Maria Kossak is a Berlin based multimedia and performance artist of Polish descent. She was born behind the iron curtain, into a family of artists and writers. Due to the oppressive political climate and her family’s subsequent emigration she found herself in West Berlin during the late Cold War period. Throughout the 1980s the divided city of Berlin became her childhood playground.

Life in Berlin shaped not only her personal but also her artistic identity. Following family inclination, Kossak studied visual and performance art and graduated from the city’s Academy of Fine Arts (UdK) with special honors.
Kossak explores aspects of personal and collective iconography. She is interested in modes of iconographic female representation and the influences of Eastern and Western mythology on popular culture. These metaphors of collective and personal longing are often transformed by her performative work and frequently re-framed through digital media, especially elevating the aspect of time and trace. Maria Kossak’s art has been exhibited within and outside of Europe and is represented in international collections.

press photos

Maria Kossak revises the iconographical usage of plated gold and adds to it a powerful metaphor of collective and personal longing, characterised by a scheme of colours that range in shade between earthy/morbid and pallets that shimmer with a translucent light. This chromatic scheme effects a subversive blurring of the usual boundaries that demarcate fixed styles, genres and time periods. They suggest a restless movement of moods and materials that is characteristic of Kossak’s creative impulse. 

selected press articles

“… »She holds the world but as the world, – A stage where every angel plays their part…«, 

WINGS OF DESIRE ARTICLE

Berlin 128 – Magazine

Interview excerpt – Kultur im Dienste des Staates  

“… »Nationalistische Rhetorik  weckt natürlich Erinnerungen an die dunklen Zeiten in Europa«, sagt Maria Kossak.

CULTURAL POLITICS ARTICLE

KULTURTIEGEL 

Maria Kossak, Neuköllns Goldfinger 

Text: Marek Staszyc, published autumn 2015, Lodz/Poland –  Link zum Artikel

POLITYKA

Polen-Berlin-Witkacy

Text: Anna Tyszecka Erschienen im Sommer 2015, Warschau/Polen

Link zum vollständigen Artikel

recent performance photos 

The World a Stage

“I hold the world but as the world, – A stage …”

“I hold the world but as the world, – A stage where every man must play a part…” William Shakespeare

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Source of Creativity 

symbolic coordination of left- and right brain hemisphere 

“… »The hemispheres of the brain can be seen to represent the dualistic reality in which we live- «, says Maria Kossak.

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The black bride

Performance at opening night of a show dedicated to women’s rights infringements

“… »Hashtag- I will never be #MariaMagdalena ist eine Arbeit, die sich die Künstlerin im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes auf den Leib geschrieben hat.– «, Constanze Kleiner

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PRESS PHOTOS                                                    RADIO FEATURES