Who did you hear about Kantor from?
From a KUL university friend, Anka Ptaszkowska. She was one year below me and wrote her Master's dissertation on Kantor's paintings.
Had the legend of Kantor reached Lublin by then?
People had heard of Kantor but Anka was the only one who knew him. Professor Jacek Woźniakowski used to come from Kraków to KUL and give us modern art lectures. He probably mentioned Kantor, he knew his work and worth, but I don't think he was a big fan. He's the one who supervised Anka's dissertation. She was in close contact with Kantor. After 1955, when Jurek Ludwiński created the Zamek Group in Lublin, there were some references, although I don't think I knew Kantor's paintings.
It wasn't until later in Warsaw that I met him personally. Anka, who I often met up with, took me to the café in the Hotel Bristol where she was going to meet with Kantor and his wife Maria Stangret. I was rather intimidated by this first meeting, although Kantor was very friendly. He was already a legend at the time. I remember that meeting as a great chance: I'm meeting with Kantor himself!
What role did he play in Foksal gallery?
Anka used to discuss our ideas for the gallery with Kantor. Then he took part in a couple of project, his enthusiasm spread to me. When I got to know him better, he opened new horizons of thinking about art to me; new, different, and complementary to our experiences, stemming from Henryk Stażewski, for example, our most important initiator at the Foksal Gallery. And then, after the happenings, Kantor's presence was perhaps even dominating.
Foksal Gallery was an occasion for Kantor to mark his presence in Warsaw.
His painting exhibition in the former Jewish Theatre (Salon Po Prostu) in Warsaw was memorable. But the fact that he exhibited his art in Warsaw so often was our doing. This was a glorious time, when events in galleries took place one after the other, creating circumstances for creative thinking.
Why did he attack you in 1967 at a symposium in Puławy and raise accusations of plagiarism?
Kantor would react to things spontaneously. He accused Mariusz Tchorek, who presented the "Introduction to the General Theory of the Place", it was in 1963 during the "Anti-exhibition" in Krzysztofory that he said that "an exhibition becomes an artistically active form". And that only artists were allowed to pronounce manifestos. Kantor exaggerated a bit, there was a falling-out, and the atmosphere was unpleasant. I don't think that anyone tried to copy his text. Nevertheless a precedent was set and Kantor was partially right.
Thankfully, everything was soon forgotten and we were back to cooperating. Kantor liked the manifestos that Anka and I wrote later, like the one for the opening of the Museum of Current Art in Wrocław.
In an interview with Adam Mazur and Ewa Toniak "I hide what is not visible" you quote Julian Przyboś, who called Kantor a messenger.
Yes, the Polish poet was a big fan of Strzemiński, Stażewski and the a.r. group which he was a part of. His views on art were strict though limited. He probably didn't know Kantor's work well. Kantor played an important role by sharing novelties with everyone in Poland after coming back from abroad. Not many artists went abroad at that time. He held meetings where he would talk about current trends, new currents, assemblage, minimal art etc. He brought with him and compared with his art that which interested him. But he didn't do that for long. Later on. he mostly took his ideas and art abroad, and dazzled audiences and critics in different parts of the world.
What is more, Kantor taught all of us that art should be universal without losing sight of its motifs and sources that can be entirely private and local. National art – he used to say – only starts to matter when it crosses its own borders; otherwise it becomes individual.
How did the gallery start cooperating with foreign artists? Did Kantor help with his international contacts?
In fact, it's strange, but he didn't give us any foreign contacts even though he thought many foreign artists were very good. But we wanted to get in touch with artists from other countries. Every time we wanted to organise an exhibition with foreign artists we had to write a request to the Ministry of Culture, even though we never received any money from them. We got help from institutions like the British Council, the French Institute, etc. We had great relations with them.
But we chose the artists ourselves. We also got help from befriended critics, and the artists themselves. I think one should trust good artists because they only know other good artists. It was thanks to my friend Tadeusz Rolke that our first exhibition with foreign artists was an exhibition of Swedish artist Lars Englund. Rolke told us about him after a visit to Stockholm.
