# Agata Pyzik > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Agata_Pyzik > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Agata_Pyzik.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agata_Pyzik > Source revision: 1339625441 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) **Agata Pyzik** (born c. 1983) is a Polish [journalist](/source/Journalist) and [cultural critic](/source/Cultural_critic) who has written on politics, art, music, and culture. Her 2014 book *Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West* examines the artistic and cultural history of late-20th century [Eastern Europe](/source/Eastern_Europe) under [socialism](/source/Socialism) and its eventual transition to [neoliberal](/source/Neoliberalism) [capitalism](/source/Capitalism).[2][3][4] Her writing has appeared in *[The Wire](/source/The_Wire_(magazine))*, *[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian)*, *[New Statesman](/source/New_Statesman)*, *[frieze](/source/Frieze)*, and *[New Humanist](/source/New_Humanist)*. She lives in [Warsaw](/source/Warsaw).[5] ## Biography Pyzik was born in the 1983 in Poland, where she pursued academic studies in [philosophy](/source/Philosophy), [art history](/source/Art_history), [English](/source/English_literature), and [American studies](/source/American_studies).[6] She wrote for Polish magazines such as *Gazeta Wyborcza*, *Dziennik*, and *Polityka*, as well as music magazine *Glissando* and smaller literary magazines. Her recent interests have turned toward political aesthetics and forms of resistance. Her study of Eastern Europe, *Poor But Sexy*, was published by Zero Books in 2014.[7] ## Reception In a review of *Poor But Sexy* for *[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian)*, Sukhdev Sandhu wrote that Pyzik wants to reassess the culture of the cold war period, to give the lie to the widely held impression that eastern Europe must have been uniformly dour and artistically sterile, and to explore the heady mixture of fear, desire and yearning that fuelled the imaginative traffic between east and west. [...] Ideas, some more developed than others, tumble from each page creating a kind of swarm energy that's a pleasing antidote to the tasteful mourning found in so many books about eastern Europe. There's an urgency and intensity to *Poor But Sexy* that's entirely in keeping with Pyzik's assertion that the key cultural feature of pre-1989 Poland was high-mindedness.[8] Critic [Simon Reynolds](/source/Simon_Reynolds) called the book a fascinating and provocative study of Eastern Europe (including her native Poland) in the quarter-century since the Soviet Bloc began to disintegrate, looking at both the realities of post-communist life (transition trauma, precarity, emigration for work, etc) and at the fantasies and misunderstandings that East and West entertain about each other, as figured through pop, fashion, film, and art.[9] ## Bibliography - *Poor But Sexy: Culture Clashes in Europe East and West.* (Zero Books, 2014) - *Dziewczyna i pistolet* (Pamoja Press, 2020) ## References 1. [Zero Books](http://www.zero-books.net/books/poor-but-sexy)[dead link] 1. [*The Guardian*](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/07/poor-but-sexy-culture-clashes-europe-east-west-agata-pyzik-review) 1. [*The Quietus*](https://thequietus.com/articles/16244-agata-pyzik-poor-but-sexy-culture-socialism-ostalgie) 1. ["*LA Review of Books*"](https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/postcommunist-cartography-agata-pyziks-poor-sexy). [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20151117193851/https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/postcommunist-cartography-agata-pyziks-poor-sexy) 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2015-11-17. 1. ["A Letter from Warsaw"](https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/a-letter-from-warsaw) 1. [Zero Books biography](https://www.zero-books.net/authors/agata-pyzik) 1. ["*Morning Star* online"](http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-e358-A-groundbreaking-and-edifying-return-to-basics#.VklwSoT4T-0). [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20151117025302/http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-e358-A-groundbreaking-and-edifying-return-to-basics#.VklwSoT4T-0) 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2015-11-16. 1. [*The Guardian*](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/07/poor-but-sexy-culture-clashes-europe-east-west-agata-pyzik-review) 1. ["*Blissblog*"](http://blissout.blogspot.com/2014/06/when-mates-make-books-special-edition.html). [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20151117033239/http://blissout.blogspot.com/2014/06/when-mates-make-books-special-edition.html) 2015-11-17 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2015-11-16. --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Agata Pyzik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agata_Pyzik) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agata_Pyzik?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.