Katarzyna Kozyra was born in Warsaw in 1963. She is a sculptor, photographer, author of performances, films, video installations, and artistic actions. She graduated from the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 1998, she completed postgraduate studies at the Hochschule für Graphik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, in the New Media studio of Prof. Helmut Mark. Kozyra's activities contributed to the emergence of so-called critical art and had a significant impact on the shape of contemporary culture, often serving as a starting point for broader discussion.
She is the winner of, among others, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Award (Warsaw 2011) and the Polityka Passport Award (Warsaw 1997). She is a scholarship holder of the DAAD (Berlin 2003) and the Kosciuszko Foundation (New York 2000). In 1999, she received an honorary award at the 48th Venice Biennale for her video installation “Men's Bathhouse” presented in the Polish Pavilion.
In 2011, she obtained a doctorate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
In 2013, the Huffington Post ranked Katarzyna Kozyra among the ten most important artists of the new millennium. In 2014, she won the fourth edition of the Film Award of the Polish Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw for her idea for the experimental film “Project X.”
Katarzyna Kozyra's art has been stirring public opinion for years, often provoking heated debate. The artist consistently challenges prevailing stereotypes and critically revises socio-political discourses. In her works, she explores cultural taboos and behavioral clichés encoded in everyday life. Formally, Kozyra is closest to the so-called new media art, but the artist uses many techniques, which makes it difficult to pigeonhole her work. Kozyra's diverse oeuvre includes works as varied as her 1993 diploma project, Pyramid of Animals, the video installation The Rite of Spring, and the large-scale project from 2003–2008, In Art, Dreams Become Reality. Since 2012, the artist has been working on a project in Israel, Searching for Jesus, in which she takes on the role of a researcher and asks important questions. It is a work about the ways in which faith is practiced, its place and role in today's world, and the values around which we build our reality.
Over the past decades, Kozyra's works have been exhibited in museums and institutions around the world, including: the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, the Busan Biennale, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen (Düsseldorf), Kulturhuset (Stockholm), Museum Voor Moderne Kunst (Arnhem), Carnegie International (Pittsburgh), Barbican Art Center (London), Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (Vienna), Brooklyn Museum (New York), Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki), CCA (Tel Aviv), Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (Beijing), and others.
Most recently, the artist presented her work at an exhibition entitled Katarzyna Kozyra – “To Be Who You Are (Not)” shown in two parts: at the Galeria Bielska BWA in Bielsko-Biała (January 17 – March 16, 2025) and earlier at GVUO (Galerie výtvarného umění) in Ostrava, Czech Republic (September 24 – December 17, 2024).