tr3-yr1-010

http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_kozyra_katarzyna

Katarzyna Kozyra

"Piramida zwierząt / Animal Pyramid"

Polish sculptor, creator of installations and video art. Born February 1, 1963, in Warsaw; resides in Warsaw and Berlin.

Kozyra initially did coursework in German language and literature at the University of Warsaw (1985-1988) before going on to study sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw under professor Grzegorz Kowalski (1988-1993). "Piramida zwierząt / Animal Pyramid", her thesis project, touched upon the issue of death (a choice which had its basis not only in the artist's views but also in her personal experiences - she was battling cancer at the time). The work gained her significant renown and was the subject of broad discussions, and effectively initiated the phenomenon of "critical art" in Poland. In its full form, this phenomenon is characterized by a dramatic gap between the gravity and courage inherent in questions posed by artists on one hand, and the embarrassingly

"Święto wiosny / Rite of Spring"

low level of "public" discussion (primarily media-based) of art on the other. With Kozyra's subsequent pieces, "Więzy krwi / Blood Ties" (1995), "Olimpia / Olympia" (1996), and two versions of "Łaźnia / Bathhouse" - filmed with a hidden camera in a women's and men's bathhouse (1997 and 1999, respectively) - the discussions of her work remained heated. Since 2000 the artist has been devoting practically all of her time to an unusually arduous project involving the reconstruction (in the form of video animations) of Vaclav Nizhinsky's choreography to Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", a piece whose initial version was presented at the jubilee exhibition of the Zachęta Contemporary Art Gallery at the turn of 2000 and 2001.

Selected exhibitions and awards:

1997 "Polityka" weekly Passport Award for 1997
1998 "Body and the East. From the 1960s to the Present", Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana
1999 48th Art Biennale, Venice (honorable mention)
1999-2000 "Zeitwende", Kunstmuseum, Bonn; Museum Moderner Kunst 20er Haus, Vienna
2000 "L'autre moitié de l'Europe", Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris
2000/2001 "Uważaj wychodzac z własnych snów. Możesz znaleźć się w cudzych / Be Careful Exiting Your Own Dreams - You May Find Yourself in Someone Else's" (Zachęta Gallery jubilee exhibition), Zachęta Contemporary Art Gallery, Warsaw

Author: Maryla Sitkowska, Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, November 2001.

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"Piramida zwierząt (Animal Pyramid)"

Polish sculptor, creator of installations and video art. Born February 1, 1963, in Warsaw; resides in Warsaw and Berlin.

Studied German at the University of Warsaw in 1985-1988, and then Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 1993 she finishes her studies in prof. Grzegorz Kowalski's studio, called the "Kowalnia", and befriends her drawing professor - Jerzy Stajuda. After her studies, she quits practising sculpture in favour of photography, video installation, and performance. In 1997 she was awarded the Passport of "Polityka" weekly, as the most promising Polish artist. Representing Poland at the 48th Venice Biennial in 1999 she won an honorary mention. Lives and works in Berlin and Warsaw.

From the time when "Piramida zwierząt" ("Animal Pyramid", 1993) - Katarzyna Kozyra's diploma - gained notoriety in press and television, she has been perceived as the most scandalising Polish artist. Inspired by the Grimm Brothers' "Travelling Musicians," she created a sculpture of four dead, stuffed animals, mounted upon each other: horse, dog, cat, and cock. Two of them - the horse and the cock - she chose herself and then killed. The work consists of an aesthetic object and a drastic video depicting the killing of the horse. Kozyra aimed at eliciting the paradoxical discrepancy between the effect achieved, and the process of its realization. The scandal that the "Piramid" provoked is exemplary for social hypocrisy - the general acceptance of the killing of animals, on the condition that it serves concrete, pragmatic purposes.

In the 90s Katarzyna Kozyra was recognised as a leading figure of the "critical art" movement in Poland. This was mainly because of her touching upon social taboos (death, disease, nakedness), most often connected with issues of (sick, old, marginalised) body. Her interest in corporeality reaches back to her study time (ex. "Akty anorektyczki" / "Anorexic Nudes", 1991, "Polaroidy czarno-białe" / "Black-and-White Polaroids", 1992). In 1995 Kozyra presented a series of four large-format photographs entitled "Więzy krwi" / "Blood Ties" (photographs), depicting nude female figures against a background of religious symbols - the cross and the half moon. Two of them were reproduced on a billboard as a part of the AMS Gallery project in 1999. The work was censored at that time.

