or senility doom its owner to
social invisibility Social invisibility refers to a group of people in the society who have been separated or systematically ignored by the majority of the public. As a result, those who are marginalized feel neglected or being invisible in the society. It can includ ...
. Included in the work are a photographic triptych of Olympia and a video of Kozyra's treatment. The first image shows Kozyra lying in the same pose as Manet's "Olympia", but her body is not meant to be the object of desire as with Manet's work, but, instead is pale, hairless, and unhealthy. The second image depicts Kozyra naked on a hospital bed– she is completely hairless and the effects of the chemotherapy are obvious. The third image shows an old woman sitting on a bed – she is alone. Her body is flabby and she has really saggy breasts. Her face is wrinkled all over and it seems that all her teeth are gone. At the same time she looks really calm – like she would reconcile with her fate. The women in all the photographs have one thing in common – black ribbon wrapped around the neck to symbolizes
mourning Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone's death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively ...
and to hearken back to the work by Manet. The most scandalous element is not presenting the female nude as itself, but presenting the reality of life, illness, and death; that the female body is not just a thing of beauty and admiration of the
male gaze In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heteros ...
. "Bathhouse" (1997) considers similar subject matter. Kozyra’s intention was to show how women ''really'' appear in situation where nobody is looking and when they don’t need to follow
beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...
canons. Kozyra was able to document this natural behavior by shooting her work with a hidden video camera. By doing this, she presented the female body as is and encouraged the viewers to go against their previous ideals and standards of beauty. Additionally, it was an allusion to the history of art, with works of Rembrandt and Jean Ingres opening and closing the video. "Man’s Bathhouse" (1999) was a confrontation with and continuation of "Bathhouse". Kozyra went into a men’s
bathhouse Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...
with fake penis attached to her and a towel hung on her shoulders covering the breasts. Surprisingly she found out, that men even when being alone they still focus on their appearance, peer at each other, and compare. "The Rite of Spring" (1999-2002) was a video installation inspired by the choreography for Igor Stravinsky's 1913 ballet of the same name. Kozyra used former dancers from the Polish National Ballet who were no longer able to dance for this work. Kozyra photographed the elderly subjects lying on the ground in dance positions and then animated their movements. Kozrya has been working on her "In Art Dreams Become True" series since 2003. The series of visual art, music, and performance is released in phases of the project, each as a separate work although they are intended to be combined in a feature film. In the work, Kozrya is "being manipulated as she strives to fulfill her dream of becoming a "real woman" and an opera singer." In 2011, she received the Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland for her artistic accomplishments.


Controversy

Anda Rottenberg, Director of the
Zachęta National Gallery of Art The Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Polish: ''Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki'') is a contemporary art museum in the center of Warsaw, Poland. The Gallery's chief purpose is to present and support Polish contemporary art and artists. With numero ...
in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
where Kozyra first showed "Bath house" in 1997 and who also purchased the work, sparked off controversy by writing to Art Monthly in October 1998 and claiming that Kozyra's "Bath house" and artist Tacita Dean's 1998 "Gellert" were of the same subject: the most famous
bathhouse Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...
in
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
. Freely admitting that controversy helps in the promotion of a work, "Controversy around this work was in fact a very stimulating factor and now as the months passed Bath house has come to be regarded as classic", Rottenberg found the coincidence "indeed amazing". However, the works differ completely. Whereas Kozyra used hidden cameras intending to reveal the bathing women's natural behaviour as well as challenging normal considerations of privacy, and is a multi-screen video work (see letter again), Dean had permission from the bath workers and her single screen film is concerned with the healing sulphurous waters of the baths (see Colin Gleadell, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 1 February 2001).


Further reading

* Sabine Folie, ''The Impossible Theater: Performativity in the Works of Pawel Althamer, Tadeusz Kantor, Katarzyna Kozyra, Robert Kusmirowski and Artur Zmijewski'', Verlag Fur Moderne Kunst (2006), * Brandon Taylor, ''Contemporary Art: Art since 1970'', Prentice Hall (2004), * Laura Hoptman and Tomas Pospiszyl (ed.), ''Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art since the 1950s'', The MIT Press (2002), - described at MOMA International Progra


Notes


External links


Exhibition 2004-05, Carnegie International

Exhibition in 2004, Postmasters, New York - see Archive
reviewed a
Paulina Pobocha, ''Katarzyna Kozyra’s Punishment and Crime'', NY Arts magazine


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120712112227/http://www.culture.pl/web/english/resources-visual-arts-full-page/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/eAN5/content/katarzyna-kozyra Biography, culture.pl website
Kozyra's official website

Kozyra's work at the gallery Żak , Branicka
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kozyra, Katarzyna 1963 births Living people 20th-century Polish women artists 21st-century Polish women artists Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw alumni Academic staff of Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig Artists from Warsaw Polish contemporary artists