The Identity Paradox? Reflections on Fluid Identity of Female Artist

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the paradoxes in the evolving identity of a professional artist, contributing to theorisation of identity formation and performance. I use an example of a Warsaw‐based female artist of the 1970s’ generation, who has engaged her life experiences in critical practice, Zofia Kulik.

Kulik’s identity formation encompasses the process of privately infused professionalism. Her story provides an alternative account of organising identity and professional practice from the local perspective, contributing to the problem of ‘difference’ in work and offers insights into how female professionals, here in the occupation of an artist, can challenge disadvantage and discrimination created by the work context, the art world. The story reveals that contextual factors infuse fluidity in the evolution of creative careers and occupational identities. I conclude that identity construction is an open‐ended process, embracing temporal discontinuities.

Key words:

• Identity
• visual artist
• gender
• work
• fluidity

Notes

1. From the author’s discussion with the artist, Warsaw 2004.

2. Despite the images of the Iron Curtain and the Eastern Block which pervaded in the West then (in the 1970s), there was no homogenous, common cultural identity which could have been summarised under the notion of the CEE region. This process has been traceable through Western writing about the CEE artists and art practice, evoking ‘authoritarian patronisation combined with stereotyping as a substitute for getting to know the other’ (Andreas, 1999). It could be argued that, unfortunately, in Western discourse such mentality with regard to the occupation of an artist in the CEE somewhat continues today.

3. From the author’s discussion with the artist.

4. The author’s information was obtained from the artist in Warsaw, 2004.

5. In the years 1975–1979, the artists were formally denied to show their works both in Poland and abroad and their passports were blocked by the state authorities. Their performances, however, were getting more acclaim internationally. For more, see Truszkowski (1999).

6. Kulik and Kwiek still remain close friends (material obtained from Kulik in Warsaw, 2003).

7. From the information obtained from the artist, Warsaw, 2004. Also, for more details see Kowalczyk (1999).

8. The roots of the idea of socially constituted consciousness derive also from Nietzsche: ‘consciousness is actually only network for connecting individuals to one another’.

9. Althusser (1984) emphasised that the existence of ideology and hailing of individuals as subjects are the same.