Tadeusz Kantor: Panoramic Sea Happening (1967) [PL/EN]

10 March 2016, dusan

The Panoramic Sea Happening was the most spectacular and complex of all of Kantor’s happenings. It took place on 23 August 1967, during the 5th Koszalin Plein-Air convention in Łazy, a small seaside town near Osiek. Prepared for only a couple of participants (mostly for members and friends of the Foksal Gallery), it had an enormous audience among the plein-air’s guests and tourists on the beach. The happening consisted of four parts: ‘Sea Concert’ [Koncert morski], ‘Medusa Raft’ [Tratwa Meduzy], ‘Erotic Barbuyage’ [Barbujaż erotyczny] and ‘Agrarian Culture on the Sand’ [Kultura agrarna na piasku]. (Source)

Simultaneously with the happening, Submergence took place – an event organized by artists and critics associated with the Foksal Gallery. It lasted for two hours. The overall number of participants was 1600 (the actors and the audience). (Source)

On the fifth page of a booklet that followed the event, Eustachy Kossakowski‘s photograph of the ‘Sea Concert’ is reproduced. In this image, the painter Edward Krasiński stands on a platform a few yards into the surf, ‘conducting’ the sea while a group of people sitting in beach chairs in the foreground constitute an audience. This image has become iconic documentation of the artists, scholars, and performers surrounding the Foksal Gallery. (Source)

Page 14/15 of the booklet contains written reflections by Tadeusz Kantor, Wieslaw Borowski, and Hanna Ptaszkowska, in both Polish and English.

Publisher Koszalińskie Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne, [1967]
[16] pages, 16 x 58 cm
via Digitizing Ideas

Commentary: Karolina Czerska (Culture.pl, 2014, EN/PL/RU), Jerzy Hanusek (Estetyka i Krytyka, 2014, PL), Post/MoMA (David Senior, 2015, EN), Wikipedia (PL).
Worldcat

Booklet (PL/EN, PDF, 2 MB)
Script (PL/EN, PDF, 10 MB)
JPGs

131 photographs from the event, by Eustachy Kossakowski (at ArtMuseum.pl), some in higher resolution (Digitizing Ideas), some in color (#8-13, Culture.pl).


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