(the text was published in: FRIEZE,  22 JAN 25)

In a major retrospective at Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst, Leipzig, the artist’s works challenge gender constrictions

BY KRZYSZTOF KOSCIUCZUK IN EXHIBITION REVIEWS I 22 JAN 25

Maria Pinińska-Bereś, „Annexation of the Landscape”, Świeszyno near Miastko, IX 1980

With her first institutional retrospective in over two decades, Maria Pininska-Beres is on course to claim her rightful place as a major 20th century artist. Raised in a conservative Polish family shattered by World War II, Pinińska-Bereś trained in sculpture at Krakow’s Academy of Fine Arts before embarking on a practice that deconstructed social codes and challenged conventional representations of femininity.

This approach is highlighted at Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst in sculptures such as Hanging Corset (1965) — a papier-mâché human torso suspended from the ceiling that appears to defy gravity — from the series 'Corsets’ (1965-67), in which the artist addressed the constrictions placed on women and their bodies. As she later wrote in Gorsety i wie2e (Corsets and Towers, 1994): 'I wasn’t spared any part of a woman’s fate against which feminists would later struggle. […] In order to salvage what was mine I had to revolt.’

’Maria Pinińska-Bereś’, 2024, exhibition view. Courtesy: © The Maria Pininska-Beres and Jerzy Beres Foundation; photograph: Alexandra Ivanciu

The exhibition continues with works from the series 'Psycho-Furniture’ (1969-73): hybrid entities in Pinińska-Bereś’s characteristic white and pink palette that fuse oversized shapes reminiscent of female body parts with commonplace objects such as windows, doors and tables. Off the back of this, in 1975, the artist created My Enchanting Little Room (1975), a large-scale installation of padded textile shapes —including a vulva-like form emerging from a wall-mounted oval frame — displayed on a raised dais and three surrounding walls. Alluring yet grotesque, such eccentric mise–en­scenes simultaneously celebrate women while mocking the patriarchal moulds that shape them.

From the mid-1970s, Pinińska-Bereś addressed similar ideas in performance works, documented here in videos and photographs, which testify to the artist’s growing urge to take her practice beyond the confines of gallery walls and to adopt a critical perspective on the power structures within her artistic circles. Prayer for Rain (1977) sees the artist devise a ritual to celebrate nature’s cycles: in a meadow on the outskirts of Kraków, she cut grass in a ring, demarcated it with stones and pink flags, then lay down in the middle, hands cupped.

Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Prayer for Rain, 1977, performance documentation. Courtesy: © The Maria Pinińska-Bereś and Jerzy Bereś Foundation and The Approach, London

As this impressive presentation of her work illustrates, Piniriska-Beres was convinced that a shift in the mechanisms governing art was not only necessary but inevitable. It’s an opinion she articulated in the title of a viewing platform she installed on a tree for a meeting of artists and theorists in 1978: Observation Point for Changes in Art.

’Maria Pinińiska-Bereś’ is on view at Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany until 23 February. The exhibition will be presented at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Netherlands, from 15 March and at Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, from February 2026

Main image: Maria Pinińska-Bereś, Landscape Annexation, 1980, performance documentation. Courtesy: 0 The Maria Pinińska-Bereś and Jerzy Bereś Foundation and The Approach, London