Zofia Kulik

The first large-scale English language retrospective of one of Poland’s leading contemporary artists, arriving at a transformative moment in her career. Zofia Kulik’s photographs are a psychic collage of the self. Inspired by eroticism, feminism, and the political and social developments of post-war Poland, her expansive work offers a radical critique of not only what it means to be an artist and a woman, but of what it means to be human. Featuring her most pivotal series – including The Splendor of Myself – this expansive publication charts her rich and varied career, journeying from her earlier collaborations as KwieKulik to the development of her solo work. Shortly after graduating from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1971, Kulik formed the artistic duo KwieKulik with her then partner Przemyslaw Kwiek. Running the Studio of Documentation and Propagation Activities (PDDiU) from their home in Warsaw, the pair created avant-garde films, photographs and objects, as well as performances, installations and interventionist texts. After splitting in 1987, Kulik expressed a new-found desire for her work to be present in museums and institutions. Subsequently developing the black-and-white photomontages for which she is now most famous, Kulik would combine complex patterns with often hundreds of images. Painstakingly detailed and often physically imposing, these images reflect an artist committed to exploring the murky terrains of the psyche. Bringing together these pivotal works alongside Kulik’s lesser-known but no less radical projects, this book features comprehensive yet accessible texts from leading writers to provide a much needed introduction to one of Poland’s most important living artists.