The ministry allowed us to organise up to two exhibitions with foreign artists per year. So we built a lot of contacts over the years. We showed the works of American artists Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner and artists from other countries – Ben Vautier, the Fluxus movement, Arnulf Rainer, Annette Messager, Christian Boltanski, and others. We wanted to have a close relation with these artists; they often identified themselves with our milieu.
What was your view of the art market back then?
Of course at that time in Poland there was no art market, so the gallery wasn't interest in it. Besides not everything about the art market it bad. There were great commercial art galleries in Europe and the States that set new paths in art and greatly influenced museum collections. Leo Castelli in New York is a good example, or Konrad Fisher in Germany, and many others. We had close relations with some of them, very good and close relations but we couldn't cooperate with them because we had no money.
And what did Kantor think of the matter?
At the beginning Kantor was a poor artist. He remained a proponent of gratuitous art till the end. He created his works, his theatre in poor circumstances till the end, despite being famous. Same goes for Stażewski, who was a relatively rich man because he was often visited by collectors who bought his paintings. Kazimir Karpuszko for example, an American collector who bought almost all his white reliefs in the early 60s. Stażewski had money, but he had no problems with that, he didn't care about the art market.
Why did Kantor choose you to go abroad with him and his theatre? You said you weren't friends.
He simply needed me. He wanted me to play a part in his play, but I hated acting. But he took me along to almost all the tours anyway. I helped him with contacts with the press, critics etc. When the gallery had just begun operating I didn't know him well. But when Anka left for France in 1970 and Mariusz Tchorek went abroad too, I was the only one in the gallery. And then, as I say it, I was "sentenced" to Kantor, and cooperating with him wasn't that easy.
Kantor was precise and generous at the same time. Till the end, he backed our gallery with his works, ideas and opinions. Abroad, we would often spend time together in cafés next to the hotels where all the actors were staying. He had too much free time, a characteristic of brilliant people, because he would work from 5 am. But in cafés he observed life, he pondered, he was always in a good mood. Although there were also quiet days for the actors, times when there were fights which happened when something went wrong in the play. He then held extremely tiring "penalty"rehearsals. He was an artist with the highest sense of responsibility. It was all on his shoulders.
Would you drink alcohol when you went to those cafés? Did Kantor like to drink?
No, absolutely not. Only on rare occasions would he order a cognac. He wasn't social in the common way, but everyone wanted to be close to him.
This year we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Kantor's birth. Do you feel like Maria Jarema, a great artist and co-founder of Cricot 2 Theatre who died prematurely, suffered from the limelight put on the legend that is Kantor? She was already appreciated as a painter in the 40s and 50s.
Maria Jarema was Kantor's closest friend and a role model. So I don't know what the problem is. During her lifetime and after her premature death, he was the one who promoted her the most.
He later created his own Cricot 2 Theatre but the beginnings, he always underlined were the work of Jaremianka. He said Jaremianka to refer to the pre-war Cricot Theatre set up by Józef Jarema, her brother. And that name was chosen by Jaremianka and Kantor together. I met her thanks to Kantor and I remember feeling like she's a figurehead.
Many artists today are inspired or refer to Kantor, but they cannot be called his imitators. Why did Kantor never have imitators during his lifetime and why doesn't he have any today?
That's an interesting question, and it's hard to say why. For many years he exerted influence on theatres in all parts of the world but he didn't have any imitators. No one knew how to deeply understand his method of art, and that method evolved over the years, it evolved from show to show. At the same time all his works have something in common, a unique character. They are immaculately built but we cannot find the common key. That will remain a mystery.
You cannot say that a Kantor school or a Kantor method could be created, as is the case with Grotowski's theatre. Grotowski worked out precise rules, acting techniques, etc, and those methods are introduced in theatre schools. Let's not forget that Kantor was a painter and his theatre was a work of art – not of the art of theatre, but of the visual arts, complete and total art.
He did get many propositions of opening a theatre school but he had no interest in doing that. He did that over the course of one month at the Theatre Academy in Milan. Wonderful lectures, exercises, rehearsals and a play by the students showed at the Documenta exhibition in Kassel. A great show, approved by Kantor, you could say, and influenced by him. And there you have the answer: the show had a piece of him because he was present while it was being prepared.
Warsaw, 1st April 2015
Translator: Marta Jazowska 28/04/2015