Costume and performance

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw invites you to the next event in the “Eye of the Deaf” series. This time, we will meet with artist and performer Daniel Kotowski, with whom we will visit Nadia Markiewicz’s exhibition “Misterioso”.

We will begin the meeting with a guided tour of the exhibition, where we will see, among other things, costumes from several of the artist’s performance works. We will reflect on how Nadia Markiewicz uses costumes to tell viewers about her own identity and body. Next, Daniel Kotowski will discuss the role of costume from a performer’s perspective. After the tour, the artist will present his creative practice and demonstrate how he uses costumes in his own art.

Daniel Kotowski – visual artist and performer. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, and is currently preparing to defend his doctoral dissertation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. He was nominated for Polityka’s Passports (2024) and received artistic scholarships from the City of Warsaw (2025) and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2026).

In his work, he encourages reflection on the ways of human existence. He closely observes our experiences, interpersonal relationships, and how others perceive us. In his works, he often refers to the concepts of biopower and biopolitics. He is particularly interested in the categories of “completeness” and “incompleteness”—he explores their ambivalence and hidden potential. He describes himself as an indicator of incompleteness, as he is Deaf and does not use speech. Through art, he thus develops his own unique communication strategy. He creates performances, designs, and produces installations, photographs, objects, and video works. He has presented his work at venues including Zachęta in Warsaw, MSN, the Labirynt Gallery in Lublin, BWA Wrocław, as well as in Berlin and Dresden.