Artwork Title: Tadeusz Langier, Zakopane

Tadeusz Langier, Zakopane, 1912

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (aka Witkacy)

One might think that such a seeker of individual identity, an opponent of overpowering technology, would not gladly take to the form of photography. But from 1911 to 1914, a decade before he founded his Portrait Firm, he shot extreme close-ups of his family, his friends and himself. The images convey a haunting intensity, capturing something very rare: the absurd and grotesque verging on beauty and melancholy. Witkiewicz set up long, emotional photo sessions and waited until ''his subject attained the sense of 'inner unity' '' – or at least until ''he or she assumed an expression of someone struck by the strangeness of existence,'' writes Stefan Okołowicz, owner of Witkiewicz's negatives and archives. Then Witkacy took the picture, very close up. [http://culture.pl/en/article/an-alternative-biography-of-witkacy]
Uploaded on Jan 28, 2018 by Suzan Hamer

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