Hiya to all. For most of you this is FYI. For DCA mbrs, I am proposing the exhibit be listed in our places to visit during the conference in May/June. I saw the work in Poland last summer and heard Kozyra's slide/presentation at MOMA last month. The bigger than life-size panels you see below, (For The Rites of Spring) are part of the 8000 photos she took of elderly nude models which she posed in positions she believed were inherent in Nijinsky's choreography. The resulting animation is indeed shockingly like what you could imagine Nijinsky's movement may have looked like.
Merilyn Jackson
----- Original Message -----
From: Polish Cultural Institute Newsletter
To: mail@polishculture-nyc.org
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2002 9:24 PM
Subject: Polish Cultural Institute Newsletter No. 24: Exhibition of Katarzyna Kozyra
The Polish Cultural Institute
is pleased to announce
an exhibition by
KATARZYNA KOZYRA
April 27 - June 1, 2002
Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
OPENING: Saturday, April 27th, 6-8 p.m.
Postmasters Gallery
459 W. 19th Street (at 10th Avenue)
New York, NY 10011
subway: A, C, E to 14th Street, L to 8th Avenue
tel.(212) 727-3323
www.postmastersart.com
Katarzyna Kozyra (b.1963) is one of the most provocative and controversial artists of the younger generation in Poland. Her photo/video installations, integrating elements of painting, theatre, and performance art, investigate the human condition from challenging perspectives, with an emphasis on issues of identity and our deep ambivalence about the body.
Kozyra has been provoking controversy ever since her diploma work, Pyramid of Animals, startled the Polish art world and especially animal rights groups in 1993. Her bold questioning of the canon of woman's body image is exemplified in her jarringly frank photo self-portraits taken during a stay in the hospital, posing as Manet's "Olympia".
Her video installations, including two ruminations on nakedness recorded with hidden cameras, and inescapably reminiscent of Ingres and Rembrandt -- Bathhouse (1997) and Men's Bathhouse (1999) -- have been shown widely throughout Europe, the latter winning an Honorable Mention when Kozyra represented Poland at the Venice Biennale in 1999.
Men's Bathhouse (1997)
Kozyra's Rite of Spring (1999-2001) is based on the final movement of Stravinsky's 1914 shocker and Nijinsky's equally shocking choreography. For its showing last year at Chicago's renowned Renaissance Society, curator Walter Hamza wrote:
"Of the original ballet's themes. Kozyra has chosen to explore one of its most elemental subtexts, aging and transformation, through a more literal examination of the human form. Kozyra's Rite of Spring features elderly individuals performing Nijinsky's bold choreography in a stop animation sequence. The four and a half minute work is projected over nine screens. arranged to recreate the high drama of the original mystic circle in which the Chosen Victim performed the sacrificial dance. Far from the youthful dancers in the original who relied heavily on make-up to play the role of wizened elders, Kozyra's dancers are the real thing."
"She is, quite possibly, the most loathed and admired artist in Poland. In other words. an artist worth talking about." (The Economist)
Her recent presentation in the Video Viewpoints Series at MoMA included a
discussion of her major works, among them her latest, Dance Lesson (2001),
photographs of which will be on display - along with the video work, Boys --
at Postmasters Gallery as well as a new work created especially for this
show.
www.PolishCulture-NYC.org
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