Viewing Room

Katarzyna Kozyra

Katarzyna Kozyra

Homo Quadrupeds Meeting, 2018
From the series Homo Quadrupeds
Archival pigment print
75 x 120 cm 
Edition of 5 + 2 AP


Katarzyna Kozyra is Poland’s most well-known video and performance artist. From the beginning, she has been breaking social taboos, for which the conservative Polish society regards her as controversial. Her work points to some of the most important issues of human existence: identity and transgression.
Her series Homo Quadrupeds (2018) consists of photographs of naked men being led on a leash by burqa-clad women who tame their instincts. This is a reference to the legend of the unicorn, in which only a virgin could tame the wild animal. While the women meet during the walk, the dogs sniff each other and seek to dominate one another. It is no longer only a matter of freeing women from male domination, Kozyra expands the feminist approach with a political aspect: Her series depicts her dreams of a non-anthropocentric, ecological society that fights for democracy. Much like Donna Haraway, She uses this series to propose a new symbiosis between humans and animals as a form of radical feminist theory. Unveiling the facts of reality, she forces us to re-examine and validate the set order of cultural values.

To see more works from this series, click here.