Visionary. A total artist. A revolutionary of the theatre. The most worldly of Polish artists and the most Polish of world artists. Tadeusz Kantor (1915—1990), one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, was a revolutionary in every sense of the word. The Cricot 2 Theatre, which he founded, constantly went beyond the traditional framework of the stage. The exhibition from the Cricoteka collection, presented at the Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu, shows the phenomenon of Tadeusz Kantor through his theatrical objects – costumes, objects, sculptures. They carry not only the trace of performances, but also the idea and record of the creative process.
"These works were not created out of an immediate and transient need for a given performance. But they are closely related to the ideas that define my work. […] They have enough internal tension and independent meaning to be autonomous works of art." – Tadeusz Kantor
The starting point of the exhibition is to look at the costumes as autonomous works of art, having a sufficient amount of tension, their own biography and materiality, being at the same time an extension of the space and the actor's body. The importance of materiality in Kantor's work is special. The objects on stage are not only "leftovers" or "shreds", as he often said himself, but also a story about the human condition, transience and presence. Theatrical objects and costumes became sculptural forms, balancing on the border between body and space, between idea and physicality, between collective memory and individuality. Costumes that lose their human form or imitate it are transformed into full-fledged works. These are specific body-sculptures that deserve the status of sculptures, while being inextricably linked to the actor's corporeality. The stage matter, composed of intense images, metaphorical objects and a living body, became a field of experimentation, but also of reflection on transience, memory, and death.
The objects presented at the exhibition illustrate the artist's unique ability to create his own theatrical language: inimitable, deeply rooted in Polish history and experience of the twentieth century. They also show Kantor's sensitivity to world artistic trends – Dadaism, Informel and Constructivism. The artist's peculiar revision of materiality also directly refers to Romanian culture through the four costumes designed by Kantor for the play "Rhinoceros" (1961) based on Eugène Ionesco's play directed by Piotr Pawłowski at the Stary Theatre in Krakow. These multicoloured, artistically rich costumes are accompanied by other, more personal realisations – from objects inspired by Witkacy, through paper costumes from the crioctage "Where Are the Snows of Yesteryear", to installations from Kantor's last performances from the Theatre of Death period: "The Dead Class" and "Today Is My Birthday". The presentation includes objects that break with the traditional form of costume – Goplana's original reconstruction from "Balladyna" or "Minor" on a frame.
The exhibition is an invitation to discover the history of Tadeusz Kantor's theatre, as well as to trace the ideas, influences and fascinations behind it. The exhibition is also a space for reflection on how the artist built tensions, how he treated matter and form, and how his theatre was transformed into something that exists beyond time – as a collection of artistic objects that still pulsates and continues to have an impact. It is there — between the living imagination and the body — that Kantor's theatre is born: a visionary synthesis of form, emotion and space. Theatre that does not end when you leave the stage, but lasts – in matter, in memory, in the imagination of subsequent generations.
The place that the Brukenthal Museum assigned to the Polish artist is meaningful. The viewer passes by masterpieces by van Eyck, Veronese, Cranach, Rubens, Lotto, da Messina, Brueghel the Younger, Memling. This is how he arrives at the exhibition "Costume / Sculpture / Body". This path puts the Polish painter and director in the same line as the masters of painting and enters into a dialogue with them. Kantor's theatrical objects, however, completely cut themselves off from his earlier paintings, offering a sensual, theatrical experience in the form of a large-format, spatial installation of the collection.
Finally, the time context of the opening of the exhibition in Sibiu is not accidental. From 20 to 29 June 2025, one of the largest European theatre festivals, the International Theatre Festival (FITS), takes place in this Saxon town. Ten days, during which the most valuable theatre productions and artistic events from all over the world are presented, evoke the journey of the Cricot 2 troupe not only through similar festivals, but in general through the melting pots of languages and cultures, dozens of places around the globe where Tadeusz Kantor's performances took place. And among these world stages, Kantor's actors did not stand on the one stage – the Romanian one – during Kantor's lifetime. Returning to Sibiu with the exhibition after 16 years (in 2009 the set design for the play "I Shall Never Return" was presented), this time it will be surrounded by contexts – a projection of unique archival materials and a polyphony of Polish and Romanian theatre scholars, m.in. Katarzyna Fazan, Anna Róża Burzyńska, Marta Bryś, Tomasz Pietrucha and Octavian Saiu.
Curators: Justyna Droń, Bogdan Renczyński
Curator of the accompanying programme: Aldona Mikulska
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