MG+MSUM

Zofia Kulik: Self-portrait with the Palace, 1990
#

Zofia Kulik

1947, Wrocław, lives in Łomianki, Poland

 

Self-portrait with the Palace, 1990

multiple exposure photo collage

 

I am enclosed in a form of mandorla (vesica piscis).

In my hands I have the metal crowning of a banner-staff (“sharp flag-pole finials,” Kim Levin, 1990).

Photograms of two stars “veil” my body. The upper star is red.

The whole composition is based on a baroque painting, The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, 1630, parish church in Pszczew.

As the crown I use an upside-down image of the Palace of Culture and Science (my photo of 1971), the tallest building in Warsaw (“a Stalin-Gothic confection,” Richard Hornik, Time, 2000).

One side of the square base of the Palace is as long as its height – a fundamental difference to the Western “thin” skyscrapers (economy of building ground).

As angels – Zbigniew Libera (my model 1987–1990).

 

Zofia Kulik