On a white gallery pedestal lies a pale pink object. Folded neatly, it resembles an unidentified piece of clothing from a distance. Its textured surface seems to spill over the rectangular plinth. Up close, the object takes on a more defined form. What initially deceived the viewer's senses as fabric or drapery turns out to be synthetic skin.
The elastic sculpture, Self-Portrait (Skin) (2023) by Maja Kitajewska, was created using the artist's innovative technique of bead embroidery. By meticulously stitching hundreds, perhaps thousands, of light-catching glass beads, Kitajewska crafted a nearly life-sized piece of skin resembling a one-piece bodysuit. Displayed in the exhibition, the artwork looks as though the artist has carefully removed the outer layer of human skin, folded it gently on the cubical pedestal, and transformed it into a sort of package. The tactile Self-Portrait is a shimmering sheet of skin stretching from the neck to mid-thigh but notably lacks a head, hands, and the lower part of the legs.
The distinctive technique employed in this work is a hallmark of Kitajewska's artistry. Her use of glass beads and sequins, as seen in earlier works such as Eclipse and White Flag (2014), is not a whimsical aesthetic choice but stems from a deeply rooted artistic philosophy. Drawing inspiration from Byzantine mosaics and medieval panel paintings, Kitajewska treats light as a fundamental component of her art. This not only imbues her creations with a transcendent dimension but also introduces a kinetic element; her paintings or elastic sculptures appear different depending on the viewer’s position and movement. The interplay of light on sequins or the reflections within glass beads evokes a sense of vitality, activating a primal human instinct to follow the shimmering effects and, in turn, explore reality. The often intimate scale of her works does not detract from their impact but rather encourages closer inspection, allowing their unpretentious charm to captivate the viewer.
Glass bead embroidery, also employed in Kitajewska's canvas works (e.g., the Shake the Disease series), reflects her dedication to meticulous craftsmanship. This technique demands precision, patience, and immense focus but rewards the artist with a therapeutic and almost meditative process.
In the case of this Self-Portrait, the embroidery serves an additional, perhaps even central, purpose
in the viewer's perception of the piece. The multitude of glass beads gives the skin weight, enhancing its tangibility and tactile quality. This amplifies its corporeality and sensory impact on the audience.
This approach strongly resonates with the artistic practices of many women sculptors from the 1960s. This global phenomenon, documented in art history through the concept of the "gender of sculpture," highlighted how women artists, working independently in different geographical and sociopolitical contexts, began collectively experimenting with materials evoking fluidity, softness, and organicity. These artists used unconventional sculptural materials that alluded to corporeality in its broadest sense, addressing themes such as illness, war, motherhood, and deeply biological, almost medical, female experiences. This contrasted sharply with the dominant masculine paradigm of minimalism, characterized by the hardness, roughness, and durability of sculptural media. In Poland, this phenomenon was exemplified by the 2009 exhibition Niezgrabne przedmioty (Awkward Objects) at the Museum of Modern Art, curated by Agata Jankowska and Joanna Mytkowska. The exhibition showcased works by artists such as Eva Hesse, Alina Szapocznikow, and Maria Bartuszová, who, despite working in entirely different artistic environments and without direct contact, created strikingly similar works using tactile and subtle materials.
The fluidity and variability inherent in Kitajewska's Self-Portrait—manifested through the play of light on its surface—extend beyond formal considerations to thematic reflections on identity. This can be examined through Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, which posits that identity is the result of continually performed social roles. In her seminal book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Butler argues that identity is not innate but rather constructed and maintained through repeated acts and performances shaped by social and cultural norms. In her embroidered skin, Kitajewska not only portrays her image but deconstructs it, which can be interpreted as a deliberate performative act. The process of stitching this self-portrait transcends technical reproduction, becoming an act of creating and redefining identity. Kitajewska emphasizes that sculpting oneself is both an act of creation and performance.
Butler’s notion of performativity suggests that identity is a process that simultaneously generates and constrains the subject by imposing norms. Kitajewska’s skin, shaped like a tight bodysuit, implies both the fluidity of identity and the oppression it can entail. A bodysuit can be worn or removed, depending on the circumstances, but if ill-fitting or worn too long, it may cause discomfort.
The absence of a face in Kitajewska’s Self-Portrait seems to align with the notion of identity’s mutability. This deconstruction of the face could symbolize the fragmentation of identity and the process of seeking (or adapting) oneself. However, from a feminist perspective, this decapitation could serve as a subversive critique of misogynistic representations that reduce women solely to their physicality. In this sense, Self-Portrait could be viewed as a reclamation of such depersonalizing portrayals, akin to Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés… (1946–66), where a passive female figure is presented completely nude, explicitly exposing her genitalia, and stripped of her head. By omitting the face, she is entirely deprived of identity and reduced to her sexual allure for the male gaze. Kitajewska, by adopting and subverting this motif, portrays herself headless in a manner that asserts her agency. Paradoxically, she reclaims her body, as it is no longer defined by the male gaze shaping her identity solely through sexuality but by her own terms, determining how her corporeality is perceived.
Maja Kitajewska conducts a meticulous dissection of identity. Her skin, delicately folded on a gallery pedestal, invites viewers to perform an autopsy of their own subjectivity. It evokes ambivalent emotions, simultaneously unsettling with its content while beguiling with its original and compelling form.