'8 MANNEQUINS DE L'AGENCE CHRISTA MODELING, PHOTOSYNTHESE', 1975

Krysztof Pruszkowski has been creating photographs using his own method, called ‘photosynthesis’ since the mid-1970s. The method of ‘photosynthesis’ involves the multiple superposition of photographs of similar subject matter, made at short or long time intervals. The images obtained in this manner are devoid of clear-cut contours, become unreal, and gain a certain magical mysteriousness. According to Pruszkowski, in contrast to boring photography in ‘monopose’, ‘photosynthesis’, or photography in ‘multi-pose’, is a system in which many things similar in form or otherwise cognitively related can be shown on one photographic image simultaneously. Photosynthesis provides a plastic form to conceptual art. Pruszkowski says that he photographs things that never existed, do not exist, and that he did not imagine, that nobody else had imagined, and despite all this, they materialize in the image, which comes into existence on its own. Through a layered perspective, he wants to break the routine, superficial outlook on things and force the viewer to look beyond the physical surface of objects. Thanks to Pruszkowski’s photosynthetic images, which penetrate into the subconscious, viewers become a little more free, individual and unitary in their assessment of phenomena in the world around them. The images seen by the viewer are very open, so much so that they can ‘enter them’, become lost in their depth, but also, depending on their emotional state and will, they can break away from viewing the image and return to the reality surrounding them.
The first of Krzysztof Pruszkowski’s most well-known photographs made using photosynthesis presents a portrait of a woman consisting of the face of 8 models from the famous Parisian Christa-Modeling agency. It was created in 1975. Thanks to multiple exposure on a single frame of negative, it can clearly be seen how little difference there was between the faces of models selected by the agency.
He studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Science and Technology during the years 1960-65. Two years later, he left for France. Starting from the 90s, he has lived and worked in Paris and Kazimierz Dolny. His first well-known cycle of a reportage and sociological character, yet with accentuated photogenic attributes - Barrier - was created in 1977. Since 1984, the artist has been realizing his own artistic idea, called photosynthesis, involving the multiple superposition and exposure of photographs similar in terms of theme and form with the purpose of creating a synthetic image. This method has its roots both in the photographic portraits of the early 20th century by Alvin Langdon Coburn, as well as slightly later ones by Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, and in the concept of searching for synthesis present in Renaissance painting (including Leonardo da Vinci) and symbolic painting (Paul Gauguin).

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