For the first time, the artist Zofia Kulik put part of her own workshop on display as part of the exhibition The Splendor of the Artisan(July 3-September 24, 2023) in Arles, France. The show drew from her self-portrait, which was inspired by the book Splendours of the New World, highlighting the influence of Spanish costume on other European countries, where lavish aesthetics were emulated as a symbol of status. Between the art of producing luxury and the lacklustre manufacturing process, Kulik presented a juxtaposition and reified the craftsman or artisan. At the Église des Trinitaires, as part of the photography festival Rencontres d’Arles, Kulik presented a set of analogue photomontages made in a classical darkroom. Kulik studies the body as a recurring element, as a site of protest, a place of lavish splendour, and as a decorative form, examining the multifaceted readings of the figure.

Kulik’s photographic compositions include images of arches and repeating motifs that form geometrical borders and abstract patterns. These images present a grandiose vision of power, where decorative art serves as a symbol of status. The artist speaks of the political changes in her native Poland from 1989 when the Catholic church occupied the same space that was left behind by the Communist Party. Kulik refers to the similarities in costume between Renaissance paintings and depictions of the Holy Virgin, the former borrowing from the latter. Images of veneration changed from that of Lenin and hammer and sickles to ceremonial church symbols with splendour and wealth displayed in an ostentatious manner, in a similar fashion to other powerful regimes. 

Kulik makes her images by using multiple exposures of negatives on photographic paper. The compositions produce complex geometrical abstractions, centering nude figures along with the artist’s own self-portrait. Each photomontage is constructed through a laborious process of chopping images digitally, after which each of these elements is brought together as a photomontage and exposed multiple times on photographic paper. The template is then reconfigured and re-masked. The base for these images is Kulik’s own archive of negatives, which she has been collecting for several decades, with the earliest coming from the 1960s.

The artist displays a glorious self-portrait of herself, where she is dressed in a splendorous embellished garment, influenced by Renaissance portraits of royalty. The artist tells STIR, "Although direct inspiration came from Renaissance portraits of queens and aristocrats, all the time I was wondering why their dresses were so similar to icons of The Holy Virgin and especially to the ‘miraculous’ Madonna of Czestochowa in Poland. She has many dresses; they have been used since the 17^th century. There is a diamond dress, a pearl dress, and a coral dress. Each one is splendid, and I understood it better by reading about the influences of Spanish costumes on other countries in Europe in the 16^th century. After the conquest of America, Catholic Spain manifested luxury and wealth in richly decorated garments. I am not rich, I do not possess diamonds, pearls, or gold – instead, I am rich in photo images, so I created the dress in my self-portrait with that staff.”

Examining the photomontages closely, one is also able to identify elements such as human forms repeated across the composition as decoration, alongside seemingly modernist buildings, speaking to the might of those in power. Attuned to a legacy of people-led movements and forms, Kulik has an interest in organised crowds, especially those orchestrated and planned for propagandist events such as military events. Having grown up with her father in the military, the image of saluting soldiers and energetic marches repeats. The human figure becomes a motif that the artist compares to plant-like or animal forms that populate borders of classical art, especially in illuminated manuscripts or stained glass compositions.

Drawing upon a lifelong study of sculpture and drawing, Kulik works with the nude form, translating female and male bodies in action into the photomontage form, through repetition and disjuncture from the original. There also appears to be an aesthetic similarity to the first productions of film, that of Eadweard Muybridge’s photography, where the static stills take on the impulse of movement. In Kulik’s compositions, we find the bodies in perpetual motion yet never moving, circulating, spreading, and surrounding.

Through the evocation of crowds in the photographs, Kulik also gestures towards the power and splendour of citizen protest and participation in politics, as she denotes a demonstration against the church with people holding flags and slogans. We see these figures from the back with their raised fists as the disparate photomontage composition positions the church at the centre: the one in power and with the right to rule. Through cultural references, Kulik creates various scenes and composed images, where she addresses the tension that occurs in the face of authoritarian regimes, whether communist or church-led.

Speaking about her practice, Kulik says, “I practice analog photography, develop the films myself, make the contact sheets, work in the darkroom myself, do dozens of tests, etc. It's largely manual work, ‘gymnastics’ of the hands, of the whole body, which is important to achieve the desired effect. All this work I call, perhaps in a bit of an old-fashioned way, craftsmanship. I am an artisan.”