Polish Performance Archive

Description by Filmoteka Muzeum

Locked in a double cage – literal and purely symbolical – referring to the metaphor of the body as a prison, Katarzyna Kozyra is singing out the aria of Olympia from Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann to the piano accompaniment of maestro Grzegorz Pitułej.

It is probably one of the most metaphorical episodes in the frame of the project 'In Art Dreams Come True'. Nothing is literal here, and the artist's performance of the role of an opera singer certainly does not follow the classical patterns.

It is the body that seems to 'sing' and play the leading role. The voice, locked in a double cage – bodily and metal – strives to force its way through and loses its main role, while it is the gestures and movements of the artificial foam-made body that draw the audience’s attention. The protagonist's nonchalance combined with the perverse gesture of randomly touching her own groin establish the diva as a spontaneous and quasi-erotic figure.

References: Katarzyna Kozyra, Casting, exhibition catalogue, M. Sitkowska, H. Wróblewska (eds.), Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw 2010.



 

(AH)