Oblicza fantazji – Joel-Peter Witkin

Abstract

The article contains two parts. In the first, the Author describes the theoretical background for analysing the photographs by an American controversial artist – Joel-Peter Witkin; the analysis is carried out in the second part of the paper. The realistic, authenticity-oriented visions of W. Benjamin, R. Barthes or S. Sontag are confronted with Witkin’s creativeness spirit – clearly manipulating in matters of the order of reality (and its rules of appearance) and photographical stuff. This attitude is supported by François Soulages’ views on aesthetics.