More than a Series. The Multi-Image Practices of Polish Polaroid Photographers
Witold Kanicki
witold.kanicki@uap.edu.plMagdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznan (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9837-8460
Abstract
The article concerns the history of instant photography (Polaroid, Fuji Instax) in Poland, recounted in the context of the issue of seriality (photographic series). Works by widely differing artists, such as Leszek Brogowski, Teresa Gierzyńska, Marcin Giżycki, Janusz Leśniak, Rafał Milach, Wacław Nowak, Igor Omulecki, Karol Radziszewski, Zbigniew Tomaszczuk, Andrzej Wajda, and the Minilabist group (Marek Mielnicki, Joanna Miklaszewska-Sierakowska, Radek Spassówka), were used to discuss various categories of multi-image work. In addition to the paradigmatic model dominant in Polish practice, which was based on the archivistic function of photography and the practice of collecting various types belonging to the same subject category, the subject model (corresponding to a series of photographs concerning the same subject), the sequential model, taking into account the issue of time, and the multi-image (panoramic or mosaic) syntagmatic model were also defined.
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Authors
Witold Kanickiwitold.kanicki@uap.edu.pl
Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznan Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9837-8460
Witold Kanicki, PhD, is a historian of art, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Art Education and Curatorial Studies of the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Fine Arts in Poznań. In 2014–2020, he was a guest lecturer at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Zurych. He works as an independent critic and curator. His doctoral dissertation was published in 2016 under the title Ujemny biegun fotografii: negatywowe obrazy w sztuce nowoczesnej by the słowo/obraz terytoria publishing house. His book Wacław Nowak. Polaroid – fotografia z importu appeared in print in March 2022. In the years 2014–2023 he was the head of the National Programme for the Development of Humanities grant project, in the framework of which he directed an editorial team working on an anthology of Polish texts on photography, published in 2023 by the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Fine Arts in Poznań publishing house (Polscy fotografowie, krytycy i teoretycy o fotografii 1839–1989. Antologia, text selection, editorial preparation, arrangement and introductions Witold Kanicki, Dorota Łuczak, Maciej Szymanowicz). He is currently working on a history of instant photography in Poland with special focus on the period of the People’s Republic of Poland.
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