Zofia Kulik

Rhythms of Power
OÖ Landes-Kultur

A Master of Photomontage

The Polish artist and photographer Zofia Kulik (b. Wrocław, 1947; lives and works in Warsaw) creates panel paintings and self-portraits in large formats that she composes out of thousands of individual shots arranged in rows, circles, and other geometric formations. Often laid out in accordance with rules of symmetry, her creations, not unlike a mandala, limn an entire cosmic order—either encompassing it or by way of ornamental serialism. Collages and photomontages recall the compositional registers of architectural fragments, monuments, plaques, and commemorative tablets. The motifs are drawn from her archive, in which skulls, bones, flowers, dogs, buildings, masks, and other subjects are organized under almost 250 headings. Exposing her pictures in the darkroom with analog technology, she taps into this archive to create complex scenes from a multifaceted visual world.

Rhythms of Power gathers works from the 1960s to the present and is rounded out by contributions by David Crowley, Dorota Jarecka, and Rainald Schumacher.