Zofia Kulik: Rhythms of Power

Zofia Kulik - Rhythms of Power is the Polish artist's first survey exhibition in Austria. In addition to large-format panel paintings and the self-portrait Splendour of Myself, the exhibition also shows parts of her diploma thesis, which were created towards the end of her time at the academy between 1968 and 1971.

The artist has archived thousands of photographs of individual phenomena of the visible world as negatives over decades. Models in various poses, skulls, bones, vegetables, flowers, dogs, fabrics, buildings, postcards, masks, explosions and cities are just some of the 250 or so classification criteria.
In the analogue exposure process, complex scenarios of multi-layered pictorial worlds are created from this archive in the darkroom, orchestrated from hundreds of individual images. Sketches and templates illustrate this working process.

Like a choreographer of mass events, Zofia Kulik organises the visual material. She controls the rhythm. Individual images are arranged in rows, circles and other geometric formations, often laid out according to the rules of symmetry, describing an entire world order like a mandala or combining serially to form an ornament.