In the 1990s, when Poland was recoiling from the shock of the fall of Communism, art offered a taste of freedom that might seem unimaginable today. But in her performance videos, Katarzyna Kozyra, using her own body, explored the underside of this new, shiny world that in truth still reeked of misogyny, intolerance, and homophobia. “Być kimś, kim się (nie) jest” (Being Somebody Who You Are [Not]), Kozyra’s recent exhibition at a municipal gallery in a small city in southwest Poland, suggested that throughout her thirty-year career, the questioning of identity has remained a central focus. And there’s good reason for seeing it that way, especially in her lighter works. She often played with pop culture, as in her series “In Art Dreams Come True,” 2003–2008, in which she documented her failed attempts to become an opera singer. Her willingness to expose her failure remains refreshing, given the endlessly enhanced media performance in which we all engage these days. Kozyra asks an old question: What is authenticity? With her gaunt, boyish physique and buzz cut, she’s a perfect blank canvas for any identity, from Lou Andreas-Salomé, the muse of Nietzsche and Rilke (Pojawienie się jako Lou Salomé [Appearance as Lou Salome], 2005) to Gwen Stefani in her rendition of “What You Waiting For?” (Cheerleaderka [Cheerleader], 2006).
Olimpia, niebieska (Olympia, blue) and Olimpia, biała (Olympia, white), both 1996, are photographic self-portraits made while Kozyra was undergoing treatment for cancer. They form a triptych with a photo of an elderly woman, Olimpia, staruszka (Olympia, Old Lady), 1996. In both self-portraits, the artist’s pose is borrowed from Manet’s famous nude. I used to think it was just the flagrant flaunting of a sick body. Now, in the context of other works about identity, I finally see it being also about the loss of youthful beauty. Similarly, I used to think of her videos on learning to sing (Lekcja śpiewu [Singing lesson], 2004; Diva. Reinkarnacja [Diva. Reincarnation], 2005; Il castrato, 2006) as rather flimsy takes on self-delusion—she was dreadful as a singer. Not to mention that in Diva. Reincarnation, she wore a costume simulating a fat, old, naked body, which many would find unacceptable today. But seeing those works again now, I realize that they are concerned with a deconstruction of femininity, using opera—a medium famously cherished by gay men—as a means to explore fluctuation within gender. In Il Castrato Kozyra cuts off a prosthetic penis—like the one she had notoriously used to help her infiltrate an all-male domain in Łaźnia męska (Men’s Bathhouse), 1999—as she’s watched by a male audience wearing white bath towels, a reversal of the Men’s Bathhouse gaze.
Later, shifting attention away from herself to others, she spent a decade making Szukając jezusa (Looking for Jesus), 2012–22. Its subject is the Jerusalem Syndrome, a psychopathology that leads some of its sufferers to identify with biblical characters. Unfortunately, the self-obsession of her Jesuses makes them tedious subjects. It’s finally hard to care much about their plight. Maybe that’s why, in her most recent work, she has returned to herself as a subject. In the theatrical performance Fressen, 2021, she lay on a catafalque dressed in the same latex fat suit of an old woman with sagging skin as in Diva. Reincarnation, which is then cut up by a group of female cooks dressed as nurses. They reveal her body covered in seafood, which they then cook and serve to the public. Kozyra, now naked, joins the audience, as if she could reemerge as herself only by being finally devoured. But who is that? Marking her sixtieth birthday in the 2023 performance Sen (Sleep), she slept on a catafalque for several hours, oblivious to the party going on around her. As she recently admitted deep fatigue brought by putting herself on her art’s forefront, Kozyra finally seems ready to let her work take place without her own “essential” presence.
