The Art of Women According to Katarzyna Swinarska
by Agata Jakubowska

“Her face hypnotizes me […]; a face of rebellion, faith, revolution, courage and uncertainty, a face of humility, tenderness, pain and loneliness.” This is Katarzyna Swinarska writing about Katarzyna Kobro in the catalog of an exhibition held in the honor of Katarzyna Kobro at the Kobro Gallery in the Academy of Fine Arts1 in Łódź in 2012. Even before she was invited to participate in this exhibition, Swinarska had used photographs of the avant-garde artist in her paintings, and had based portraits of her on them. She reached for the most widely-disseminated photographs of the artist and directed her attention to how the sculptor’s fate is revealed in them. She is also interested in Kobro’s image and it’s incompatibility with her art. As she explains, “The numerous, famous images of Katarzyna Kobro’s cap, in which she looks like a well-mannered schoolgirl, don’t correspond to her revolutionary stance.”2

The paintings after photographs, which Swinarska creates with her characteristic technique, lose their documentary nature. Built on bold, broad brush strokes, the depths of the portraits are brought to the surface of the canvases. And it’s on these surfaces, covered by the artist with expressive gestures, that the most important thing is revealed: the relation between the image of Kobro’s face and her fate is not the only significant theme. Interest in the artist’s life, much publicized by her daughter Nika Strzemińska, is an impetus for Swinarska. However, there is little information on this topic in the paintings; instead, our attention is drawn to the paint and the way it is applied. These are primarily records of Swinarska’s actions. The subject of the paintings is Kobro, but her story is personalized by Swinarska. Writing this, I refer to the paintings from the exhibition Dom Kobro [Kobro’s House]; however, this approach is characteristic of Swinarska in all her work devoted to the female artists who fascinate her.

Swinarska graduated with a degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk in 1993, but because of family commitments, primarily supporting two children, she distanced herself from art. Only recently, after many years working as a graphic designer for various publishing houses and advertising agencies and as a web designer, has she returned to creating art. When looking at the work made after her “return,” you get the impression that the artistic identity of the creative woman is of the utmost importance. To Swinarska, art is predominantly a way to express herself as a creative woman.

Other female artists, both predecessors and contemporaries, are significant to this process. Swinarska follows closely the process of their struggle with building creative identities and functioning as artists in society, and also maintaining their relationships with loved ones. These artists include Katarzyna Kobro, as mentioned, and Olga Boznańska, as well as contemporaries including Anna Baumgart, Dorota Nieznalska, and Paulina Ołowska, who are among the most important subjects of Swinarska’s work. This choice of female artists doesn’t lead to the creation of a new canon, because the intention is not concerned with exposing forgotten female artists in order to rediscover them, as is often the goal in feminist art history. In Swinarska’s works, we encounter only those women who are successful. She studies how they achieved their artistic success, but she also examines the cost of it. After completing the film 3 portrety: Nieznalska, Baumgart, Ołowska [3 portraits: Nieznalska, Baumgart, Ołowska], which is discussed later, she realized in astonishment that all three artists mentioned in the title (chosen, because, in her opinion, they are successful) emphasized the difficulty of being a female artist.3

Swinarska doesn’t study other artists from a distance, she identifies herself with them to a degree. This is clearly discernible in the works first shown at the exhibition entitled Przemieszczenie. Interpasywność spojrzenia [Displacement. Interpassivity of the Gaze] (ASP Gdańsk, 2014), predominantly in the video performance Swinarska jako Akt III Kobro [Swinarska as Kobro’s Nude III] (2014). In this work, the artist doesn’t use photographic depictions of the sculptor, but she assumes the form of a figure sculpted by Kobro. The artist doesn’t refer to any specific women in her nude works. The figures, including the one in Nude III, are deprived of faces, which serves primarily to depersonalize them. In her adaptation, Swinarska—the anonymous figure of the sculpture—becomes a specific person. The scale is also a contributing factor, showing a roughly life-sized woman instead of a small representation, as is the case with the creations of the avant-garde sculptor.4 Swinarska didn’t photograph herself posing as Kobro’s Nude III, but instead made a film, through which she emphasizes an action continuing over time and not just its impact. When commenting on sculpting nude works, Kobro herself said, “The process of sculpting a naked person generates physiological and sexual emotions.” 5 I use these words to indicate the “process” and “emotions” as the elements that tend to be invisible, hidden behind the scenes of creating art, and Swinarska brings them to the fore. Here, they involve not only the artist. In the film, the artist remains still, and only the slightest movements of her body reveal the nature of this record. This image is displayed on a double-sided screen suspended in the exhibition space. The point at which the seemingly immobile figure comes to life is a significant element of the work, transforming the viewer from just an observer to someone sharing the same space with a woman, an artist. The carnal aspect is activated in the viewer as well as in the artist. This, among other things, makes this piece of art function differently than Kobro’s nudes that “remain totally indifferent to the viewer.”6

