“From the Happening to the Impossible”

A scene from a performance A man with two additional legs comes from the theatre to the cloakroom: Zbigniew Bednarczyk Cloakroom attendant: Lesław Janicki photo Cricoteka Archives

“(…) Sublimating the too physical reality of happenings and the presence in time and space transferred all the effort into a sphere of greater freedom, of expanded boundaries, of

“conceptual” rather than visual imagination, “impossible”.

What is important to me at this moment is the consolidation

of a  g r e a t  v a r i e t y

of  p r o p o s a l s

designed in such a way that the spectator develops

the  f e e l i n g

that it is  i m p o s s i b l e

to  p e r c e i v e

and  i n t e r p r e t  the whole

f r o m  t h e  s p e c t a t o r’ s  p o s i t i o n.

The  r e c e p t i o n  in this case is completed

through

r e f l e c t i o n

e m e r g i n g  from the correlation

of objects and actions

which are not a “creation” or

materialization, but

a  b a s i s

for the conceptual and spiritual process. (…)”

(Kantor, Tadeusz. Metamorfozy. Teksty o latach 1938-1974 [Metamorphoses. Texts about the years 1938-1974] selected and edited by Krzysztof Pleśniarowicz. Cracow: Cricoteka, Księgarnia Akademicka, 2000, p. 600.)

Translated by: Piotr Graff