Marni Kotak (born 1974) is an American artist best known for her durational performance/exhibition ''The Birth of Baby X,'' in which she gave birth to her son Baby X (aka Baby Ajax) as a live performance at Microscope Gallery in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, NY, USA, on October 25, 2011.

Education

Kotak received her BA from

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...

and her MFA from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

in 2006, where she was one of 18 graduating artists whose thesis exhibit was shut down and censored by NYC officials. The graduating artists sued and eventually settled with the city in exchange for a monetary award and a formal apology from Julius Spiegel, Brooklyn Borough Parks Commissioner.

Performance art

Kotak's work, in which she presents her everyday life as performance art, includes live re-enactments of her own birth, losing her virginity in a blue Plymouth, and attending her grandfather's funeral. She is currently working on an ongoing performance re-contextualizing the everyday act of raising a child as performance art, called ''Raising Baby X''. In 2014, Kotak announced that she was on

psychiatric medication A psychiatric or psychotropic medication is a psychoactive drug taken to exert an effect on the chemical makeup of the brain and nervous system. Thus, these medications are used to treat mental illnesses. These medications are typically made o ...

to recover from

postpartum depression Postpartum depression (PPD), also called postnatal depression, is a type of mood disorder associated with childbirth, which can affect both sexes. Symptoms may include extreme sadness, low energy, anxiety, crying episodes, irritability, and cha ...

, and that her next work of performance art would involve gradually going off the medication in public.Why artist Marni Kotak is going off her meds in public view
at '' Q''; published August 13, 2014; retrieved August 15, 2014

Awards and recognition

Kotak is the winner of a 2012-2013 Franklin Furnace Fund award and a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council. In 2011 she was named one of ARTINFO's 2011 "Women Who Shook Up The Art World."

Personal life

Kotak grew up in North Attleboro, MA and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She is married to and often collaborates with her husband, noted visual artis
Jason Robert Bell

References

External links