Kobro’s nudes have long been problematic for art historians since they weren’t created in the artist’s avant-garde style: some consider them irrelevant, while others, including Swinarska, perceive them as significant since they contribute to that which Kobro left unsaid in her avant-garde works. Izabela Kowalczyk, cited above, writing about Kobro’s nude works, says that the artist confronted the carnality of herself and her disabled husband that was excluded from avant-garde projects.7 It is key that Kobro created nude works during two periods: from 1925 to 1928 and in 1948, when the circumstances of her private and artistic lives were completely different. 8 In the first period, her situation was determined in large part by her relationship with Władysław Strzemiński, while her daughter and her marginalization by the artistic community (she had left Strzemiński) shaped her situation during the second period. I don’t know to what extent Swinarska took this into account in the selection of Akt III from the first period, but her work also focuses on the Kobro-Strzemiński relationship. Portraits of both Kobro and her husband were among the works included in the Dom Kobro exhibition. Swinarska utilizes these choices to underscore that the manner in which the female artist functions in society and among her loved ones is crucial to the female artistic identity.

An interesting shift occurs in relation to previous paintings portraying the artist in the video performance Swinarska jako Akt III Kobro. In the most recent images, Swinarska indicated her presence somewhat indirectly through the traces left by her body. “The gesture of painting,” she writes, “comes from the movement of the arms, but its origin lies in the potential movements of the whole body which I experience in physical labor, in running, dancing, and in love.”9 In the video performance, we see her almost immobilized, and her body is covered in white paint. On the one hand, it resembles the figure in the plaster sculpture; on the other, it imposes a mask of universalization. She isn’t present in the paintings, but she manifests herself by showing the traces of her body’s actions. The video performance confronts us with a full display of her person, but her expression is suppressed. Such a paradoxical combination of exposing herself and disappearing is a characteristic element of Swinarska’s work on female artists. One of the key results is the oscillation of the viewer’s attention between Swinarska and the female artists she depicts, which creates uncertainty as to who is really the subject of these works. This is especially apparent in the yet-to-be-seen video performance dedicated to Olga Boznańska. Swinarska is filmed in a setting resembling Boznańska’s studio wearing an outfit which we know from some of her pictures—a stiff white dress with an apron to protect it. The words that are spoken are a conversation between the artists—the reenactor and the reenacted. Very often, however, what Boznańska allegedly says seems to be Swinarska’s expression of the situation she’s in. “As long as I’m alone, I’m not embarrassed. […] Only when you come here—your stare full of prejudice regarding my sex, my age, my clothing—does the embarrassment come.” It continues, “[…] your gaze even prejudices my desires. It lacks tenderness. It isn’t open. It doesn’t see me. […] When I look at myself in your gaze I’m ashamed of how you perceive me.” It’s difficult for the viewer not to interpret this accusation as directed at her or him.

The tension described above is also notable in the 2014 film 3 portrety: Nieznalska, Baumgart, Ołowska, where Swinarska is essentially not seen. While the camera is directed at the artists featured in the work’s title, the artist behind the camera doesn’t disappear. Every now and then, we perceive her movements. We hear her voice. The artists appearing in the film address her directly. They speak about themselves, but they do so in such a way that someone who is unfamiliar with their work will learn little about it. Communicating concrete knowledge doesn’t seem to be the goal of creating this film. As the title suggests, we see portraits of the artists not an exhibition of their art. Their behavior and how they present themselves is key for the film’s author; although I think the crucial element of the film is their discussion of being female artists. This is the fundamental issue for Swinarska as well as for these artists. Proposing to place her subjects in a broader context, Swinarska also focuses on certain attitudes of women and their appearance. While working on the film, she made several paintings which present Joan of Arc as Dorota Nieznalska, Bella Akhmadulina as Paulina Ołowska, The Benevolent Queen – Jessye Norman as Anna Baumgart, Marguerite de Valois as Bogna Burska, and Patti Smith in the role of Anna Reinert. The juxtaposition of the artists is based on resemblance, not regarding their art, but in the ways they behave, dress, or wear their hair. These aspects interest Swinarska in relation to the type of art they create and the positions they hold as female artists.

