Katalin Ladik has been one of the most original voices in sound poetry and performance since the 1960s. During her time as a radio actress at Radio Novi Sad in Serbia (1963-1977), she developed a fascination with recording equipment. This interest in sound technology and vocality drove her to explore new dimensions in her performances, intertwining sound, poetry and gesture. As a member of the experimental group Bosch+Bosch in Subotica and the New Art Practice movement in Belgrade, she revolutionised the Yugoslav art scene, presenting projects that transcended the traditional boundaries of art and culture. Over 60 years, Ladik has become a reference figure for the Eastern European neo-avant-garde. Though her career has never slipped into obscurity, it was her performance Follow Me into Mythology at Documenta 14 that reignited international critical interest, attention further confirmed by the recent exhibition Ooooooooo-pus, hosted by Moderna Museet in Stockholm in collaboration with Haus der Kunst in Munich, Ludwig Forum in Aachen and Muzeum Susch in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland.

The exhibition delves into the most significant aspects of her work. These are divided into three main sections: linguistic incursions through poetry and collages, a dialogue with mythology and folklore and audacious performances that challenge social and gender conventions. The common thread of the exhibition is her voice, which traverses the exhibition space with screams, whispers and chants, embodying her ongoing search.

To fully grasp Ladik's work and the essence of this exhibition, it is crucial to recognise the foundational role of poetry within her creative output. Ladik views this artistic form not merely as a mode of expression but as a language that spans sounds, images and gestures, constantly challenging the conventions of traditional communication. As she explains, every work she creates is an extension of poetry. In her hands, words cease to function as conveyors of conventional meaning, instead transforming into evocative sounds that, devoid of direct signification, stir emotions and sensations. Her works are further enriched by references to Yugoslav folklore and traditions, encompassing symbolic motifs, traditional songs and ancestral rituals, all highlighting the tension between the semantic and the sonic registers of words.

A key example of this approach is O-pus (1972), a video created in collaboration with artists Attila Csernik and Imre Póth as part of the Bosch+Bosch group. Presented as the first work in the exhibition, it rejects traditional mediums like paper in favour of abstract letters imprinted on the bodies of both Csernik and Ladik. These letters are recontextualised and transformed into dynamic visual elements that challenge the fixed nature of language. By displacing language from its normative written form onto the human body, the work compels viewers to reconsider the act of communication itself, emphasising its inherent fluidity and instability.

Ladik views poetry not merely as a mode of expression but as a language that spans sounds, images and gestures, constantly challenging the conventions of traditional communication.

Ladik’s vocal performance amplifies this transformation, manipulating the letter ‘O’ through various vocal modulations. This sonic experimentation liberates language from its material confines, turning it into pure energy and revealing its spatial and performative dimensions. In O-pus, language is an embodied, dynamic force that redefines the possibilities of artistic expression. This exploration of language as a physical and immersive entity continues in Ladik’s later works, where she further investigates how symbolic forms—ranging from linguistic fragments and abstracted letters to cultural motifs—can subvert traditional cultural constructs.

This is evident in her series of sound collages Ausgewählte Volkslieder (1973-75). The collages, made from brightly coloured papers, layer fragments—sewing instructions, musical scores and cut letters—create fluid relationships and new associations. This layering is mirrored in the vocal soundtracks accompanying the works, where Ladik's voice oscillates between high-frequency tones, guttural sounds and whispers, evoking the act of sewing and the complex connection between femininity and rhythm. Here Ladik utilises sewing patterns from popular magazines to explore and subvert traditional representations of the female role that at the time were being reevaluated as feminist movements were on the rise. Sewing, typically associated with domestic labour and the figure of the socialist housewife, becomes a tool to deconstruct social expectations and media tropes. By cutting, manipulating and reorganising these patterns, Ladik confronts the social conventions that confine women to predefined roles, advocating for a radical reimagining of their identities.

