Rethinking Polish assemblages of the 1960s: The (re)turn to things
Rethinking Polish assemblages of the 1960s: The (re)turn to things

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to analyse the status of the object in the neo-avantgarde practice of selected Polish artists in 1960s assemblages, from the perspective of the ‘material turn’, initiated by postructuralism’s crisis of representation in the social sciences and humanities. Trespassing on the intellectual ground associated with traditional painting, which was conceived as a flat two-dimensional surface, led the artists to introducing objects from real life into their art, this gave the artwork containing objects new life and ‘personality’. The paper focuses on the works by four prominent modernist Polish artists: Erna Rosenstein, Włodzimierz Borowski, Tadeusz Kantor and Alina Szapocznikow. Taking into account the differences between their artistic attitudes and personal experiences, one may observe a common interest in the materiality of the world that resulted in a variety of object interpretations (Rosenstein, Borowski, Kantor) as well as the reification the body (Szapocznikow). Reference to Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory also creates a new perspective for research on the objects in works of art (Kantor).

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