She had also focuses on these aspects while observing another one of her subjects, Olga Boznańska, who, like Kobro, is another “old mistress.”10 Swinarska writes, “The white apron of a housemaid and the high-collared, long dress with puffy sleeves in which Boznańska poses for photographs in her studio is a peculiar costume for a busy, active artist from the turn of the century.”11 She judged the “costume” slightly differently when she assumed the role of Boznańska in the video performance referred to above. In it, she draws attention to the kind of movement such an outfit forces and the sensations the body experiences when wearing it, and she notes the pleasure in it. Swinarska also suggests this type of deep insight into the photographs and paintings of Boznańska in one of the two paintings linked with the artist. The first of the two, a portrait of the painter, was created at the same time as the portraits of Kobro, and here we find a similar approach— following the tracks of her fate on her face. The considerably larger painting entitled Dziewczynka Boznańskiej jako ja sama [Boznańska’s girl as myself] (2014) is of a distinctly different nature. In this painting, the source material was not a photograph of Boznańska, but her painting Portret Heleny i Władysławy Chmielarczykówien [Portrait of Helena and Władysława Chmielarczykowa] of 1906, also known as Portret dziewczynek [A Portrait of Girls]. Swinarska employs a similar shift in her work on Kobro when embodying one of her sculptures, although here she imposes a different, chronologically reversed connection—not Swinarska jako Akt III Kobro but Dziewczynka Boznańskiej jako ja sama.12 The disrupted linearity and the introduction of an improbable connection here emphasizes the similarity of the subjects and their positioning. The depiction of the latter was achieved through a unique framing and a repainting in a style that differed completely from the original. The Portret dziewczynek depicts two sisters sitting calmly embracing. The seemingly peaceful scene is full of tension expressed in the choice of colors, the manner in which the paint is applied, and in the posture of the younger of the sisters who seems much more animated and somewhat restrained by the older sister. It is the younger sister who is the subject of Swinarska’s painting that accentuates considerably the aspects mentioned above. The tension between the constraint of the frame and the desire to break out of it is intensified by the considerable enlargement of the face and by cropping the frame so the subject doesn’t fit entirely within it. The title Dziewczynka Boznańskiej jako ja sama leads us to associate the person from the painting with Swinarska. It also confirms that building her identity and position as an artist is one of the main, recurring themes in her art.

The oscillation between focusing attention on the artists who are the subject of her works and herself is a key aspect of how Swinarska portrays other artists—both historical and contemporary. By making them the subject of her works, she joins the creation of their stories. At the same time, she reveals clearly the purpose in these stories, which is their importance in constructing the identity of the artist herself. This is achieved primarily by personalizing their images and their works, through which they become part of her experience. At the same time, such a personalized gaze provides us with a unique overview of these artists’ works that enables us to perceive imperceptible or obscure aspects from other points of view.

translated by Jennifer Zielińska & Kasper Zieliński

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1 Dom Kobro, ed. Małgorzata Czyńska, exhibition catalog, Galeria ART - Galeria Katarzyny Kobro, Warszawa 2012, p. 482 Katarzyna Swinarska, Przemieszczenie. Interpasywność spojrzenia [Displacement. Interpassivity of the Gaze], doctoral dissertation, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych, Gdańsk 2014, p. 28.3 Katarzyna Swinarska, A meeting at IHS UAM, 26 November 2014.
4 The dimensions of Kobro’s Akt III are 19 x 21 x 18 cm.
5 K. Kobro, Odpowiedź na ankietę [Response to a Questionnaire], ABSTRACTION – CREATION, 1933, no.2
6 Izabela Kowalczyk, Akty Katarzyny Kobro [Katarzyna Kobro’s Nudes], http://strasznasztuka.blox.
pl/2013/05/Akty-Katarzyny-Kobro.html, retrieved December 21, 20147 Izabela Kowalczyk, Akty Katarzyny Kobro [Katarzyna Kobro’s Nudes], http://strasznasztuka.blox.pl/2013/05/Akty-Katarzyny-Kobro.html, retrieved December 21, 2014
8 Anna Sienkiewicz, Trwanie na peryferiach twórczości . o „Aktach” Katarzyny Kobro [Existing on the
Periphery of Creativity: On the “Nudes of” Katarzyna Kobro], master’s thesis, IHS UAM, Poznań 2012.9 Katarzyna Swinarska, Przemieszczenie..., p. 3010 This refers to the title of the book by Griselda Pollock and Rozsika Parker – Old Mistresses: Women,
Art and Ideology, 1st edition, 1981, London, Pandora.11 Katarzyna Swinarska, Przemieszczenie..., p. 28.12 This also applies to the other paintings from this cycle.