Katarzyna Kozyra

Katarzyna Kozyra (born 1963) is a Polish video artist. She graduated in 1993 from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Art and received a "Paszport Polityki" award in 1997. 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 incident in Poland. Her photo portrait of Slawomir Belina in a Warsaw exhibition in 2000 was also controversial for its alleged eroticism, as his anus was in the centre of the composition. [ [http://bad.eserver.org/reviews/2005/leszkowicz.html Pawel Leszkowicz, "Feminist Revolt: Censorship of Women’s Art in Poland", Bad Subjects website, Jan 2005] ] [ [http://www.sekcja.org/english.php?id_artykulu=10 Karol Sienkiewicz, "Penetration and Gender Insubordination: On the examples of Belina, Mapplethorpe, and Herrmann", SEKCJA magazine] ]

Since 2003 Kozyra is working with a DAAD grant, and has developed a new form of performance involving operatic singing. [ [http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/wy_in_wy_kozyra_daad "Only in art, dreams come true", culture.pl website] ]

Controversy

Anda Rottenberg, Director of Galeria Zacheta in Warsaw where Kozyra firstshowed ³Bath house² in 1997 and who also purchased the work, sparked offcontroversy by writing to Art Monthly in October 1998 and claiming thatKozyra¹s ³Bath house² and artist Tacita Dean¹s ³Gellert² 1998 were of thesame subject ­ the most famous bath house in Budapest. Freely admitting thatcontroversy helps in the promotion of a work, ³ Controversy around this workwas in fact a very stimulating factor and now as the months passed Bathhouse has come to be regarded as classic², Rottenberg found the coincidence³indeed amazing². However, the works differ completely. Whereas Kozyra usedhidden cameras intending to reveal the bathing women¹s natural behaviour aswell as challenging normal considerations of privacy, and is a multi-screenvideo work (see letter again), Dean had permission from the bath workers andher single screen film is concerned with the healing sulphurous waters ofthe 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), ISBN 3938821035
* Brandon Taylor, "Contemporary Art: Art since 1970", Prentice Hall (2004), ISBN 0131181742
* Laura Hoptman and Tomas Pospiszyl (ed.), "Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art since the 1950s", The MIT Press (2002), ISBN 0262083132 - described at MOMA International Program [http://www.moma.org/international/europe/]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.cmoa.org/international/the_exhibition/artist.asp?kozyra Exhibition 2004-05, Carnegie International]
* [http://postmastersart.com/ Exhibition in 2004, Postmasters, New York - see Archive] reviewed at [http://nyartsmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6929&Itemid=239 Paulina Pobocha, "Katarzyna Kozyra’s Punishment and Crime", NY Arts magazine]
* [http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/David_Winton_Bell_Gallery/kozyra.html Exhibition in 2003, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University]
* [http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_kozyra_katarzyna Biography, culture.pl website]
* [http://www.katarzynakozyra.com.pl/, Katarzyna's Homepage]