Torun: self-published, 1969. Octavo (17.8 × 12.3 cm). Original staple-stitched blind card wrappers; [14] leaves of light pink stock, printed to rectos and versos with one page of text and one enlarged photographic reproduction each. Signed and inscribed by Józef Robakowski, with an additional illegible signature to final leaf. Stain to front wrapper; else about very good.

The catalog is constructed conceptually around a historical group photography which is progressively increased in size, with text on facing pages, until reaching maximum size in a centerfold reproduction of two facing photographic pages, after which the image is shifted to the right side and becomes progressively smaller again. The photographic reproductions alternate with short texts by many of the main members of the ZERO-61 group, including Romuald Chomicz, Czesław Kuchta, Lucjan Oczkowski, Jуzef Robakowski, Jerzy Wardak, and Wiesław Wojczulanis. The group was founded as an attempt to explore "non-canonical" approaches to photography by students of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun.

"Artists from Zero 61 expressed themselves predominantly through photographic image that they would use in ways exceeding the borders of traditional photography by, inter alia, striving to invent new techniques, experimenting with parameters of photographic processes and using photomontage. 'Zeroists' also created works of objets trouvés type, which included, e.g., photographs taken by other people that they found but also asamblages, environments and installations. The exhibition at Stara Kuźnia [Old Forge Gallery] in Torun in 1969 was the most radical example of such productions. It was an exhibition and an installation (one of the first of that kind in Poland) where photography became just one among other elements, such as photo-objects, assamblages and ephemeral interventions presented at the opening" (https://msl.org.pl/zero-61-group/).

As of October 2023, not in KVK, OCLC.

Book ID: 52470

Price: $225.00