Zofia Kulik
Zofia Kulik (born in 1947 in Wrocław) mainly uses photography and montage in her work. Between 1971 and 1987, together with Przemysław Kwiek, she formed the artist duo KwieKulik. At that time, the artists made performances, installations, objects, black-and-white and colour photographs, slides, films, drawings, activities related to mail art, theoretical, interventionist and documentary texts. Since 1987, Zofia Kulik has been working individually, mainly making repeatedly exposed black-and-white photographs, as well as installations, objects and videos. In 1997, she represented Poland at the 47th Venice Biennale, and in 2007 she exhibited at documenta in Kassel. In 1996, she received the Passport of Polityka prize. Zofia Kulik’s works can be found in many museum collections in Poland and abroad (including the Museum of Art in Łódź, the National Museum in Poznań, Pompidou Centre, Tate Modern, MoMA New York, Moderna Museet in Stockholm).
Man Bomb
1990,
Collages
Connecting politics, art and life as well as resistance to totalitarian Soviet communism were central motifs of KwieKulik – one of the most important artist duos of postwar Poland, active from 1971 to 1987. After parting ways with Przemysław Kwiek, Zofia Kulik continued critically examining political systems, as well as working with the body, including an engagement with gender issues. Each of the three collages shown is based on ornamental elements and decorative structures familiar from socialist monuments, religious architecture with its stained glass windows and altar-wings, or even mandalas, flags or medals. Photographs of bodies that imitate a wide variety of gestures are mounted in the kaleidoscope-like arrangements. These images include gestures of domination or protest, along with religiously connoted signs. A man’s body, which evokes a weapon in a design composed of repeating variants (Man Bomb), reproduces a swastika in another piece (Figure of Swastika) or is reminiscent of the figure of Christ (Emblem). Kulik combines motifs of religious and political iconography to analyze the persuasive and effective power of this symbolism. Inscribed in ornamental patterns, the aim is to make clear the extent to which the body is subordinated to the structures of power, de individualized and disempowered. (Christa Benzer)