‘Today the KwieKu­lik duet is con­sidered one of the most import­ant expo­nent of the Pol­ish avant-​garde dur­ing Pol­ish People’s Repub­lic. We wanted, how­ever, to show their works in a way that would allow to notice not only the artistic dis­course but also the images of their private, sexual rela­tion­ship and the com­plic­ated rela­tion­ship with the real­ity of Pol­ish People’s Repub­lic’, says Anna Zakrzewska, one of the authors of ‘KwieKulik’.

Anna Zakrzewska and Joanna Tur­ow­icz, the authors of KwieKu­lik, fol­low the two artists as they pre­pare a ret­ro­spect­ive exhib­i­tion of their works. Non­ethe­less, it is not yet another film about art in which, one after another, “talk­ing heads” (crit­ics, his­tor­i­ans, the­or­eti­cians) ana­lyse and inter­pret the works of the duet. Zakrzewska and Tur­ow­icz decided to adopt a per­sonal per­spect­ive. They talk about clashes between the prot­ag­on­ists which arise when they select works for the exhib­i­tion, and about their atti­tude towards the present real­ity and towards what the artist left behind.


Anna Zakrzewska and Joanna Tur­ow­icz were inter­viewed by Bolesław Racięski.


KwieKu­lik is not only the foot­age recor­ded by Patryk Jord­anow­icz and Kacper Lisowski but also a selec­tion of archive mater­ial of the duet, which as can be seen in some of the scenes are very extens­ive. How long did it take to make the film, which ini­tially was sup­posed to con­cern only Zofia Kulik? Why did the sub­ject of the duet become more import­ant?

Anna Zakrzewska: The shoot­ing to the film took three years. At the begin­ning, accord­ing to the first ver­sion of the script, we focused on Zofia. Only after a year when, still without the editor, we did an early selec­tion of scenes and the first rough cuts, did we notice that the most strongest scenes where those in which Zofia Kulik meets her ex-​partner, both in pro­fes­sional and private life, Przemysław Kwiek. We decided that instead a film about Zofia we would make a film about their rela­tion­ship.

Joanna Tur­ow­icz: Luck­ily, the shoot­ing star­ted in a period when Zofia, although she was at the peak of her inter­na­tional car­rier, stopped mak­ing her own art and star­ted work­ing at the immense archives of the Kwieku­lik duet. In the years 1971 – 1987, Zofia and Przemysław were insep­ar­able. They took a photo and video cam­era every­where, so their col­lec­tion includes innu­mer­able films, slides and neg­at­ives, the records of their artistic activ­it­ies. In an extens­ive inter­view I car­ried out in 2004 titled “The rebel­lion of a neo-​avant-​garde artist”, Zofia talks about her ambi­val­ent atti­tude towards this archive and her role in the duet. For the first time she settles accounts with her ex-​partner on a greater scale. She ana­lyses her emo­tions, how she felt muffled in this sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship, and wider in a mas­culin­ised envir­on­ment of the avant-​garde, where there wasn’t much space left for women artists. What she said sur­prised me with its great emo­tional force. When few years later, the artists began to meet and col­lab­or­ate, I wasn’t sur­prised any­more that these strong emo­tions and fric­tions revived. Zofia, how­ever, was much stronger. The meet­ings became more fre­quent. We star­ted build­ing our film on the obser­va­tion, which was facil­it­ated by the fact that, des­pite the split, the artists still lived at the same prop­erty, although in sep­ar­ate build­ings. Before, there lives were some­what sep­ar­ated. Each of them was busy cre­at­ing their own art, the works from the time of the duet were presen­ted rarely and indi­vidu­ally.

Anna Zakrzewska: Today the KwieKu­lik duet is con­sidered one of the most import­ant phe­nom­ena of the Pol­ish avant-​garde dur­ing the Pol­ish People’s Repub­lic. We wanted, how­ever, to show their works in a way that would allow to notice not only the artistic dis­course but also the images of their private, sexual rela­tion­ship and the com­plic­ated rela­tion­ship with the real­ity of the Pol­ish People’s Repub­lic. The obser­va­tion of the artists car­ried out presently strengthens this ele­ment. The force of our film is born where art and life meet. In the case of KwieKu­lik it is impossible to sep­ar­ate the two spheres. Art issues were the driv­ing force of their rela­tion­ship, the reason of their con­flicts and suc­cesses. We present them as a couple of artists who is con­stantly between sym­bi­osis and com­pet­i­tion, at the same time we cre­ate a por­trait of a fam­ily. Thanks to the use of their archives, we can watch their life within the space of forty years.


