Katarzyna Górna “The Memory of the Land”

The exhibition showcases Katarzyna Górna’s new works alongside a selection of her earlier pieces. In placing them in dialogue, the artist in some way shifts the meanings that have arisen around her previous creations, revealing an ongoing process of reinterpretation.

opening: 5.07.2025 (Saturday), 18.00
where: Galeria Labirynt, ul. ks. J. Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
language: event in Polish; translation into English: Agata Oborska; no translation into PJM; no translation into Ukrainian
exhibition on view until: 17.08.2025 (Tues.-Sun, 12.00-19.00)
admission: 8 PLN normal ticket, 4 PLN concessionary ticket (free entry to the vernissage)

The exhibition includes works with nudity.

The exhibition’s focal points are two new creations: a sculpture of a woman with her hands buried in the ground, and a video piece in which film and theatre actress Bogusława Schubert shares her experience preparing for the role of the Heron, the bird-woman. This tension—between a dream and rebellion on one hand, and an anchoring reconciliation with soil and the biosphere on the other hand—simultaneously defines the scale of Górna’s engagement.

Today, in widely known understanding, the Neolithic Venus is considered an ancient symbol of fertility. One of the earliest manifestations of male gaze. For years, Katarzyna Górna has questioned the social clichés and male-constructed images of women. She has challenged the stereotypical roles associated with successive periods of life. In works such as the photographic series Fuck Me, Fuck you, Peace, she herself frequently reflects the male gaze back. Now, her early pieces look at her as she takes a different place in this triptych. At the same time, the artist offers not only a critical commentary, but also an affirmative escape from this confrontation. She interprets Stone Age female figurines as testaments to women’s different roles—as depositories of communal knowledge, orchestrators of collective empathy, and guardians.

The menopausal period, a key point of reference in Górna’s recent projects, is framed by her as liberating and generative. In offering a renewed perspective on age and its significance in society, the artist turns towards a logic of coexistence. Her new works draw equally on cultural symbols and on emerging insights from researchers into the relationship between the natural world and the human—a relationship that we are rediscovering and redefining today. This special, long-forgotten value that older women brought to ancient communities was the memory of the land.

Age of a person—a woman—is one of the key threads running through the exhibition. Although Katarzyna Górna collaborates with a range of people, in many works it is her own corporeality that is of great value. She does not retreat behind a female figure—it is her, Katarzyna Górna. Therefore, her works, the perspective she adopts, and the attitude she takes have evolved along with her. She works through these issues on and with her own body. Both Woman with Her Hands Buried in the Ground and Venus of the Anthropocene were created using casts of her body.

The exhibition concludes with a new photographic series—Dirty Women. According to the artist, these figures, like the heroines of her other works, are rebels who, with age, have come to reject the expectations imposed upon them.

curator: Antoni Burzyński

production: Diana Kołczewska
monodrama: Bogusława Schubert
video editing: Paweł Giergisiewicz
sculptural collaboration: Agnieszka Schreder, Kajetan Karkuciński, Mateusz Wójciak

Katarzyna Górna
A Polish contemporary artist and one of the leading figures of critical art, which emerged in the 1990s. She is a graduate of Grzegorz Kowalski’s studio. Her practice includes photography, installation, and video. Katarzyna Górna’s work is rooted in a female perspective on social reality and the symbolic representations of women in culture, as noted by Karol Sienkiewicz. Her gaze moves across a spectrum between criticality and tenderness. Nature and ecological themes also play a significant role in her art. In recent years, she has been focusing on sculpture and video works. She has participated in exhibitions at institutions such as Biennale Warszawa, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, PGS in Sopot, CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, Bunkier Sztuki, MOCAK, the National Museum in Warsaw, the Prague Biennale, and NBK in Berlin.

Katarzyna Górna has also been deeply involved for many years in activist efforts supporting artists.

The exhibition is part of the project “Simple Questions – Difficult Answers.”
Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.