DOI Artikel:
Suchan, Jarosław; Kantor, Tadeusz [Ill.]: Kantor z obrazami: Przytoczenia w twórczości malarskiej Tadeusza Kantora
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17164#0096
serve to compromise the museum prestige of the originals, but on the other aim at
protecting a great cultural value (represented by these pictures) against its depre-
ciation.
In the „Dalej już nic" (Further Nothing More) cycle Kantor returns once again
to the above-mentioned paintings of Velasquez and Goya, situatingthem, however,
in a different context. The artist is no longer preoccupied with the wrapping of
these historical portraits, but incorporates them in the ilłusionistic space of his
work, together with other cliches ofmemory (imperfect and variable images of the
past). The Infanta and the Napoleonie Soldier function in these pictures in two
ways: as ąuotations from the Spanish masters' oeuvre or, on another occasion, as
self-quotations, a reminder of the museum emballages of the 'sixties.
Despite the differences between the appropriations present in museum embal
lages and those which appear in the last stage of his creative activity, these ąuotat-
ions are in large measure an expression of one and the same artistic strategy,
whose characteristics are as follows:
- the relation between an original and a work of art referring to it is freąuently
used as a generator of important meanings,
- the model is treated with nonchalance and subjected to considerable modificat-
ions,
- ąuotations are deliberately isolated from the remaining elements of the reality
of a work of art, this, conseąuently:
- leading to a change in the structure of a work of art: a coherent whole breaks up
into a number of alien and incongruous fragments.
For the above reasons Kantor's appropriations have little in common with tra-
ditional (pre-modern) ways of referring to the art of the predecessors. As regards
the relationship of this strategy with the avant-garde or post-modernism, every-
thing depends on the researcher's standpoint. In the present paper Kantor's
ąuotation-based output is compared, for instance, with Greenberg's model of an
avant-garde work of art, with a post-modern nostalgia as seen by Guy Scarpetta,
and with post-modernism in the concept of Robert Rosenblum (and in those akin to
it). However, owing to a multitude of freąuently contradictory connotations of
these concepts (avant-garde and post-modernism), Kantor's ąuotation cannot be
classified unequivocally. Nevertheless, the author indicates some points in common
linking the artisfs ąuotation method with the concepts constituting a permanent
element of a post-modern discourse.
92
protecting a great cultural value (represented by these pictures) against its depre-
ciation.
In the „Dalej już nic" (Further Nothing More) cycle Kantor returns once again
to the above-mentioned paintings of Velasquez and Goya, situatingthem, however,
in a different context. The artist is no longer preoccupied with the wrapping of
these historical portraits, but incorporates them in the ilłusionistic space of his
work, together with other cliches ofmemory (imperfect and variable images of the
past). The Infanta and the Napoleonie Soldier function in these pictures in two
ways: as ąuotations from the Spanish masters' oeuvre or, on another occasion, as
self-quotations, a reminder of the museum emballages of the 'sixties.
Despite the differences between the appropriations present in museum embal
lages and those which appear in the last stage of his creative activity, these ąuotat-
ions are in large measure an expression of one and the same artistic strategy,
whose characteristics are as follows:
- the relation between an original and a work of art referring to it is freąuently
used as a generator of important meanings,
- the model is treated with nonchalance and subjected to considerable modificat-
ions,
- ąuotations are deliberately isolated from the remaining elements of the reality
of a work of art, this, conseąuently:
- leading to a change in the structure of a work of art: a coherent whole breaks up
into a number of alien and incongruous fragments.
For the above reasons Kantor's appropriations have little in common with tra-
ditional (pre-modern) ways of referring to the art of the predecessors. As regards
the relationship of this strategy with the avant-garde or post-modernism, every-
thing depends on the researcher's standpoint. In the present paper Kantor's
ąuotation-based output is compared, for instance, with Greenberg's model of an
avant-garde work of art, with a post-modern nostalgia as seen by Guy Scarpetta,
and with post-modernism in the concept of Robert Rosenblum (and in those akin to
it). However, owing to a multitude of freąuently contradictory connotations of
these concepts (avant-garde and post-modernism), Kantor's ąuotation cannot be
classified unequivocally. Nevertheless, the author indicates some points in common
linking the artisfs ąuotation method with the concepts constituting a permanent
element of a post-modern discourse.
92