Courtesy Dominik Art Projects, Krakow, and Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw

Grzegorz Sztwiertnia, still from "The History of the Polish Theater" (2008). Video, 17 min 19 sec.

March 2009 Field Guide

Ellen Gallagher

Nina Könnemann

Yto Barrada and Hala Elkoussy

Do Look Back in Anger

Christian Jankowski

James Coleman

The Collection

William Kentridge: Five Themes

Bruce Nauman Marina Abramovic Vito Acconci MoMA, a Few Shades Darker Colin Chinnery on the Future of ShContemporary Live from Italy, It’s Artissima Warhols Send Sotheby’s Soaring Love Hurts

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

In 1949, Jerzy Grotowski founded the groundbreaking Laboratory Theater in Wroclaw, the lab, if you will, where the Polish director developed so-called "poor theater." As he saw it, all spectacle, illusion, and artifice should be jettisoned in favor of raw human interaction between actor and audience. Now, in what UNESCO has dubbed "Jerzy Grotowski Year," in honor of the Laboratory Theater’s 50th anniversary, Warsaw is hosting an exhibition that focuses on Grotowski’s working process and the crossover of his concerns into performance art. On view will be archival documents, including recordings of Grotowski’s rehearsals and interviews, alongside work by artists such as Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, and Abramović/Ulay, who share Grotowski’s dictum to "cross the frontiers between you and me."

zacheta.art.pl

"Jerzy Grotowski" originally appeared in the March 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' March 2009 Table of Contents.