DOI Artikel:
Jurecki, Krzysztof: Polska krytyka fotograficzna wobec problemów awangardy, nowoczesności i metafory w drugiej połowie lat 50. XX wieku
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14575#0224
214
KRZYSZTOF JURKCKI
POLISH PHOTOGRAPHY CRIT1CISM VS. THE PROBLEM OF AVANT-GARDE, MODERNITY
AND METAPHOR IN THE LATTER PART OF THE 1950S
Abstract
After the end of the social realism in Polish photography in the mid-1950s, in conséquences of the famous exhibition of Edward
Steichen The Family of Mcm (1955) and international success of the Magnum Photographie Agency (established in 1947) the critics
turned to the problems of modernity, metaphor and reportage. The critics, mainly Janusz Bogucki and Urszula Czartoryska, reflected
on the artistry of photography and its value principally on the basis of the catégories of realism and report documentality Czarto-
ryska, on the other hand, tried to relate them to the concept of modernity présent both in the fine arts and culture of those times.
From today"s perspective the most important are the opinions of Bogucki and Czartoryska who, as opposed to others, tried to ana-
lyse and highly estimated artistic works that went beyond the purity of form of photography as art, i.e. beyond the literary and hu-
manistic reportage (for instance, the works by Zdzisław Beksiński, Marek Piasecki, Bronisław Schlabs).
The key concept of modernity had a very broad research model. The term was variously interpreted, even with inclusion of
reportage, nature photography (sic!) or the Cineforms by Andrzej Pawłowski.
The criticism was backed up by the theoretical texts of Zbigniew Dłubak published in a periodical Fotografia (Photography);
Dłubak, a member of the 'Grupa 55' focused on painting metaphor, an artist of avant-garde opinions and aspirations, in his texts
postulated the 'purity' of form of art of photography, distinguishing its media means from those of painting and graphie art and dis-
tancée! himself both from the tradition of pictorialism, expressionism and figurative surrealism.
In generał, all Polish critics allowed abstraction in photography only when a photograph preserved its mimetic character, with-
out the éléments of graphie art or painting. Crossing the confines of other artistic disciplines was regarded as a sui generis évasion
or even a sort of artistic capitulation. They shut out the thought of possibility of a border area between photography and graphie art,
already a subject of the interwar avant-garde (Karol Hiller).
Such critics as Bogucki and Czartoryska, and to a lesser extent Ligocki, accompanied with their texts the more modem artists
of the 1950s in Poland.
Translated by Grażyna Waluga
KRZYSZTOF JURKCKI
POLISH PHOTOGRAPHY CRIT1CISM VS. THE PROBLEM OF AVANT-GARDE, MODERNITY
AND METAPHOR IN THE LATTER PART OF THE 1950S
Abstract
After the end of the social realism in Polish photography in the mid-1950s, in conséquences of the famous exhibition of Edward
Steichen The Family of Mcm (1955) and international success of the Magnum Photographie Agency (established in 1947) the critics
turned to the problems of modernity, metaphor and reportage. The critics, mainly Janusz Bogucki and Urszula Czartoryska, reflected
on the artistry of photography and its value principally on the basis of the catégories of realism and report documentality Czarto-
ryska, on the other hand, tried to relate them to the concept of modernity présent both in the fine arts and culture of those times.
From today"s perspective the most important are the opinions of Bogucki and Czartoryska who, as opposed to others, tried to ana-
lyse and highly estimated artistic works that went beyond the purity of form of photography as art, i.e. beyond the literary and hu-
manistic reportage (for instance, the works by Zdzisław Beksiński, Marek Piasecki, Bronisław Schlabs).
The key concept of modernity had a very broad research model. The term was variously interpreted, even with inclusion of
reportage, nature photography (sic!) or the Cineforms by Andrzej Pawłowski.
The criticism was backed up by the theoretical texts of Zbigniew Dłubak published in a periodical Fotografia (Photography);
Dłubak, a member of the 'Grupa 55' focused on painting metaphor, an artist of avant-garde opinions and aspirations, in his texts
postulated the 'purity' of form of art of photography, distinguishing its media means from those of painting and graphie art and dis-
tancée! himself both from the tradition of pictorialism, expressionism and figurative surrealism.
In generał, all Polish critics allowed abstraction in photography only when a photograph preserved its mimetic character, with-
out the éléments of graphie art or painting. Crossing the confines of other artistic disciplines was regarded as a sui generis évasion
or even a sort of artistic capitulation. They shut out the thought of possibility of a border area between photography and graphie art,
already a subject of the interwar avant-garde (Karol Hiller).
Such critics as Bogucki and Czartoryska, and to a lesser extent Ligocki, accompanied with their texts the more modem artists
of the 1950s in Poland.
Translated by Grażyna Waluga