Two of the planned three displays are on in 2013, as well as two perfomance-art pieces. The first exhibition, Tadeusz Kantor and the Wielopole Skrzyńskie, opens on the 22nd of July and will run through the 24th of November. It tells the story of the artist’s birthplace, a small Polish-Jewish town in south Poland. The town had a significant influence on Kantor’s work, not only as the place of his birth but also where he spent his formative childhood years. Various documents and archive material on the Kantor and Berger families is on display, alongside the artist’s later works.
The second exhibition, Jewish Motifs in Tadeusz Kantor’s Work, will open in December 2013. It is to focus on significant themes and issues pertinent to the theatrical works of the artist, such as the legendary Dead Class performance, Wielopole, Wielopole, and the cricotage Where Are the Snows of Yesteryear. The exhibition will present props and elements of set design from the select productions, as well as drawings by Kantor, photographs, and previously unknown film footage.
In November, the Museum of City Engineering in Kraków will host two performance-art pieces. First will be the Polyphonies concert series. The six happenings are to be filled with experiment and improvisation, and employ new technologies in a pre-composed resonance of the stage and the acoustic potential of the surroundings.
Artists who are connected with the city of Kraków have been invited to participate, as well as those to evoke the avant-garde heritage of the city in their work. Artistic duos performing the Polyphonies include Keir Neuringer and Rafał Mazur, Denis Kolokol and Tomasz Chołoniewski, as well as Sergey Maingardt and Magdalena Przybysz.
The Choreographic Machine is another performative event, which draws on Kantor’s oeuvre for inspiration in contemporary dance pieces and choreography. Young Polish dancers and choreographers take part including Tomasz Bazan, Joanna Leśnierowska, Janusz Orlik and Karol Tymiński.
In 2014, the organisers are planning another display, which will run under the title Tango and the Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor, and will be accompanied by more performative projects.
Throughout the world, Tadeusz Kantor is best known as an influential, highly original figure in 20th century theatre, as the creator of his own theatre group and of productions branded with a poetic that derived from a complicated private/public Galician origin and its consequences. The echoes of this oeuvre still reiterate in contemporary artwork, and this is what the Who’s Inspiring? project aims to address and explore.
Both of the exhibitions held in 2013 are on at the Galeria Pracowni Tadeusza Kantora on Sienna 7/5 Street in Kraków.
Paulina Schlosser, source: press release 19.07.2013