Barbara Kozłowska
Barbara Kozłowska studied painting and architecture in Wrocław. She followed her studies with work at the Pafawag House of Culture, where she was engaged in costume production and theatre design. She worked closely with her husband Zbigniew Makarewicz. 1968 saw her create one of her first dynamic, audiovisual environments, entitled “Continuous Falling” (Ciągłe spadanie), together with Zbigniew Makarewicz, Ernest Niemczyk, Wiesław Rembieliński, and Ryszard Zamorski. It was based on a poem by Tadeusz Różewicz and consisted of recycled materials and colorful lights.
The performer wandered around this environment, staged in the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław, and wrote fragments of the aforementioned poem on various surfaces. Kozłowska also became one of the organizers of the Sympozjum Plastyczne Wrocław 70 (Artistic Symposium Wrocław 70), an important manifestation of conceptual art. In 1972, she initiated the activity of Galeria Babel at her own studio as a space for spontaneous presentations and environments. Artists and theoreticians were invited to work with and comment on her own artistic archive. Galeria Babel was hence simultaneously an example of an artist-run space and a conceptual project. It also staged a presentation at BWA Gallery in Wrocław in which the artist placed on the windows sheets of paper that were meant to be filled by passers-by. This opened the gallery to the spontaneous and uncensored expression of coincidentally present individuals. The 1970s saw Kozłowska become friends with Stanisław Dróżdż, a leading concrete and visual poet. She became involved in initiatives associated with visual text and began developing her own poetic practice. “Borderline” was the artist’s most important and long-lasting project. Realized in many locations, it was focused on the idea of artworks’ dematerialization. D.M.
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