Kantor: Resurrected Phantoms and Recherche du Temps Perdu

Kantor: wskrzeszone widma i „czas odnaleziony”

Author(s): Georges Banu / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Kantor;theatre;anthropology;

The author interprets the Tadeusz Kantor oeuvre by comparing it with other works tackling similar existential problems. First, he recalls his earlier proposal, namely, to recognize as the point of departure the archaic structure of the Japanese nō theatre, indicating a joint element, namely, the meting of man and phantoms. A further part of the article compares Kantor and Proust by showing a similar process of differentiating in the narration structure of the biographical “I” and the narrator construed in the given work; this narrator increasingly becomes the protagonist of literary or theatrical activity performing a restitution of the past.

"Kadysz. Strony o Tadeuszu Kantorze" by Jan Kott. A Communiqué

Jana Kotta "Kadysz. Strony o Tadeuszu Kantorze". Komunikat

Author(s): Piotr Kłoczowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Kantor;Jan Kott;theatre;

Jan Kott, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Tadeusz Kantor – four antimodernes of the end of the twentieth century... The theatre of Tadeusz Kantor seen through the book: Kadysz. Strony o Tadeuszu Kantorze by Jan Kott, the last work by this author issued during his lifetime. It remains up to this day one of the most poignant records of what we may describe as “experiencing Kantor” and conceals a fundamental philosophical question: “What can salvage the memory of the theatre: image or Logos–Word? What can save Tadeusz Kantor’s “Theatre of Death”?. The answer proposed by Jan Kott in his Kadysz is: the Tadeusz Kantor theatre can be saved in its essence, while its meaning – only in Logos–Word. This is a truly Biblical solution. Kantor and his Theatre of Death are, and remain up to this day, at odds with all mutations in the domain of art, including performance and video art. One could resort to a formidable abbreviation claiming that Kott’s Kadysz and Kantor outright went against those tendencies. From this vantage point The Dead Class and Wielopole, Wielopole are, to cite Barthes, “the cry of anarchisms, marginalisms, and individualisms: let us abolish the images, let us save immediate Desire”.

Man Turned inside Out. "An Anatomy Lesson" by Tadeusz Kantor

Człowiek wywrócony na drugą stronę. "Lekcja anatomii" Tadeusza Kantora

Author(s): Anna R. Burzyńska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Kantor;Rembrandt; Anatomy lesson

A presentation of two versions of a happening by Tadeusz Kantor: An Anatomy Lesson after Rembrandt (Nürnberg 1968 and Warsaw 1969), envisaged as an artistic transposition of the historical formula of an anatomy lesson conceived as a performative act, with Kantor’s inspiration being Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. By evoking the famous canvas and bringing to life the scene it depicts Kantor simultaneously (directly and indirectly) referred to the tradition of anatomical theatres greatly popular in Renaissance Europe. The dramatic and performative nature of processes transpiring in the anatomical theatre is manifold and originates not solely from the existence of a primary theatrical situation: the actor-spectator relation, the impact and its recreation. Within the space of the anatomical theatre there occur assorted confrontations: the living encounter the dead, knowledge meets ignorance, bourgeois virtues – crime, and law – individuality. The situation is complicated already by the very status of the “actor” in the dissection spectacle; the person performing this operation (and his assistants) is both an actor and a director, or rather a performer (he does not play a part but portrays himself in direct connection with the situation and concentrates on the dynamics of the activity and not on its significance). The role of the actor is, however, to a certain extent enacted also by the corpse (simultaneously a “setting” and a “prop”). If we regard the dissection viaa widely comprehended performance then we shall witness a broad range of problems connected with the function fulfilled by the human body-living and dead – in the construction of meanings. Kantor carried out a sui generis re-enactment of the situation depicted in the canvas: a body lay on a table, a crowd of students stood at its head, with “Professor Tulp”, i.e. Kantor in the centre, carrying out the dissection. With great precision he cut successive pieces of the clothes layer after layer, searched all nooks, and turned the pockets inside out, finding in them ordinary and symbolic items. The cruel and horrific Nürnberg rendition and the comical and carnival-like Warsaw version of the happening constitute the reverse and obverse of the same primary situation – the process of turning a person inside out.

