Thirty to Tomorrow. Robert Kuśmirowski

Thursday, October 14, 2021 - Sunday, May 29, 2022

  • Thursday, October 14, 2021 - Sunday, May 29, 2022
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“Thirty to Tomorrow” is a temporary group exhibition created by Robert Kuśmirowski in collaboration with curators Magdalena Ujma-Gawlik and Kamil Kuitkowski, with the participation of artists Marek Chlanda, Andrzej Dudek Dürer, Krzysztof Leon Dziemaszkiewicz, Jan Gryka, Mikołaj Smoczyński, Maciej Świeszewski and Daniel Zagórski.

A direct point of reference for this polyphonic exhibition is the current installment of Cricoteka’s permanent exhibition “Tadeusz Kantor. Spectres”, devoted to the subject of difficult memory and traumas of the past. “Thirty to Tomorrow” brings these issues into the present times: it touches upon the issue of the disintegration of a general, universal vision of culture. It focuses on individual fears, nourished by people living here and now.

The artists confront their disbelief not only in a good future, but in any future at all. This doubt stems from experience of a pandemic and the perspective of a climate catastrophe. What is also crucial is the situation of exhausting the cultural paradigm based on the concept of unlimited progress and economic growth. Such development is reaching its end, and the fragility of the world is becoming particularly painful – this moment is the Thirty to… Tomorrow.

Work by Robert Kuśmirowski from the exhibition “Impossible Theatre” (2006). Courtesy of the Zachęta National Gallery of Art.

Cricoteka Centre for Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor

ul. Nadwiślańska 2

Successive rounds of the permanent exhibition in the former power plant present the ideas central to the work of Tadeusz Kantor.

Tadeusz Kantor (1915–90) – one of the most important theatrical artists and reformers of the 20th century – chose Kraków as the place both to work and live in. Although the premieres of the legendary Cricot 2 Theatre were held in various European cities and the productions travelled the whole world, their director always returned to the city in the shadow of Wawel. Conscious of the significance of his artistic legacy, he set up “a living archive” here: the Cricoteka. After the death of the artist, the operations of the Cricot 2 might have been suspended, yet the Cricoteka continues to organise exhibitions, symposia, performances, workshops, and meetings, at the same time publishing materials devoted to Kantor’s art. Its home is the former power plant of Podgórze “wrapped” in a modern construction. The exhibition halls are suspended over the roof of the historical building, and the café situated on the top floor commands a panorama of the city, extending over the other side of the Vistula. One by one, the mutations of the permanent exhibition present the crucial ideas in the art of Tadeusz Kantor. Objects used in the theatre, props, sketches, photographs from the Cricoteka collection, and videos and recordings of productions accompanying them portray the successive stages in the development of his theatre. The temporary exhibitions of contemporary art organised here are references to the artist’s oeuvre.

The Gallery – Studio of Tadeusz Kantor at ul. Sienna 7, where the artist spent the last years of his life, is also part of Cricoteka. Visitors are welcome to the room that the artist made his home and place of work, and a gallery presenting the cycles of his drawings.

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