The Practice of Irony
Common Arts Foundation
18.09.2026 - 27.09.2026-
KwieKulik, Banana and Pomegrenade, 1986 archival inkjet print, 116 x 80 cm -
Zofia Kulik, Ambassadors of the past (Made in GDR, USSR, Czechoslovakia and Poland), 2006, Archival pigment print, 210 x 243 cm -
Zofia Kulik, Splendour of Myself II, 1997, Silver gelatine print, 180 x 150 cm
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The exhibition explores irony as one of the defining strategies in Zofia Kulik’s artistic practice, encompassing both her individual work and her seventeen-year collaboration with Przemysław Kwiek as an artistic duo. Through absurdity, repetition, and formal exaggeration, Kulik exposes mechanisms of power, propaganda, and social control, addressing the realities of communist Poland, the political transformations after 1989, and contemporary ideological narratives. The exhibition presents two key phases of her career: the performative actions created with Kwiek in the 1970s and 1980s, and the monumental photomontages she developed from the late 1980s onward.
Across both periods, Kulik consistently investigates the relationship between image, memory, and ideology, using ornament, rhythm, and repetition to challenge established symbols and official historical narratives.