Urszula Czartoryska's 1965 essay on photography's creative potential receives first English translation

Urszula Czartoryska's 1965 essay "Lustro rzeczywistości czy uległe tworzywo" has been translated into English for the first time as "Reflection or Creation." Published in ARTMargins Volume 14, Issue 1, the work examines photography's capacity for artistic intervention. Czartoryska analyzes Polish photographers Karol Hiller, Zbigniew Dłubak, and Fortunata Obrąpalska as case studies, positioning them within an international context that includes France, Germany, and the Soviet Union. The introduction argues her approach aimed to legitimize Polish photography within modernist history while creating possibilities for artistic subjectivity in socialist contexts. The translation appears in ARTMargins Online with full access available through MIT Press. Joanna Szupinska published the introduction on February 5, 2025. The original essay comes from Czartoryska's book "The Artistic Adventures of Photography."