Tadeusz Kantor
30 Aug - 16 Nov 2008
TADEUSZ KANTOR
Tadeusz Kantor (born 1915 in Wielopole Skrzyñskie, died 1990 in Krakow) is regarded as one of the most significant Polish artists of the 20th century. Alongside his work as a visual artist he was also a theatre reformer influenced by avant-garde artists Antonin Artaud and Alfred Jarry, and also attracted by the Bauhaus theatre. Kantor was particularly interested in breaking the illusion created by classical theatre, and used alienation or defamiliarisation techniques revealing the artificiality of classical stage production, thus forcing an opening through to real life. Kantor was among those artists of the 20th century who proclaimed and practiced a concept of art transgressing all its boundaries. The artist attained world renown in the 1970s with the travelling theatre group Cricot2, which he established in the mid-1950s.
In place of a classical retrospective, structured according to periods and categories, the exhibition in the migros museum für gegenwartskunst is informed by a free scenic character, which attempts to exhibit Kantor’s works as a Gesamtkunstwerk. This concept held true for Kantor throughout his life. The focal point is the investigation of the performative, and the crossover between theatre and the visual arts. The exhibition offers, for the first time in Switzerland, a comprehensive overview of Kantor’s versatility – from his theatre productions and actions to his painterly and sculptural works. Alongside films, drawings, paintings and theatre sculptures, the “happening photography” of Eustachy Kossakowski (1925-2001), who documented Kantor’s artistic output for decades, will be exhibited for the first time. Simultaneously the exhibition is a continuation of the content-discursive debate on current artistic interests in combination with and overlapping with theatrical performative approaches in contemporary art, which has been investigated in numerous previous exhibition projects.
The exhibition will be curated by Heike Munder.
Tadeusz Kantor (born 1915 in Wielopole Skrzyñskie, died 1990 in Krakow) is regarded as one of the most significant Polish artists of the 20th century. Alongside his work as a visual artist he was also a theatre reformer influenced by avant-garde artists Antonin Artaud and Alfred Jarry, and also attracted by the Bauhaus theatre. Kantor was particularly interested in breaking the illusion created by classical theatre, and used alienation or defamiliarisation techniques revealing the artificiality of classical stage production, thus forcing an opening through to real life. Kantor was among those artists of the 20th century who proclaimed and practiced a concept of art transgressing all its boundaries. The artist attained world renown in the 1970s with the travelling theatre group Cricot2, which he established in the mid-1950s.
In place of a classical retrospective, structured according to periods and categories, the exhibition in the migros museum für gegenwartskunst is informed by a free scenic character, which attempts to exhibit Kantor’s works as a Gesamtkunstwerk. This concept held true for Kantor throughout his life. The focal point is the investigation of the performative, and the crossover between theatre and the visual arts. The exhibition offers, for the first time in Switzerland, a comprehensive overview of Kantor’s versatility – from his theatre productions and actions to his painterly and sculptural works. Alongside films, drawings, paintings and theatre sculptures, the “happening photography” of Eustachy Kossakowski (1925-2001), who documented Kantor’s artistic output for decades, will be exhibited for the first time. Simultaneously the exhibition is a continuation of the content-discursive debate on current artistic interests in combination with and overlapping with theatrical performative approaches in contemporary art, which has been investigated in numerous previous exhibition projects.
The exhibition will be curated by Heike Munder.