Katarzyna Kozyra, "Piramida zwierząt" (Animal Pyramid), 1993, installation, from the collection of Zachęta National Gallery. Photo: Jacek Gładykowski,courtesy of Zachęta
The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium highlights the accomplishments of 24 acclaimed international women artists born after 1960. Authored by Eleanor Heartney, Helaine Posner, Nancy Princenthal and Sue Scott, the book follows on the heels of their 2007 book After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art, which meant to counter Linda Nochlin's assertion in 1971: "Why have there been no great women artists?" with a publication dedicated to the careers of 12 influential women artists at in work the wake of the feminist movement. Both books bring forth a thorough critical analysis of each of the artists and their works, weighing their success, market value and institutional support, and thereby illustrating progress made across the landscape for female achievement in the arts since the 1970s.
As Holland Cotter has written in The New York Times, the 2007 book "set a new standard in documenting and evaluating the work of a dozen key women artists", while the 2013 book brings up "important historical changes over the past decade and more (...) stretching from Europe and the Americas to Africa and China" as feminist art has shaped the contemporary art scene across the world to a tremendous degree.
Polish artist Katarzyna Kozyra is among the women featured in the book published by Random House, as well as on Huntington Post's Top Ten list (coming in at no. 4). She figures among Wangechi Mutu, Nathalie Djurberg, Mika Rottenberg, Sharon Hayes, Cao Fei, Kate Gilmore, Klara Liden, Tania Bruguera and Yael Bartana (no. 6) - an Israeli artist creating art that explores the Jewish presence in Poland past and present, representing Poland at the 2011 Art Biennale in Venice. Her most recognisable work is the video trilogy ...And Europe Will Be Stunned, which revolve around the fictional activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), a political group that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers. The films traverse a landscape scarred by the histories of competing nationalisms and Zionism.
Katarzyna Kozyra (born 1963) is a sculptor, installation and video artist who rose to prominence in the 1990s as a leading figure of the "critical art" movement in Poland, creating works that confront social taboos (such as death, disease and nakedness), usually related to issues of the sick, old or marginalised. Her thesis project Animal Pyramid (1993) immediately gained notoriety in the media and she has continued to push the envelope with her work, wreaking havoc with established gender roles and issues of the body.
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Source: The Huffington Post, nytimes..com, own sources and original article on culture.pl
Editor: AMG
18.11.2013