Cafe Club Aquarium
9 November - 31 December 2017
__________________________

Attention!
We are very sorry to announce that lecture by Anka Ptaszkowska, planned for Friday, 15 December is cancelled, because of the author's health problems.

________________________________________________________________________

Tadeusz Kantor's Panoramic Sea Happening in photographs by Eustachy Kossakowski - 50 years since the plein air event in Osieki (1967)

 

 

 

 

The exhibition features 30 photographs taken by Eustachy Kossakowski on a beach in Łazy during a happening in 1967with the painter and theatre director Tadeusz Kantor.
Eustachy Kossakowski (1925-2001) studied architecture, but devoted his entire adult life to photography - a passion he inherited from his father, a pediatric surgeon. Eustachy Kossakowski's photographic work can be divided into two periods: the "Polish period" (1950s and 1960s) and the "Paris period" from 1970 until his death in 2001.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, he made photographic records of the harsh realities of communist Poland, while working for a number of periodicals (Stolica, Zwierciadło, Ty i Ja, Poland). He made his name with an outstanding series of photographs of industrial landscapes, and a unique photographic record of the Polish artistic avant-garde of the 1960s, which he created with the artist Tadeusz Rolke. It chronicles the works of artists associated with Galeria Krzywego Koła and Galeria Foksal, including Henryk Stażewski and Edward Krasiński, as well as theatre performances directed by Tadeusz Kantor and Jerzy Grotowski. He also compiled a complete record of Tadeusz Kantor's Panoramic Sea Happening, including the famous photograph showing Edward Krasiński conducting the sea waves.

During the Paris period, Kossakowski searched for new ways of expression, which resulted in the development of so-called objective photography exemplified by a phenomenally successful series of 159 photographs entitled 6 Metres to Paris, and a number of photographic albums, including Lights of Chartres, Pompeii, Secret Apartments, and last but not least The Apostles - a series of photos of the famous sculptures in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome shot from behind.

"Tadeusz Kantor's Panoramic Sea Happening, which was performed in August 1967 by artists participating in the 5th Plein Air event in Osieki (incl. Jerzy Bereś and Edward Krasiński), was Kantor's second outdoor happening (preceded by The Letter which took place in Warsaw in January 1967) and one of the first performative actions in the 1960s Poland. Undoubtedly, it was the biggest and most complex plein air happening to date. Steeped in legend and rich in anecdotes, it remains an unquestionable key event of modern art in Poland after 1945".
Curator: Anka Ptaszkowska, assistance: Ryszard Ziarkiewicz

 

"In the photograph showing Edward Krasiński conducting the waves, the artist dressed in a black tuxedo stands on a partially submerged platform with his back to the spectators sitting on folding chairs. The photo was shot in the seaside town of Łazy near Osieki wher the plein air event took place between 1963 and 1981. This was followed by the reconstruction of Théodore Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa depicting survivors in dramatic poses. Here, the models were selected from among the invited guests and friends, and also included randomly picked tourists. Kantor, wearing a black hat and a striped dressing gown, was walking on the beach with a megaphone, trying to direct the performance. The participants of the happenings made speeches about art and the jury assessed the accuracy of the poses. In the part entitled Erotic Barboyage, female bodies were transformed into "moving matter" - a bevy of beauties rolled in the sand mixed with tomato sauce and oil, and then gleefully chased the onlookers, trying to leave their marks on them. In Agrarian Culture on Sand, newspapers were planted in equally spaced rows in the sand - a procedure conducted under the watchful eye of the instructors. The happening ended with a chest supposedly containing the entire documentation of the Foksal Gallery being thrown from a boat to the sea".

(quote translated from: Panoramiczny happening morski, layout T. Kantor, edited by. H. Ptaszkowska, Koszalińskie Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne, 1967)

__________________________________________________________________

The exhibition Tadeusz Kantor's Panoramic Sea Happening in photographs by Eustachy Kossakowski - 50 years since the plein air event in Osieki (1967), has been prepared in cooperation with Anka Ptaszkowska - an art critic and historian, co-founder of the Foksal Gallery, and co-produced by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Galeria Bielska BWA in Bielsko-Biała and Galeria ms44 in Świnoujście.

Organizer: Galeria Scena/Fundacja #Kultura.

The exhibition will be presented in the following venues: Galeria Scena w Bałtyckiej Galerii Sztuki, Centrum Kultury 105 in Koszalin (23.07-03.09.2017); GaleriA Bielska BWA in Bielsko-Biała (9.11-31.12.2017); Miejska Galeria Sztuki Miejsce Sztuki 44 in Świnoujście (January - February 2018).

More about Tadeusz Kantor's happenings on the website of Cricoteka >>

Photographs: Eustachy Kossakowski, Panoramic Sea Happening, 1967; © Anka Ptaszkowska; the negatives and slides are a property of the Museum of Modern Art. In Warsaw

Friday, 15 December 2017, 6 pm

A lecture by Anka Ptaszkowska on Tadeusz Kantor's Panoramic Sea Happening in 1967 and the activity of the Foksal Gallery in Warsaw.

Anka Ptaszkowska - art critic and historian, co-founder of the Foksal Gallery, participated in the Panoramic Sea Happening.