April 12, 2024 / 12:00 pm / Museum of Photography in Krakow / 22A Rakowicka St. / 31-510 Krakow
We kindly remind you that this coming Friday, April 12, 2024 at 12:00 pm will be held press conference dedicated to the exhibition "To be like Adam Karas, inviting viewers into the world of this eccentric creator, passionate photographer, designer and inventor.
The conference will be attended by curators of the exhibition The biggest difference is that technology and the internet has speeded everything up tremendously in just a few years. We take the instant transmission of photos and text for granted. As a photojournalist for 60 years, I well recall a different time when I would send packages of undeveloped rolls of film with hand written captions to editors all across the world. DHL and FedEx were vital for my international work, even the regular mail system on occasion. Then digital cameras and the internet came along, changing everything, and a lot more time had to be spent at the computer. Newspapers were the first to take advantage of the technology as they require a quick turnaround for news stories and photo quality was less demanding. It took longer for color magazines to adapt, the sort I worked with, who had to wait until digital photography improved. Online media didn't exist at all until relatively recently but it certainly didn't kill print media, as some predicted. Monika Kozien and Marta Miskowiec and deputy director of the Museum of Photography in Krakow, Adrianna Gębala-Pietras.
Curators: Monika Kozień, Marta Miskowiec
His photographic studio was also an apartment, his studio lamps had their own names, and his subsequent cameras underwent modifications and improvements. Adam Karaś (1896-1986) built his life around photography, and the first retrospective exhibition of his work at the Museum of Photography in Cracow is at the same time an invitation to the world of this eccentric creator, photography enthusiast, designer and inventor.
Adam Karaś liked to tell the story that while the owners of other photographic ateliers went to the Grand Hotel during their lunch breaks, he would hang around Krakow with his camera. At a time when every print had to earn the censor's stamp, he would display photos of his own choosing in the shop's display case: either a row of ID "heads" with a striking resemblance, or an author's greeting card, or photoratures (in Karaś's photographic dictionary, the word meant collages created from negatives). Adam Karaś - individualist and eccentric, passionate about photography, tireless creator and inventor, who for more than half a century ran a photography studio in Krakow, has just lived to see his first retrospective exhibition.
The legacy of Adam Karas occupies an important place in the collection of the Museum of Photography in Krakow - donated by his family after the artist's death, constitutes one of the largest bodies of works at MuFo. In total, more than 22,000 objects (more than 5,400 museum pieces, 17,500 included in research materials): prints, glass negatives, props, pieces of studio equipment and photographic equipment - these Testimony of life and continuous creative activity of the protagonist of the exhibition "To be like Adam Karas".
It was these objects and images that for years caught the attention of the exhibition curators, Monika Kozień and Marta Miskowiec, who gradually uncovered the story of the eccentric artist. Although in the memory of Cracovians he went down in the first place as the owner of a photographic establishment (initially operating on Czarnowiejska Street, and since 1932 at 12 Szewska Street), Adam Karas was a pioneer in many fields of art: in 1928, together with his brother Victor, he founded the Karaś Brothers Film studio, but by 1916 he was already creating on his own photoratures, developed his own method of photographic "printing" of texts, for his companies created ahead of the era visual identities.
-You could say that the story of Adam Karas is the opposite of the American dream: although he tried his hand at many ventures with great dedication, he lacked a stroke of luck," says Monika Kozien, curator of the exhibition. -However, if he managed to achieve some success, he was prepared. A film studio logo? Letterhead paper? Branding on packaging? He was ready for any circumstance, his actions despite the scarcity around him from his earliest years were characterized by great momentum.- The exhibition presented at MuFo Rakowicka reminds us of this artist, forgotten for years, who created a unique photographic establishment in Krakow.
Adam Karas's camera, in front of which the portrayed sat, bore the inscription "In front of the camera - artists," and among the surviving inscriptions is the phrase "The photographer is not responsible for facial expressions.". According to the philosophy of photography he developed over the years, a portrait was not the work of the photographer, but the result of his collaboration with the people in front of the lens. However, Karas tried to influence models: be it through selection of music in the studio, whether proposing them to have imagined a situation, or finally - by giving unusual props or creating an atmosphere luminous decorations. Many of the people he portrayed still remember the experience of visiting the Szewska Street photographer.
The exhibition "To be like Adam Karas" reminds an eccentric artist for whom photography has become a way of life, and methods of recording images (in the interwar period - also mobile) have been the subject of obsession. When he wasn't engaged in the day-to-day work of the photography business, Adam Karas improved photographic equipment and created props on his own. Perhaps his most spectacular artifact is the huge wooden sphere on which he positioned or seated the models he photographed. He also made inventions, such as producing photo-texts using a light printer he constructed with his own hands and preparing unusual greeting cards. And at the same time, together with his wife Henryka, who worked in the studio with him, he ran an open house, which was often frequented by representatives of the Cracow bohemia.
–Adam Karas was a deeply independent man. It can be said that he never broke through to the world, never achieved great fame, but over the years (and he was involved in photography until his death, almost 70 years!) he consistently built his own world around photography. And it is this microcosm that we wanted to show in the exhibition. - says curator Marta Miskowiec.
So, at the latest show at the Museum of Photography in Cracow, you can see not only the photos, photo-oratures, photo-texts and elements of the establishment's visual identity created by Adam Karas, but also the equipment: studio lamps with their own names, props, boxes for negatives, a retouching desk or cameras.
Adam Karas (1896-1986)
Born in Krakow, a photographer, filmmaker, designer and inventor, passionate about photography. The son of Maria and Antoni Karasie, he graduated from a folk school and received education at a departmental school. He learned photography from 1912, initially as a journeyman in Antoni Czajka's workshop, and from 1914 - in the workshop of Jozef Kuczynski and Antoni Gürtler. In 1918 he passed the journeyman's exam and with his brother Wiktor (1898-1970) in the family home on Czarnowiejska Street founded the "Brothers Karaś" photographic establishment.
Beginning in 1910, he documented the life of the city - managing to capture, among other things, the first flight of an airplane over Krakow (1910), celebrations marking the proclamation of the independence of the Polish state (1918), the handing over of the guardhouse by the Austrians (1918) and events related to workers' strikes (1936). Karasio's reportage photos occasionally appeared in "Nowosci Ilustrowane".
In 1916, together with his brother, he created the first photorature, or negative photographic collage, titled "Hunger" - an achievement almost a decade ahead of activities of this type created by Polish avant-garde artists. Fotoraturas, according to the creator's nomenclature of "multi-action photographs," continued to create until the 1980s, using some of them as greeting cards. In 1928, Adam and Wiktor Karasi founded the "Karasi Brothers Film" film studio.
In 1932 Adam Karaś married Henryka Labucka (1909-2004), their daughter Ewa was born, and the photo studio was moved to premises on the second floor at 12 Szewska St. It operated continuously in this location until 1988 - after Adam Karaś's death it was run by Henryka Karaś. In 1948 Grażyna Karaś, the second daughter of Adam and Henryka, was born.
In 1943, Adam Karas received a master's degree. The studio continued to operate during and after World War II. For more than half a century, Adam Karaś ran a unique photography business, where he portrayed thousands of Cracovian women and men. His photo atelier was full of music, handmade props, improved and modified equipment and mysterious lights, and the portrayed could count on customized effects.
Photos and press materials downloadable from the Museum's FTP drive
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Login: ftpmedia
Password: Muf0M3d!@.
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