The taboo of the naked female body was also revealed by "Olimpia" / "Olympia" (photographs) (1996). The work consists of a photographic triptych, referring to Manet's famous painting, and a video showing the artist, who had suffered from cancer since 1992, as she is given chemotherapy. Unlike Manet's Olympia, who, at her time, also raised controversy, in Kozyra's work the female body is old or ill. Not only did the artist reveal social stereotypes of the female body (dictated by the "male gaze"), but she also caused a breach in the prevalent aesthetic canon.

"Łaźnia męska" ("Men's Bathhouse")

It is also not by accident, that the film from the video installation "Łaźnia" ("Bathhouse", 1997) (photographs) begins and ends with paintings of Rembrandt and Ingres, showing that the canon of beauty in art is variable. With the aid of a hidden camera, Kozyra filmed the interior of a female bathhouse. The elder women, immersed in personal hygiene, rather naturally took on poses from old masters' paintings. Again, the artist confronted the beholder with a view of aging, and therefore, excluded body. This work was the first instance of the artist thoughtfully arranging video works in exhibition space, a strategy that she continued in her future projects. "Łaźnia męska" ("Men's Bathhouse"), shown at the Venice Biennial in 1999, and being a pendant to "Bathhouse", cast new light upon the above mentioned work. This time, to be let into the bathhouse in Budapest, the artist had to take on the guise of a man (fake beard, silicon penis). Inside, she was filmed by her friends, who had smuggled in cameras. In this deceitful manner the artist gained access to a men's world hitherto inaccessible for her. It turned out that the men's behaviour was extremely different from that observed earlier, in "Bathhouse". Whereas the women, out of reach of the male gaze, engaged in personal activities, seemingly not taking notice of each other, the men, while among themselves, still seemed conscious of the presence of others.

Kozyra further pursued rules of male behaviour in the film triptych "Chłopcy" ("Boys", 2001-2002) (photographs). The young men, placed in front of the camera without any instructions and dressed in nothing but sashes reminding of vagina, expressed in their behaviour mainly sexual potency.

"Święto wiosny" ("Rite of Spring")

In two works that use music by Igor Stravinsky, Kozyra created a situation, where the body is deprived of will and becomes a marionette, subjected to the artist. In he video installation "Święto wiosny" ("Rite of Spring", 1999-2002), the artist reconstructed Vaclav Nizhinsky's choreography to Igor Stravinsky's ballet - an interpretation of a pagan ritual, by means of video animation of elder people's bodies (at the same time changing their gender as in the above mentioned work). A concentric arrangement of screens facing either inward or outward formed two rings: the screens of the inner ring showing the Chosen One's solo performance of the Sacrificial Dance, those of the outer one - the dance of the old wise men. While in Stravinsky's ballet the Chosen One dies, in Kozyra's work he is bound to stand up after each fall. The changing of gender roles and using of the human body like a marionette, are also key features of "Lekcja tańca" ("Dance Lesson", 2001), a video inspired by Stravinsky's "Petrouchka". In this recording of a performance, it is young men equipped with pink vaginas, who become marionette dancers.

Kozyra further explores the phenomenon of dance in her later works. In the video installation "Lords of Dance" (photographs) (2002), consisting of seven large screens, a couple of dancers dressed in golden pants and helmets performs a series of acrobatic exercises. In some parts of the work, the dancers operate the camera themselves, creating interesting close-ups. This technique was employed by the artist in one of her latest works, the video installation "Twarze" ("Faces", 2005-2006) (photographs). Kozyra filmed the faces of several dancers while performing (ballet, hip-hop, contemporary dance etc.). Hence the only aspect of the dancer's performance that remains visible are the expressions on their faces, something normally inaccessible for the public.

