This exhibition will include two of Kozyra's video installations, "Bathhouse" (1997) and "Men's Bathhouse" (1999). A native and resident of Warsaw, the artist graduated in 1993 from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Art, where she studied with Grzegorz Kowalski and gained public attention with her thesis work, "Animal Pyramid," a sculpture composed of taxidermied animals. She is part of a generation of young female artists who revolutionized the Polish art scene in the 1990s. These women have discarded the traditional subject matter of locality and ethnicity, instead engaging issues of feminist discourse—including identity, the body, female physicality, the contemporary concept of beauty and the other, thus moving Polish art into the realm of internationalism.

"Bathhouse" and "Men's Bathhouse" begin with the premise that men and women tend to conform to stereotypes of behavior and appearance in public, while in private they behave more naturally. In the end, the installations raise additional issues of voyeurism and narcissism, as well as concepts of beauty and aging. Both pieces were filmed at the bathhouses of the Hotel Gellert in Budapest, and both were filmed using cameras hidden in plastic bags and placed on or below benches in the bathhouses—without the knowledge of the participants.

These installations have raised questions about the artist's intentions and the invasion of the bather's privacy. These are important concerns and should not be taken lightly, but it is interesting to note that, while the press considered them controversial, none of the subjects objected when the installations were exhibited. Kozyra feels the secret filming was the only way to observe public versus private behavior. She concluded that women and men go to baths for different reasons. Women go for relaxation and companionship; they engage and assist each other in the intimate activities of washing, toweling, and drying. Men go to look and be looked at; there is little interaction between them.

To film in the men's bathhouse, Kozyra disguised herself as a man, using fake body hair and covering her breasts with a towel draped over her shoulders. The disguise was reasonably good, and although she drew a few stares, she was not discovered. To the viewer, however, the pretense is obvious. Kozyra's mannerisms, walk and manner of sitting—at one point cross-legged on the bench—give her away. The viewers' attention is in this way drawn to the differences between male and female behavior.

Scenes from the women's bathhouse are reminiscent of paintings of bathers by Ingres, Rubens, and Degas. There is a romantic quality to the film, played up by the warm yellow lighting on the bath. Aware of these references and her own tendency to see art in the women's bathhouse, Kozyra begins the film with Ingres's Turkish Bath.

In 1999 "Men's Bathhouse" was featured at the prestigious Venice Biennial, where it received an honorable mention for "exploring and controlling the authoritarian dominion of male territory." This is the first presentation of "Men's Bathhouse" in the United States.