Controversy
Anda Rottenberg, Director of Galeria Zacheta in Warsaw where Kozyra first showed "Bath house" in 1997 and who also purchased the work, sparked off controversy by writing to Art Monthly in October 1998 and claiming that Kozyra's "Bath house" and artist Tacita Dean's 1998 "Gellert" were of the same subject: the most famous bath house in Budapest. Freely admitting that controversy helps in the promotion of a work, "Controversy around this work was in fact a very stimulating factor and now as the months passed Bath house has come to be regarded as classic", Rottenberg found the coincidence "indeed amazing". However, the works differ completely. Whereas Kozyra used hidden cameras intending to reveal the bathing women's natural behaviour as well as challenging normal considerations of privacy, and is a multi-screen video work (see letter again), Dean had permission from the bath workers and her single screen film is concerned with the healing sulphurous waters of the baths (see Colin Gleadell, The Daily Telegraph 1 February 2001).
Read more about this topic: Katarzyna Kozyra
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