Antoni Zdebiak

Antoni Zdebiak - photographer, actor, and performer. He worked across reportage, advertising, theatre, and fashion photography. He was the author of album covers for leading Polish bands of the 1980s, including Budka Suflera, Republika, Siekiera, and Urszula. A long-time collaborator with the weekly magazine Perspektywy, Zdebiak remained most devoted to his own creative practice—most of his artistic projects were developed in the 1980s.

Antoni Zdebiak was born in Puławy, where he completed secondary school. In 1969–1970, he was an actor in Jerzy Leszczyński’s Theatre of Vision and Movement, which became one of the most notable phenomena in experimental theatre, where the human body was the primary means of expression (source). It was there that Zdebiak learned the basics of pantomime and physical expression, skills he later developed during workshops with Jerzy Grotowski. Around the same time, together with actors including Piotr Cieślak and Jadwiga Jankowska, he co-founded an experimental theatre group in Puławy, working according to Grotowski's methods.

Theatre, movement, and the body remained fundamental inspirations and modes of expression for Zdebiak throughout his photographic work. He became interested in photography in the early 1970s and was entirely self-taught. His first reportage photographs were published in 1971 in local Lublin press (Kamera, Kurier). That same year, he moved to Warsaw and quickly began working as a photojournalist for Perspektywy weekly, with which he was affiliated from 1973 to 1977.

In 1978, he moved to Paris, focusing primarily on fashion photography, studying and collaborating with Krzysztof Pruszkowski. Between 1979 and 1981, he contributed to magazines such as Scena, Teatr, and the weeklies ITD and Razem. In 1982, he worked with the Italian news agency ANSA. Two years later, he won two awards in the National Press Photography Competition and became a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF).

During the 1980s, he mainly focused on advertising, fashion, and theatre photography—portraits of actors, theatre documentation, and poster images. He photographed for the Grand Theatre in Warsaw and the Warsaw Chamber Opera. He worked closely with musicians such as Budka Suflera, Urszula, Republika, Siekiera, Osjan, and Majka Jeżowska, producing album covers, promotional materials, photo sessions, concert documentation, and poster images. His album covers include: Siekiera’s Jest Bezpiecznie / Misiowie Puszyści (1985), Nowa Aleksandria (1986); Urszula’s Urszula (1983), Malinowy król (1984); Budka Suflera’s Czas Czekania, Czas Olśnienia (1984), Ratujmy co się da (1989), Giganci tańczą (1986); and Republika’s I-Ching (1983), Nieustanne tango (1984), Świnie (1986).

The most significant period of Zdebiak’s artistic practice began in 1984. Many of his projects took the form of performances—but they were created solely for the purpose of being photographed. These performative events existed to produce images or image series. Zdebiak was the director and choreographer of these processes, and often also the performer. Most of the work was created in his home or in Męćmierz—a small village on the Vistula River near Kazimierz Dolny. One of his earliest works from 1984 depicts a disappearing male figure photographed against a white background—a rare example of male nude in Polish photography. Photographs from this series were used on the cover of Budka Suflera’s Czas Czekania, Czas Olśnienia. He created over a dozen artistic projects, only a few of which were exhibited during his lifetime.

The archive of Antoni Zdebiak includes hundreds of self-portraits taken in various situations and moments of his life. Most are Witkacy-like sessions in which he enacted emotions and inhabited various personas. A selection of these self-portraits was compiled in The Book of Faces—a handmade artist’s book produced in three copies.

In 1989, he moved to London, where he photographed, designed, and worked on scenography for the Small Forms Theatre. Most importantly, he studied at a film school, focusing on Media Production Services in Advanced Television/Video Post-Production Techniques and Television/Video Camera Operation and Lighting Systems. During his studies, he made two documentary films—one about a young Yemeni boxer known as Prince, and another about the Glenfiddich whisky distillery. He lived in London, on and off, until mid-1991. He died in a car accident in Poland later that year.

More info about the artist: https://faf.org.pl/artists/antoni-zdebiak/?lang=en