Condition III

Konrad Kuzyszyn’s photographic objects Condition III are a direct consequence of the artist’s work on a series of photographs entitled Collegium Anatomicum. The photographs comprising this collection were taken in 1988 in the eponymous building of the then Medical Academy in Łódź. The artist photographed specimens for teaching correct anatomy, floating in formalin. Years later, he recalled that entering the space of the Collegium had been an existential experience to him. In the wooden showcases, he saw “people fixed in the role of a human being”. He felt that the scientific objectification of the human body had not removed the spiritual element from it; on the contrary, the interiors of the Collegium, with its sterile showcases housing suspended corpses, were imbued with the sense of the sacred.

“I could not shake off the motifs from Collegium Anatomicum for a long time”, Kuzyszyn admitted. The only way to cope with the intensity of the experience was to turn towards his own body. Kuzyszyn began working on Human Condition, a series that includes objects from Collection II, in the late 1988 and early 1989. He took photographs using an optical adapter, which made it possible to record three, sometimes superimposed images of the body on film. These images departed from the immediacy of anatomical specimens. The multiplied figure, frozen in various poses, acquired an irrational dimension, and the fact that the photographs were sunk into an illuminated silicone plate heightened their mystique. Depriving the body of the quality of realness allowed Kuzyszyn to transcend it. This creation was a response to the persistent human presence in the Collegium’s specimens.

Condition III is a visual record of personal reflections on the body and the human condition, the relationship between matter and spirit. A recurring aspect of these works is a question relevant to the modern conception of the self. What constitutes its integrity? Is it the body with its clear boundaries, or consciousness? In an attempt to recognise the nature of the human being, Kuzyszyn values the body highly, because it is the repository of selfhood. An essential element of the works is the light bulb that illuminates them. The light, although devoid of clear symbolic connotations, reveals the body, bringing it out of darkness, and thus imbues it with the quality of the sacred. The works themselves take on the character of secular reliquaries, with the image of the body as an object of special value.