12 September 2014, 6pm
Cricoteka the Centre for the Documentation
of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor
2-4 Nadwiślańska Street
Krakow
Poland
T +48 12 421 69 75
cricoteka [at] cricoteka.pl
Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990) was one the most significant Polish artists and reformers of the theatre in the 20th century. On 12 September, in Krakow, the legendary Cricoteka, founded by Kantor himself, will open its new venue to the public. Thus the artist’s vision will finally be fulfilled: the creation of a space fit for a living artistic event.
Cricoteka functions simultaneously as museum, archive, gallery and research centre, boasting a unique collection related to the artist. This enables Cricoteka to organise exhibitions, symposiums, theatrical productions, workshops and to issue various publications.
Cricoteka’s new building attempts to create public space that would simultaneously serve as stage and audience—the site of an unceasing performance where, as in Kantor’s theatre, the boundaries between the actor and the viewer are removed. The design has been discernibly inspired by Kantor’s artistic concepts such as emballage and the art of conflict and ‘fusion,’ the breaking of stereotypes and striking juxtapositions of form and content. The project respects the context of the location, treating the building as Kantor’s ‘theatrical object,’ in keeping with the spirit and scale of this district of Krakow.
In Cricoteka’s new venue, two exhibition spaces have been designed. Located in the part of the building which braces the former Podgórze Power Station, they set a clear division between the two main lines of activities at the new Cricoteka: presentation of the work of Tadeusz Kantor and demonstration of its impact on contemporary art and theatre.
The Tadeusz Kantor permanent exhibition has been developed from the Cricoteka collection created by the artist himself. In its new arrangement the exhibition will offer a range of multimedia materials that complement the original collection. Three more editions of the exhibition are being planned.
For the opening, Cricoteka is also presenting the project Nothing Twice. The exhibition and the accompanying performance program interpret the influence of Tadeusz Kantor’s concepts on the work of contemporary artists operating at the crossover between theatre, performance and the visual arts. This project is based on the idea of the ready-made, Appropriation art and the concept of re-performance. Afterwards, the installment of The Book Lovers project will be taking place in December. The central object of this research is the artist novel and the many ways in which it becomes a medium in the visual arts.
The Studio Gallery, The Final Room, The Poor Little Room of Imagination—these are all the names that have been used for Cricoteka’s second space at 7/5 Sienna Street in Krakow. In December in Sienna a series of exhibitions presenting the unique collection of Tadeusz Kantor’s drawings will open. This exhibition will add to the episodes of the permanent exhibition of Tadeusz Kantor’s oeuvre in the new venue.
