Zbigniew Libera: Positives and Masters

The Positives series had already been shown in part. It consists of reworkings of widely familiar photographs that function as symbols in our imagination. Using the same rhetoric of the pose, Libera changed the photographic convention so that its message became positive. Through the contrast of positive and negative, the artist proposes his own subversive, ‘positive’ version of these pictures. The unconditional optimism of the artist’s substitution reaches the viewer only after a moment. It reveals the mechanical nature of a gaze that recognises something which, in fact, was never depicted.

The Masters series was prepared especially for the exhibition at Atlas Sztuki. It consists of interviews with Zofia Kulik, Jan Świdziński, Andrzej Partum, Anastazy Wiśniewski and Leszek Piotrowski that were never conducted or published. Libera simply wrote and assembled them, using the graphic design of selected newspapers. In Libera’s view, Masters is a pantheon of outstanding yet underappreciated or even forgotten artists who played the greatest role in Polish art.

In addition to the artist, the participants in the meeting about Zbigniew Libera’s work were Marzena Bomanowska—Gazeta Wyborcza (Gazeta Łódzka); Sylwia Borowska—Gala; Monika Małkowska—Rzeczpospolita; Magda Olczyk—Polish Television’s Łódź branch; Dr Krzysztof Cichoń—the Department of Art History at the University of Łódź and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin; Krzysztof Jurecki—the Museum of Art in Łódź; Kazimierz Piotrowski—Warsaw College of Humanities; and Jacek Michalak—Atlas Sztuki. Towards the end of the meeting, Marek Janiak of the Łódź Kaliska group joined the discussion of Zbigniew Libera’s work.