Rather than on the works of Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek, KwieKu­lik focuses on them – we can see them argue, brood­ing over the past…

J. T.: In our film the bor­ders between an obser­va­tional doc­u­ment­ary and an artistic cre­ation blur slightly. The con­ver­sa­tions between the artists, or rather their con­stant fights, don’t refer to banal, every­day prob­lems but to, for example, the ter­min­o­logy used in the art of the 70’s or the ways of present­ing works. As a mat­ter of fact, the couple cre­ated their own idio­syn­cratic ter­min­o­logy describ­ing their avant-​garde art. Our film, how­ever, won’t answer the ques­tion whether in the works of KwieKu­lik ‘there was or there wasn’t any object’ (one of the first con­ver­sa­tions between Zofia and Przemysław). A viewer more inquis­it­ive towards art will have to inter­pret it on their own. A viewer look­ing for a ‘human story’ in our doc­u­ment­ary will be riv­eted by the emo­tional exchange between the prot­ag­on­ists and the par­tic­u­lar, some­times bit­ter, humour of the observed scenes.


How did the artists react to the film?

A. Z.: Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek are very con­scious artists. They have been work­ing with a cam­era since the 70’s and are famil­iar with the video medium, the pos­sib­il­it­ies and traps of visu­al­ity. Zofia watched both the early mater­i­als and the sub­sequent cut­ting ver­sions. When we had doubts whether to put, for example, some of the scenes of fights between her and Przemysław, she said, ‘But it’s true’. She wasn’t afraid to expose her­self. They have always been rad­ical artists and this cour­age of theirs shif­ted onto the screen. Before Zofia watched the first selec­tion of scenes around which the film was con­struc­ted, she had many doubts what would be the out­come. She agreed that it wasn’t the time for a film about her, but she couldn’t believe that only from obser­va­tions, often inter­rup­ted, one can form a good film. Later we talked a lot about the rhythm, length, and clashes of par­tic­u­lar scenes with each other, less about the bor­ders of pri­vacy. Zofia and Przemysław settle accounts with their own life, ideals of the youth, with what is left of them. These con­ver­sa­tion are car­ried out also dur­ing a visit of their son, who in his child­hood was used by them in their artistic activ­it­ies, e.g. pho­to­graphed dressed is ZMS uni­form (Social­ist Youth Union) or in a toi­let bowl. One may doubt, of course, whether the artists are not manip­u­lat­ing us, dir­ect­ors. The final scene places under a ques­tion mark the bor­ders between doc­u­ment­ary, truth and an artistic cre­ation. The viewer has to decide if he has become an object of yet another KwieKulik’s “to-​camera activ­ity”. Przemysław and Zofia didn’t cen­sor any­thing in the film and, more import­antly, they accep­ted the final ver­sion of the film, although both thought that their argument-​attitude doesn’t win in the eyes of the audi­ence.


Are you plan­ning at the moment a film about life or work of a Pol­ish artist?

A. Z.: I per­ceive my mis­sion of an ‘inter­preter’ between the world of art, often seen as her­metic and incom­pre­hens­ible, and a ‘com­mon viewer’. In Poland artists still too rarely become the sub­ject of a doc­u­ment­ary. We wanted the film to cross the nar­row cat­egory of a ‘film about art’. In artists’ bio­graph­ies there are fas­cin­at­ing reflec­tions of Pol­ish his­tory, for example the too often omit­ted in text­books visual side of the Pol­ish People’s Repub­lic, which wasn’t always as dull as it seems. A doc­u­ment­ary can’t focus exclus­ively on the myth­ical, so-​called ordin­ary man – here an artist, someone spe­cial, becomes ordin­ary. Thanks to obser­va­tions, being so close to the prot­ag­on­ists instead of hav­ing crit­ics, the so-​called ‘talk­ing heads’, speak about them, we are enter­ing their every­day life. On the one hand, the art doesn’t sep­ar­ate us from men, on the other, there is so much of it in here, because it is some­what second in line, we meet her through the prot­ag­on­ists, not oth­er­wise. The next film I’m going to make is a por­trait of a pho­to­grapher Eusta­chy Kos­sakowski, on which I col­lab­or­ate with Max Cegiel­ski. Soon we begin the shoot­ing.

J.T.: I, on the other hand, am attrac­ted to the world of fea­ture films and exper­i­ments in the spirit of New Wave. Presently, I am work­ing at an exper­i­mental series called art crime. The series in an innov­at­ive way talks about the most out­stand­ing Pol­ish artists by join­ing a doc­u­ment­ary with crime story. I invited a scriptwriter and dram­at­ist, Jarosław Kam­iński into the pro­ject. We’re fin­ish­ing the work on the concept of the cycle and the script to the pilot epis­ode, we start look­ing for a pro­du­cer.



(Trans­la­tion by Olga Brawańska)


(17.05.2011)