Notes from Japan

Notatki japońskie

Author(s): Małgorzata Dziewulska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Kantor; Japan; theatre

Author’s reflections about Japanes artists Olta “group of seven artists born in the 80s”. On the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Tadeusz Kantor a symposium From Witkacy to Kantor… and Then What? was held at Theater X, in Tokyo, on 18th of April 2015, there were also several meetings during Parasophia – Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, Kyoto, 12th of April 2015.

Cricoteka Calendar

Kalendarium Cricoteki

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Kantor; Cricoteka; theatre

Presentation of events pertaining to Cricoteka in 1980-2014.

Hauntologies of Angela Ricci Lucchi and Yervant Gianikian

Widmologie Angeli Ricci Lucchi i Yervanta Gianikiana

Author(s): Tomasz Szerszeń / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: AngelaRicci Lucchi;Yervant Gianikian;film;found footage

A portrait and an analysis of the works of the Italian-Armenian duo of filmmakers: Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, whose oeuvre is a sui generis archaeology of the cinema and, at the same time, of the twentieth century. The Gianikians’ found footage films tackling the themes of conflicts and catastrophes are a monument of sorts created to commemorate anonymous victims, migrants, and the extras (actors) of history. At the same time, they criticize the very category of beauty as ambivalent and susceptible to totalitarian appropriation and usage. The essay touches also a problem of postcolonial hauntology in works of Ricci Lucchi / Gianikian as well as the “cinematographic forms of history”.

Regained Regiment. Installation by Grzegorz Rogala

Regiment odzyskany. Instalacja multimedialna Grzegorza Rogali

Author(s): Małgorzata Sady / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: art; installation; anthropology

The author presented his work at the IV International Sokolovsko Festival of Ephemeral Art KONTEKSTY (1 August 2014). Static photographs of the heirs of World War I New Zealand regiments were “set into motion” to create an unusual installation of a moving image accompanied by sound.

Barańczak – An Expanding Horizon

Barańczak – rozszerzający się horyzont

Author(s): Krzysztof Czyżewski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Stanisław Barańczak; poetry; obituary

An intimate portrait of Stanisław Barańczak, who unravelled the scroll of man’s existence across the entire width of his shoulders and further. The personal and generational profile is made up of the features of the poet, whose works’ message and topicality grow with time. The life of the author of Jednym tchem grows more conspicuous by approaching assorted stages, starting with his early days as a non-conformist poet and researcher in Poznań, involvement in the democratic opposition, all the way to emigration and illness. Each of these phases is linked with a “Barańczak lesson” deciphered upon the basis of the essential challenges faced by contemporary man.

My Conciliation – Tadeusz Różewicz and the Germans

Moje pojednanie – Tadeusz Różewicz i Niemcy

Author(s): Rafał Bubnicki,Piotr Lachmann,Małgorzata Różewicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Różewicz; poetry; anthropology

A record of a conversation held after a film shown at the Goethe Institute in Warsaw during an event commemorating Tadeusz Różewicz upon an anniversary of his death.

“Gold Began to Weep Tears of Blood”. On the Motifs of Ashes and Gold in the Poetry of Tadeusz Różewicz

Złoto zaczęło płakać krwawymi łzami. Wokół motywów popiołu i złota w poezji Tadeusza Różewicza

Author(s): Jacek Leociak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Różewicz;poetry;war;