This poetic and sound practice is deeply intertwined with a reflection on the body and gender. Through her sound poetry, Ladik redefines the body as a dynamic medium of expression. In the 1960s and ‘70s, when sound poetry and artistic performances were gaining momentum in Novi Sad and New York, Ladik developed a language that questioned traditional power structures, gender roles and cultural conventions. Since then, she has used her voice and body as an act of resistance, a means to construct new meanings and alternative forms of power. A significant example of this is Shaman Poem, a performance Ladik presented at Belgrade's Ateljé 212 in 1970, which resulted in condemnation from the ruling communist party of Yugoslavia. In this piece, she shed her all-black outfit to reveal a fur dress that exposed one breast, while reciting Hungarian poems interspersed with dissonant sounds. The performance earned her the label of 'the naked poetess' and led to ridicule by a misogynistic group of critics. In response, she created Blackshave Poem (1978), an anti-striptease in which she re-dressed, applied shaving foam to her face and armpits and 'shaved' her genderless body.

Her vision of gender as a malleable and open concept is shaped by her upbringing in Vojvodina, a cultural crossroads in northern Serbia. In her youth, the region was a blend of Balkan and Western influences, where the fusion of Ottoman orality and Austrian Cartesian rationality created a unique cultural complexity. This hybridised environment led Ladik to reject binary roles, embracing a fluidity beyond traditional labels in a space where intuition and rationality coexist.

The heterogeneity of Ladik’s work finds internal coherence through the red fabric used in her performance Follow Me into Mythology. The 60-metre embroidered cloth, a lasting remnant of the performance first presented at Documenta 14 in Athens and re-staged in 2023 at Haus der Kunst in Munich, plays a central role in the exhibition, connecting its various sections. Symbolising a journey through Ariadne's labyrinth, it represents an inner path of self-discovery, transcending the staged action to offer a deeper reflection on myth and existence. The fabric’s traversal through the space becomes a metaphor for the fluidity of the self—constantly evolving, continuously morphing.

This transformation is further investigated in other dimensions of Ladik's work, such as the photo performances Androgin and Poemim (both 1978). In this practice, Ladik employs photography not only to document an action but also as an essential component of the performance, much like Cindy Sherman, Hannah Wilke and other contemporary women artists. In Androgin, a series of three images, for instance, Ladik uses a mirror's reflection to consider gender perceptions. This reflection is not just a static image; it distorts, multiplies and dislocates, creating a visual effect that blurs the masculine and feminine boundaries. By depicting herself with an androgynous haircut, without make-up and a fragmented body, Ladik destabilises conventional markers of identity. This visual play emphasises the malleability, fluidity and multiplicity of selfhood. In the first, Ladik holds a mirror above her waist, doubling her torso and juxtaposing sensual femininity with a more neutral, practical appearance. In the second, she balances the mirror below her chin, rendering her head detached from her body, underscoring the tension between body and identity. In the third, she bites the mirror, her reflection forming a portal that merges physical and virtual selves. These images demonstrate that gender is neither singular nor fixed but a fluid, shifting construct shaped by internal and external forces—a practice of continual redefinition.

Like many of her photo performances, Androgin was conceived specifically for the camera, without an audience present. More than a technical aspect, this detail is a fundamental conceptual element that transforms the images into performative acts, muddying the lines between reality and fiction. Much like identity itself, they are both a reality and a performance. As Sarah Johanna Theurer notes in the exhibition catalogue, this concept is reflected in Ladik's obsession with the myth of the bisexual being and in a statement to the artist and writer Judith Šalgo, in which the artist reflects on the limitations imposed by gender conventions: "I regretted [being] born as a woman and not as a bisexual being or a man. This is perhaps the result of dissatisfaction with the ungrateful and subordinate role of women in society. Of course, there was no choice." The aspiration for ambiguity, expressed in the performance's title, runs through her work, reaffirming her unyielding quest for expressive freedom.

Building upon this conceptual framework, the exhibition offers a significant overview of Ladik's work, capturing her practice's linguistic richness and multifaceted dimensions. Its scope is commendable, though a broader selection of pieces might have offered more profound insights into her artistic evolution. Despite the didactic nature of institutional settings like Moderna Museet, the exhibition and accompanying monograph effectively underline the lasting significance of an artist whose contributions deserve renewed attention.

‘Ooooooooo-pus’ is on view until April 20, 2025, at Moderna Museet, Stockholm.