Zofia Kulik book release with Thames & Hudson

Persons Projects is pleased to announce the release of the forthcoming monograph Zofia Kulik: Works, published by Thames & Hudson and edited by Asia Zak Persons. This is Thames & Hudson’s first monograph dedicated to a contemporary Polish artist and offers a comprehensive exploration of Kulik’s groundbreaking practice.

The publication includes contributions from ten leading curators and art historians: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sarah Wilson, Angela Dimitrakaki, Glenn Adamson, Anda Rottenberg, Timothy Persons, Agata Jakubowska, Tomasz Załuski, Karolina Ziębińska-Lewandowska, and David Crowley. Structured around seven thematic chapters, the 252-page volume features over 500 images, tracing the evolution and complexity of Kulik’s work within the broader context of European art.

The monograph will officially launch at Paris Photo 2025, held at the Grand Palais.

To coincide with the publication, Persons Projects will host a solo exhibition in Berlin, titled Zofia Kulik, Written in Her Own Hand, November 1, 2025–January 24, 2026

The exhibition traces the various stages of her artistic beginning, with her early student works and continuing through to her collaboration with Przemysław Kwiek as the duo KwieKulik (1971 to 1987), and culminating with her iconic self-portrait in which she appears as a queen, symbolizing her emergence as an independent female artist.

Zofia Kulik (born 1947, Wrocław) is internationally recognized for her large-scale black-and-white photomontages that intertwine political criticism, feminist theory, and precise formal structure. Her visual language addresses key ideological contrasts, including man and woman, individual and collective, East and West, and engages deeply with the legacies of Communism, Catholicism, and state control.

Kulik’s method is entirely analog. Her compositions are constructed by exposing multiple negatives onto photographic paper using precisely cut masks. Each image is carefully selected from her extensive archive, which she has developed over decades of collecting, classifying, and systematizing visual material. This archive is central to her practice, serving as source material. The process is highly disciplined and labor-intensive. Through repetition, symmetry, and ornamental compositions, Kulik creates densely layered visual narratives that operate on aesthetic, symbolic, and ideological levels.

Kulik’s work has received international attention through major exhibitions, including documenta 12 (2007) and the 47th Venice Biennale (1997). She has had solo presentations at Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Badischer Kunstverein (2016), and Les Rencontres d’Arles (2023). Her works are part of major public collections such as the Tate Modern, MoMA New York, and Centre Pompidou, as well as numerous private collections.

Contact: berlin@personsprojects.com.

The Zofia Kulik publication was created with the financial support of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Poland within the grant competition “Public Diplomacy 2024–2025–European dimension and countering disinformation.”