Barbara Kozłowska. Linia

Exhibition: 26 September – 14 November 2020

The exhibition presents one of the most important works of Barbara Kozłowska (1940–2008). The Line from the title is the record of a performance pursued by the Wrocław artist from 1967 until the end of her life. It was based on the notion of plotting a line running from east to west across the earth and beyond, toward the moon. The first enactment of Line took place in Siberia, on Lake Baikal, followed by performances in such locations as the Polish village of Łazy on the Baltic, Malta, Edinburgh, and San Francisco. Kozłowska manifested her presence at selected sites (especially beaches around the world), where she and invited guests would pour coloured sand to form cones, but in time she reduced her action to merely being.

As Kozłowska explained, “The line is an idea, an artistic model of reality. It does not arise as a concrete object, but is a concept. In 1967 I took the first major artistic decision: a trip to Siberia. This was the moment when the idea of Line arose. Borderline is a work in process. It follows from this that there is no unequivocally defined work as a completed whole. Regardless of what fragment of the work we present to the viewer, there will be a lack of clarity rather than full contact with the work. Documents, fragments of actions, photos and slides provide only an approximately of this journey of the work through time. Hard-to-grasp realizations, unpredictable points in which enactments become a work.”

The seemingly utopian project is at base a personal manifestation Kozłowska’s attitude, saying much about her need and quest for freedom. The category of freedom is combined in this instance with travel, and it is as movement, freedom and journey that the artist defines her creative work.

The exhibition at Arton Foundation presents documentation of all enactments of Line, texts and drawings devoted exclusively to this project, and a film by Agnieszka Lasota on Kozłowska’s oeuvre, You Can See All of This Anywhere (2017).

The exhibition is accompanied by the catalogue Barbara Kozłowska, with essays by Dr Marika Kuźmicz, Piotr Lisowski, Dr Karolina Majewska and Wiktoria Szczupacka, published by Arton Foundation and the Wrocław Contemporary Museum.



Co-financed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund

Curator: Marika Kuźmicz

Collaboration: Julia Kusiak, Zbigniew Makarewicz

Display: Katarzyna Listwan / Wzgórze Paproć