She studied at Faculty of Sculpture of Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she defended her diploma in studio of professor Grzegorz Kowalski. She represented Poland at the 47th Biennale in Venice, where she received an honorary mention. She took part in São Paulo Biennial, Sydney Biennale, Busan Biennale in South Korea, and was exhibited among others by Barbican Art Centre in London, Museum Ludwig in Vienna, and Brooklyn Museum in New York. She was awarded Paszporty “Polityki” award and is a winner of the fourth edition of Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Polish Film Institute and Wajda School Film Award. Her works are in collections of: Postmasters in New York, Capsule in Shanghai, National Museum in Warsaw, Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. She lives and works in Berlin and Warsaw.
“Joram”, 2018
video, 11’35’’
Katarzyna Kozyra is one of the leading representatives of critical art, author of videos, objects, sculptures, and installations. In her works she undertook topics often considered as cultural taboos, such as illness, death, corporeality, sexuality, and others. Projects implemented by Kozyra are often complex and constitute an artistic answer to various problems of the present day. One of such projects is “Looking for Jesus” work. The “Joram” video presented at the exhibition is part of this project. As it is written on the artist’s webpage: “starting point [for the project] was information about the so-called Jerusalem Syndrome, an acute delusional disorder which had been reported by medical professionals only in the 2nd half of the 20th century. People afflicted with the syndrome start to identify with Biblical characters – usually with the Messiah.”
The video is a conversation recorded by the artist with a man who tells her about his encounters, spiritual experiences, emotional states, and “face-to-face” meetings with God. The words of a man can amaze, amuse or frighten, but certainly the project forces to reflection on the phenomenon of this “madness of loss of own identity” and on the place as well as on the meaning of religion in the modern world strongly marked by terror in the name of god.
