The opening of the new Cricoteka – outdoor campaign

From 1st August 2014 an unusual outdoor campaign promoting the opening of Cricoteka’s new seat has been launched. This event, so important for Polish culture, is heralded by billboards in several cities in Poland: Krakow, Warsaw, Wrocław, as well as in Upper Silesia. For the first time in its over thirty-year history Cricoteka will make use of a wide range of promotional tools. A new system of visual communication has been created specially for the new seat, while the campaign creation is based on a perverse interpretation of the title of one of Tadeusz Kantor’s productions – I Shall Never Return. Just like Cricoteka’s new programme, the campaign alludes to Kantor’s art on the one hand but on the other asks a provocative question about where, whether, who and when shall never return.

The premiere of the performance took place on 23rd June 1988 in Piccolo Teatro Studio in Milan. It was Kantor’s most personal performance and the first one which featured Kantor himself as one of the characters. Kantor-actor, just like in Polish ‘All Souls’ Day’ is revisited by memories, characters and objects from his previous productions, including The Water Hen (1967), Lovelies and Dowdies (1973), Where Are the Snows of Yesteryear (1979), Wielopole, Wielopole (1980) and Let the Artists Die (1985). It might be said that thanks to these comebacks the artist symbolically builds his Museum on stage.

The title of the performance itself was seen in the West as a kind of malediction directed at Kantor’s home country, as a kind of revenge on Polish bureaucrats who had as though forgotten about his existence. Asked by journalists, Kantor explained that the place of his pledged non-return is chiefly Krakow, my town.

Despite this, or maybe because of this, it is Krakow where the new Cricoteka has been erected and the artist’s own postulate about creating space for live artistic event has been fulfilled.

In the performance I Shall Never Return Kantor left the stage as the last one – the only hero, or a victim in the ritual of Impossible Return, as he would describe himself. The new Cricoteka undertakes the difficult task of bringing back the artist’s work to general audience so that, in accordance with Kantor’s dream, his art would not fall into oblivion.

*Quotes from Krzysztof Pleśniarowicz’s book Kantor. Artysta końca wieku (Kantor. The artist of the end of the century)

The project and campaign creation of the opening of the new Cricoteka by Opus B Advertising Agency

Cricoteka – Cultural Institution of the Małopolskie Voivodeship

The project for the Construction of the Tadeusz Kantor Museum and CRICOTEKA the Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor has been co-financed by the European Union as part of the Małopolska Regional Operational Programme for 2007– 2013 together with funds from the Małopolskie Voivodeship.

Sponsors: Opus B, Farmona, Instytut Adama Mickiewicza

Partners: Księgarnie Matras, 18. Międzynarodowe Targi Książki w Krakowie

Media Patronage: PAP, TVP Kultura, TVP Kraków, Dwójka PR, Radio Kraków, Ströer, Tygodnik Powszechny, Karnet, Architektura i Biznes,Onet.pl, O.pl, Telewizja M, Gazeta Wyborcza