exhibition White Mazur, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, 2003

The Greek word arachne means spider and is the basis for the taxonomy of the species, but we, who are educated in mythologies, associate the title of Burska’s video from 2003 with the story of the artist changed into a spider as punishment. She was such a skilful weaver that she surpassed even Athena herself, the goddess of wisdom. She claimed that her skill and talent were due not to the gods but solely to herself and finally dared to challenge Athena to an artistic contest.
When they stood at their looms, the Goddess wove a beautiful fabric depicting illustrious scenes from the lives of the gods. The mortal woman made a fabric of subtler weave, outstanding in every respect, and was judged superior. However, Arachne’s fabric depicted the lascivious life of Zeus, mating with mortal women under the guise of a bull, a swan, and golden rain. In her fury, Athena drove Arachne to suicide, but later restored her to life in the form of the eternal weaver – the spider.

We can reinterpret the myth of Arachne today as a story about a change in outlook on the function of art and the artist’s freedom, along with the cost of this freedom. Burska’s work, in the form of a super-sized projection of a hairy spider walking across the space of a boudoir, directs our thoughts towards the unpredictable and disobedient female subject, towards those things which have no legitimation to be represented. Abjection and awe, intertwined with arachnophobia, which comes first in the case of this work, can also be interpreted on the level of both subconscious fear and the cultural potential of its representation, while simultaneously asking whether this representation should be apologetic and lofty, like Athena’s fabric, or divulging and critical, as in Arachne’s case.

Remembering Arachne-spider, we enter the gallery of historical, mythical and stereotypical female figures set up by Burska, whose typology has been built by culture, including cinema: Elizabeth – the virgin queen, Margot, Gretchen, Margarita, nymphets and femmes fatales; heroines of the erudite culture of the West. However, this mythological reference, we have to admit, features mostly women who are white and predominantly heterosexual, the perfectly beautiful heroines of the mass imagination. These figures are like beads on a string: the string being the hegemonic role the West plays in shaping women’s self-image.

excerpt from the text Burska. Notes Toward a Subjective Interpretive Code by Aneta Szyłak, catalogue Films. Bogna Burska, ed. Aleksandra Grzonkowska, published by Wyspa Art Institute, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, BWA Zielona Góra, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, 2014