For the video installation "Kara i zbrodnia" ("Punishment and Crime", 2002) (photographs), Kozyra filmed a group of men fascinated by militaria, who spend their spare time playing around with weapons and explosives, destruction being their only aim. Not wanting to disclose their identities, Kozyra's protagonists wear masks and wigs. Once again, Kozyra filmed boys' games, but this time with real guns and real bullets. In the last sequences of the film human figures hang from a tree. In Kozyra's work, Dostoevsky's title is inverted, and one can hardly tell what is crime, and what is punishment.

"W sztuce marzenia stają się rzeczywistością" ("In Art Dreams Come True")

Since 2003 the artist has been realising the large-scale project "W sztuce marzenia stają się rzeczywistością" ("In Art Dreams Come True") (photographs), exploiting various forms of visual arts, music, and performance. Each phase of the project is documented on video and then presented as a separate work. Eventually, the individual pieces are supposed to become a feature film, combining fiction and documentary. Whereas in the works inspired by Stravinsky's ballets, it is Kozyra herself who pulls the marionette's strings, this time she is the one who is being formed, fulfilling her dream of becoming a "real woman" and an opera singer. The project features Gloria Viagra, a drag queen from Berlin, and Maestro (Grzegorz Pitulej), a singing teacher. They introduce Kozyra into their worlds: that of night clubs, on the one hand, and that of the opera, on the other. Both worlds met in the video installation "Non so piu", in which Kozyra takes lessons at the same time with both Gloria Viagra and Maestro, only to eventually perform an aria from "The Marriage of Figaro". In July 2006 in Vienna (as a part of the exhibition Impossible Theatre in Kunsthalle), appearing dressed up every hour in front of the museum as a singing bird, Kozyra performed the aria of the Queen of the Night from Mozart's "Magic Flute" ("Facade Concert"). She repeated the same piece in Pelagio in Italy, just after a procession, led by rat-masked Maestro who carried a Madonna statue, being the artist's double, to the top of a hill ("Madonna from Pelago"), and in a similar performance in Regensburg ("Madonna from Regensburg"). During the performance "Diva - Reinkarnacja" ("Diva - Reincarnation") - in the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw and the Barbican Gallery London - Kozyra appeared in a metal cage, dressed as a nude, weighty opera singer, the costume which has made singing extremely difficult. In other versions of this performance the emphasis was mostly on club life. As a birthday present for Gloria Viagra, the artist, dressed up as the drag queen's double, sang a song by Robbie Williams in the Big Eden Club in Berlin, and made a striptease that culminated in the revealing of an artificial penis in the artists' crotch, whom she thereafter hid in her bag ("Tribute To Gloria Viagra"). Then again, in the video "Opowieść zimowa" ("A Winter's Tale") the artist impersonated a fairy princess surrounded by midgets, whom she also used in the performance "The Midget Gallery" during the 4th Berlin Biennial and the Frieze Art Fair in London in 2006, where she created her own gallery spaces, revealing the show business mechanisms that pervade that kind of events. All parts of "In Art Dreams Come True" are connected by a variety of styles - high and low, melodrama and comedy. At the same time Kozyra plays with the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, freely changing roles, and demonstrating gender as a performative act.

Parallel to the above mentioned project, there emerged a series of works, inspired by "Lou Salome" (photographs) (2005). Kozyra impersonates Salome during a performance in the Viennese Schwarzenberg palace and its gardens, where she trains two actors dressed up as dogs, their masks vividly reminding the faces of Nietzsche and Rilke, who were both friends of Lou Salome. During a performance in the Roman Teatro Palladium in October 2005 ("Lou Salome a Roma. Teatro di cani") dog owners were invited as an audience, together with their pets. Thus the training of the dogs-philosophers on stage met with unpredictable behaviour of the animals among the audience. Unlike "In Art Dreams Come True", this time Kozyra is the dominatrix, taking total control over her charges.

In the videoclip "Chearleaderka" ("Chearleader", 2006) (photographs), created for the exhibition Teatr niemozliwy (Impossible Theatre) at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, the artist sings Gwen Stefani's song, "What You Waiting For?", dancing in a men's locker-room full of well-built men. At first, she does not attract their attention. Only the metamorphosis of the artist into figures-citations from her earlier works ("Bathhouse" and "Diva - Reincarnation") arouses their interest, and, ultimately - hostility. Thus Kozyra returns to an issue raised repeatedly in her works - that of the body as costume.

Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, October 2006.

Selected individual exhibitions: