Aneta Grzeszykowska’s “Privacy Settings”: At the Border of Body, Memory, and Mask

This summer in Berlin, the boundaries of the body are being redrawn. KVOST presents Polish artist Aneta Grzeszykowska’s first solo exhibition in Germany, “Privacy Settings,” creating a layered exploration of visibility, privacy, and the construction of identity. The exhibition, held in collaboration with Art Collection Telekom, is curated by Nathalie Hoyos and Rainald Schumacher.

When you first encounter Grzeszykowska’s work, you might see a “body.” But a few steps closer, you begin to question whether that body is a reflection, a performance, or merely a void. In her art, identity is not a fixed object—it’s slippery, fragmented, and often gains presence through its absence.

The exhibition brings together works from the early 2000s to the present: photographs, videos, sculptures, and performances that prompt questions about the viewer’s own privacy settings, how they appear to the outside world, and how much they choose to “reveal.”

For instance, in the Beauty Masks (2017) series, Grzeszykowska reimagines herself using real beauty masks. With a simultaneously absurd and unsettling aesthetic, she confronts us with social media’s monotonous beauty algorithms. It’s as if the mask of “perfection” has become a death mask for authenticity.

In her more recent works, the artist uses “skin-like” materials such as pigskin to create body fragments, masks, and hybrid animal-human figures. At first glance, these textures may evoke erotic or fetishistic connotations, but upon closer inspection, they reveal a wounded, lost, or even fragmented self. Like Frankenstein’s nameless creature, Grzeszykowska’s figures are neither fully human nor fully object—existing in an eerily familiar liminal space.

The Negative Book (2012–2013) series turns the concept of “black-and-white” upside down. By painting herself and her daughter black, Grzeszykowska presents a negative visual language as the final form. These works, drawn from everyday life, also question how personal memory is rewritten through the body.

And then there’s another rupture: in the Franciszka series, she projects her own child into the future using white felt dolls. In Album (2022), she digitally erases her daughter from family photos, weaving a narrative around invisibility, forgetting, and absence. When does a child become invisible?

The exhibition’s title, “Privacy Settings,” refers to a menu we encounter in every digital corner of our lives. But Grzeszykowska takes this menu off our screens and transplants it onto our bodies, skin, and memories. Where do boundaries begin? When does our mask separate from us?

A note from Apartment No. 26:

Aneta Grzeszykowska’s exhibition at KVOST doesn’t just invite looking—it demands confrontation. How real, how bearable, is identity without its mask? Privacy Settings is poised to leave a lasting mark not only on Berlin’s exhibition calendar this summer but also in the inner worlds of its viewers.