Topole w Lucimiu – fragmenty
Poplars in Lucim – fragments

Summary/Abstract: The fact that numerous authors of counterculture succumbed to the utopian approach (which is always a form of ideological thinking) resulted in a departure from the conception of the artist’s role and place proclaimed by them. In praxis the artist became a teacher instead of an interlocutor. And instead of being a member of a community he now claimed to be its leader, confessor, and judge. Amidst all Polish alternative cultures the Lucim-based Grupa Działania was among the few, which avoided entering this path (one that I regard as dubious) and remained faithful to professed ideals formulated in the Sztuka społeczna jako idea manifesto.It must be stressed that the choice of a small village as the site of Grupa’s activity was inspired by motives totally different from the analogous choice made by Gardzienice. Members of the Lucim group were not concerned with a virginal spot uncontaminated by a leprous industrial civilisation or with pure “springs of the theatre, art, and culture”. Contrary to Grotowski, Brook, Barba, Staniewski, and many others, they did not seek such a spot because they did not believe in the possibility of finding it. In a manifesto issued under the distinctive title: Zatrzymać się w miejscu they commented on such quests for the founts of “the water of life”: “For people living here, Lucim is the site of their family homes, roots, cultural tradition, and origins. Some founts have already dried up, others are merely buried, but still others continue producing rapidly flowing water. By no means pure and uncontaminated, this water is full of dirt, soil, and residues, it reeks of manure and does not lack blood, sweat and tears. BUT THIS TOO IS WATER”.The achievement of counterculture involved noticing a certain ambiguity associated with the traditional model of socially engagée art and the creation of an alternative model based on the following conviction: “If culture is to be genuine it must be the effect of what we are currently doing in order to live, and not something added to life like a sugar cube”.

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