A reflection about two central thematic figures and simultaneously two icons of the Holocaust: ashes and Jewish gold treated as a metonymy of movable and immovable Jewish property of which the victims were robbed both during the Nazi occupation and immediately in its wake. The author resorted to assorted sources (documents, the conspiracy and official press, testimonies of victims, literature) so as to to against a thus outlined historical and social background and inspired by the anthropology of culture depict the motif of ashes and gold in the poetry of Tadeusz Różewicz within the context of Polish writings dealing with the Holocaust. The presented text demonstrates just how deep Różewicz’s poetry is enrooted in historical experience and in Polish (predominantly Jerzy Ficowski) and European (Paul Celan) poetry associated with the Holocaust. The author portrays Różewicz’s works as one of the masterpieces of literary evidence of the annihilation of the Jews and proves that the poetic language of the author of recycling is an outstanding example of the social situation of post-Holocaust art embroiled in an aporia of sense and emptiness, representation and its prohibition, expressibility and inexpressibility, ineffableness and the imperative of testifying. It also becomes apparent that the drastic theme of the universal practice of desecrating the ashes of the victims while searching for Jewish gold, for years unmentioned in public discourse, was widely depicted in Polish literature already during the first post-war years. Złote żniwa by J. T. Gross and I. GrudzińskaGross is, therefore, by no means a novelty in Polish literature; on the contrary, it enters a terrain already recognised and described by poets and men of letters.

Zawsze fragment

Zawsze fragment

Author(s): Tadeusz Różewicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Różewicz;poetry;

Tadeusz Konwicki - in memoriam

Tadeusz Konwicki - in memoriam

Author(s): Przemysław Kaniecki,Małgorzata Terlecka-Reksnis,Tadeusz Lubelski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1-2/2015

Keywords: Tadeusz Konwicki; literature;memory

Avant la lettre

Avant la lettre

Author(s): Agnieszka Karpowicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology;

Letters from Buczkowski

Przejawy uczuć w zapisie doświadczeń. Między kartami listów męża do żony

Author(s): Justyna Staroń / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology;

The article is composed of two parts, with the main one being an assortment of letters by Leopold Buczkowski to his wife, Maria; the selection criterion was the author’s voyages abroad. The edition is preceded by an introduction briefly discussing the contents of the remaining correspondence at the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw. The letters served as a foundation for an outline of a history of the Buczkowskis.

What a Brilliant Man! Hanna KircherTalks with Agnieszka Karpowicz

Jaki to genialny facet! Z Hanną Kirchner rozmawia Agnieszka Karpowicz

Author(s): Agnieszka Karpowicz ,Hanna Kirchner / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology

Spaces of a Text. About „Oficer na nieszporach”

Przestrzenie tekstu. O „Oficerze na nieszporach”

Author(s): Łukasz Grajewski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology

The article discusses Oficer na nieszporach, a novel by Leopold Buczkowski, published in 1975. The author based himself on the existing analyses of Buczkowski’s works by resorting to instruments offered by the narrativist philosophy of history ( primarily the Ankersmitian version), the spatial turn in literary studies, the William T. J. Mitchell typology of spatial forms, and the theory of chaos. Consequently, he distinguished three spaces: local, in which Przemyśl is conceived as a mental place, total (cultural) spacetime - a function of impossible historical narration patronised by the subject of the historian in spe, and the concrete space–territory of the Eastern front at the time of World War I, whose purpose is the destabilisation of the reader’s habits. Furthermore, the author examined Oficer... within the context of the third spatial form in literature and the theory of chaos, indicating the fractal structure of the novel and the attractorial-Escherian form of reading reconstructions. The conclusions drawn by author to a considerable measure confirm fundamental theses concerning Buczkowski’s poetics, albeit shifting the emphasis towards such issues as aesthetics, politics, memorativeness or epistemology.

To Derail Language, to Derail History. The Leopold Buczkowski “Anarchive”

Wykoleić język, wykoleić historię. „Anarchiwum” Leopolda Buczkowskiego

Author(s): Piotr Sadzik / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology

