Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie [Hrsg.]: Prace z Historii Sztuki (21.1995)

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na wzór swoich wielkich i coraz mu bliższych symbolistów, szukał namiastki poczucia
bezpieczeństwa, ale i niezmienności, w krakowskich kawiarniach, które „odciągały go
na jakiś czas od samotnego rozpamiętywania się we własnej duszy"^. Nie zapominając
przez cały czas o istniejącej gdzieś na rozstajach dróg Cafe Europę, w której w doboro-
wym towarzystwie już zawsze będzie miał miejsce.

ART IN RELATION TO DUCHAMP

S u m m a r y

Tadeusz Kantor etnphasized morę than once his respect for Marcel Duchamp, whom he called "the
most intelhgent artist of our century". Duchamp's works were interpreted variously by Kantor at ditlerent
stages of his artistic path and in the changing context ofthe art of the last 20 years, a context to which Kantor
was particularly responsive. hi my short papcr I did not set myself the ambitious task of cataloguing all
Kantor's "Duchampiana". I intended to demonstrate how in the course of years Kantor himselfhad changed
his approach to interpreting his activities and attitude, how increasingly important became his need for self-
detennination within a broadly understood current of symbolic-Dadaist origin, a current which with time
came to be so capacious that one is not surprised at the presence in it of Kantor - "a Dadaist compelling to
tears". Thus, in Stefan Morawski's opinion a reconciliation between the once antagonistic attitudes -
Expressionist and Dadaist - a very liberał use of the experiences of the past, realized in luli in 77?t? DcrzJ
C/zv.s.s* as early as the 70s, testifies not only to the author's outstanding personality but also to his keen
"artistic seif-ktiowledge".
In the C/cweJ shown at the Centre Pompidou in 1983, which reterred to the experiences Irom
77?e DeaJ C/zz.s.s', it seemed puzzling to łind a coincidence with Duchamp's last message, that is, Gzw/z czz*g.'
7. IKzlezyiz//, 2. Z.żg/z/z'zzg-gzz.s'. Aforce/DzzcAzzzzp 7976-dd Although adirect relerence to this specilic work
by Duchamp is indicated only by the text accompanying an exhibition mounted atter Kantor's death, the
relations between the two works are obvious. In a literał and iigurativc sense the C/o.wJ TozT: breaks with
the loose structure of a happening, prepared lor a viewer's interterence. Intended rather lor peeping at than
watching, it is an important stage in "Kantor's avant-garde of recollection", wltich concept may be recognized
as parallel to the message inherent in many of Ducliamp's works - that art associates itself with the sphere
of teeling and eroticism rather than with that of rational experiences. In Kantor, the inlantile-senile eroticism
of the characters Irom his stage productions and Irom his cycle of pictures with hiianta is accompanied by
the leeling of sinfulness, of eroticism understood as the transgression of a ban, as going beyond the limits of
the norm.
Wlien building a model of an artist's attitude, in the verbal piane of manilestos and in actions themsełves,
Kantor liked to use parody - an important tool of his strategy. He realized that a successlul parody always
cati ies a certain degree of fidelity to the spirit of the original, this awareness underlying the model of an
artist-aristocrat, adandy Irom Galicia, said to be already doomed to annihilation. Conscious ofthe anachronic
character of the employed props but at the same time allured by their beauty, he did not want to and could
not part with them.

D. M o r a w c t z, W poszukiwaniu raju utraconego - o neurozie modernistycznego dekadenta, praca
magisterska, Kraków 1980, s. 38-39.