The author attempted to outline the consequences of a diagnosis situated at the very foundations of the literary project proposed by Leopold Buczkowski, who regarded the Holocaust not as one of many historical catastrophes but as an Event that, first of all, challenges our language by undermining its ability to bear witness to extreme events. The Polish writer has no precursors in proposing such an interpretation of the problem, and the radicalism and astonishing aptness with which he formulated his opinions about “language after the Holocaust” are still without an analogy (although a suitable context is to be found ,predominantly, in the writings of Paul Celan). The heart of the matter, therefore, is not a presentation of the Holocaust (order of contestation) but presentation by means of the Holocaust (performative order). The disassembly of traditional, causal-effect logic is followed by the disassembly of the entire heretofore model of historical narration, which from that moment becomes infected with intermittent and ephemeral memory. In this manner, the key figure around which the Buczkowski project revolved was the ”archive” in which the Polish writer saw not only an institution collecting, conserving, and cataloguing historical artefacts but also a matrix of individual identity. Its task involves gathering literally everything that happened (together with the innumerable, and not exclusively human, perspectives with which it was perceived). Long before the narrativists the author of Czarny potok also formulated a thesis about the strictly textual character of history. The Buczkowski utopian ”anarchive” possesses, therefore, a huge critical and emancipatory value because it reveals history as not yet dominated by any arché authorities but as a real chaos of events that are discontinuous and not arranged in order.

“A Fortuitous Combination of Death and Cemeteries”. The Novel, the Archive, and the National Memory Site in Bełżec

„Szczęśliwe połączenie śmieci i cmentarzy”. Powieść, archiwum i miejsce pamięci w Bełżcu

Author(s): Jerzy Franczak / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology;Holocaust;

The enigmatic title of this text was borrowed from Pierwsza świetność, a novel by Leopold Buczkowski (1966), who approached the theme of the Holocaust on his own terms and did not succumb to moral blackmail offering the aesthetics of concentration camp literature, according to which obligation towards the dead is translated into spare realism and linguistic simplicity. Instead of writing novels he decided to procure ”documents” and to compile literary “archives”. In doing so, Buczkowski understood that the category of “testimony” proves to be inadequate in reference to such places as the death camp in Bełżec. Apart from several statements we do not have at our disposal numerous accounts regarding the camp. Owing to the specificity of rapid extermination it is simply impossible to seek support in the figure of the “Muselmann” [an inmate suffering from starvation and dire exhaustion], crucial for reflections about Shoah. For almost 500 000 Jews Bełżec was not a “place” but a final stage of their last journey. The challenge tackled by Buczkowski, completely alone in his work, was undertaken by Andrzej Sołyga, Marcin Roszczyk, and Zdzisław Pidek, who designed a National Memory Site in the camp. Does anything link those artistic practices attempting to define anew the relation between the landscape, memory, and representation?

“Iron Burns Human Flesh Together With That of Horses”. Experiment – Experience – Ethics

„Żelazo spala mięso ludzkie z mięsem koni”. Eksperyment – doświadczenie – etyka

Author(s): Agnieszka Karpowicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology;ethics;

An attempt at indicating the precursory nature of the writings of Leopold Buczkowski vis a vis the perspectives and themes broached in the contemporary humanities within cultural “turns” towards objects, animals and, more generally, non-human and mute social actors (Bruno Latour). An analysis of stories from the volume: Młody poeta w zamku (1959) conducted in reference to Buczkowski’s other novels focuses on those motifs and serves as an argument in favour of the autobiographical (here, the category of “self-fiction” proved helpful), experience-oriented, and ethical meaning of the radical experiments conducted by the writer.

“Hey, Valiant Rifle, Who Would Have Guessed What You Concealed Within”. About a Great Semiologist

„Ej, dzielny karabinie, któż by się domyślił, co się w tobie ukrywało”. O wielkim semiologu

Author(s): Łukasz Wróbel / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2015

Keywords: Leopold Buczkowski;literature;anthropology

This article about Pierwsza świetność by Leopold Buczkowski proposes the following thesis: certain elements traditionally situated within the presented world (such as a dewdrop, protocols, an archive, rifles) de facto function on more than a single structural level of a given work, outside the limits of the presented world. It is this mutual functionalisation of those elements that sets into motion the machinery of Pierwsza świetność. They are part of the novel’s reality, but, at the same time, they are factors constituting conditions for the possibility of the presented world, its ontology, plot configurations, and construction of the dramatis personae.