Peter Brook in
Poland
– Resolution on Granting an Honorary Doctorate, Passed by
the Senate of the
Adam
Mickiewicz
University
in
Poznań
on 22 March 2004
A series of articles published in
this issue of ”Konteksty” dealing with Peter Brook, the
outstanding film and theatre
director, who paid a visit to Poland in the first half of March
2005. The prime reason for the visit was the presentation of an
honorary doctorate by the
Adam
Mickiewicz
University
in
Poznań
. This occasion was marked by a series of meetings held with the
director in
Poznań
and
Wrocław
, as well as a staging of his most recent spectacle: Tierno Bokar. The texts
contained in the quarterly comprise chiefly a documentation of the
discussions and meetings organized upon the occasion of the
spectacle and the doctoral degree ceremony. Additional material
includes texts by professors-authors of opinions relating to the
doctorate, and reviews of Tierno Bokar and Peter
Brook’s Moving Point
CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY AND
ANTHROPOLOGY
James Redfield Classical Philology and Anthropology
Deliberations on the relations,
mutual dependencies, and differences between anthropology and
classical philology, pursued from the perspective of the author’s
personal academic praxis.
Yannis Papadopoulos
The Triple «logos» of the Mythical
Sphinx, or the Puzzle of Psychological
Crossroads
In the tragedy Oedipus the
King Sophocles frequently returns to the
crossroads, the site where Oedipus met and killed his father, Laios.
The author of the article perceives this as a certain conceptual
scheme making it possible to shape and describe man’s triple
psychic structure, which in psychoanalytical categories corresponds
to the consciousness, the subconsciousness, and the unconsciousness.
This scheme (which also complies with the triple logos of the Sphinx)
describes the stratification of Oedipus’ consciousness, and
fortifies his tripartite psyche. While wandering along the three
parting roads, he attained inner peace and gained a fully shaped
personality, familiar with each level of his ego and, in a social
dimension, the secret of a providential polis.
Dariusz Czaja
History is Naught? The Dilemmas of
Contemporary Historiography
A presentation of Pamięć, etyka i historia (Memory, Ethics and History), an anthology of translations dealing with
the theoretical problems of contemporary historiography.
Meticulously compiled by Ewa Domańska, and
containing an apt selection of texts, the book is an exceptional
accomplishment in Polish humanities. Its rank is testified, on the
one hand, by a representative choice of the authors who include such
outstanding names as F. Ankersmit, H. White, and D.
La Capra
, and, on the other hand, by the, as a rule, high level of the
dissertations relating to the fundamental and delicate
epistemological questions of contemporary historiography. The review,
written by an anthropologist of culture, underscores primarily those
motifs and queries that are shared by historical and anthropological
research. The reviewer emphasised the fact that both historians and
anthropologists encounter the problems of representation, signature,
authority, and art versus science. Hence the importance attached to
historical solutions by anthropological literature. Texts by
Ankersmit,
La Capra
and Gumbrecht were subjected to a closer characteristic, which
entailed the resultant conclusions.
ANTHROPOLOGY OF DEATH.
ART AND DEATH
Aldona Mickiewcz Two Cinnamon Vessels and Other Objects
The seventeenth century witnessed a
growing popularity of portraying the five senses with the assistance
of the still life. The best examples of this depiction of matter
show the nature of experiencing matter, that” body of things”
which confirms us in our own corporeality. Apparently, the more a
given object is portrayed and described as individual, concrete, and
extracted from amongst numerous other objects, the more it is
perceived as symbolic. The symbol, in turn, manifests itself in a
concrete form, the physical outer coating of matter. The artist is
compelled to incessantly balance between his knowledge about the
selected fragment of reality and that which he sees; artistic
awareness assumes it shape somewhere on the borderline between
knowledge, comprehension, pure (?) perception and wisdom.
Nina Király
Ars Poetica of Tadeusz Kantor
An introduction by a Hungarian
theoretician of the theatre to a series of conversations with
Tadeusz Kantor about
painting and the theatre.
Tadeusz Kantor
To Speak About Death was Tactless.
Art is Close to Death
A recorded statement by Kantor, from
a interview conducted for the Hungarian „Studio” programme
during his brief stay in Budapest in November 1989. The artist
reconstructed the history of the establishment of his theatre and
its theoretical premises, and spoke about, i. a. the origin and
understanding of such concepts close to his art as reality of the
lowest rank, „the poor theatre”, „the impossible theatre/monument”,
and the „theatre of death”.
Jacek Leociak
A Meeting with a Cadaver in Two Acts
The author reflects on the
iconographic and textual evidence of autopsy. This treatment of the
human corpse, subjected to cultural models and social rules, is
deeply enrooted in a medical, anthropological and philosophical
discourse. Its characteristic features include the dynamic and
variability of the discourse, associated with changes within the
paradigm of knowledge about man. The article draws forth symptomatic
properties of autopsies of the past, as well as their symbolic and
anthropological meanings, predominantly ambivalence. The reader is
offered a comparison of assorted manners of recording the experience
of a „meeting with a cadaver” – graphic art and painting on
the one hand, and poetic texts on the other.
Jean Clair
On Grossness in Contemporary Art.
Fragment of the Book De Immundo. Apocastasis in Present-day Art
The author poses a fundamental
question asking why contemporary art appears to be enthralled with
the external aspects of the body, its products, inner fluids, and
excreta. What sort of fascinations are expressed under the name of a
work of art, considering that the art of the corporeal outer shell
as well as the interior does not introduce anything new to the
exploration of the human body. Never has art been so cynical, and to
such a degree associated with scatology, impurity and filth; never
before has the art of debasement been so highly esteemed by the
heads of great cultural institutions in London, New York or Paris.
Marek Janczyk, Iwona Święch An Artist’s House. Words and
Images
In this verbal-photographic essay the
image is treated on par with the written word. The presentation
concerns the home collection of Andrzej Różycki – photographer,
director, and collector – brimming with works of folk art,
especially sacral. The unusual atmosphere of the interior is created
by lush vegetation which, together with bunches of dry herbs and
flowers, expresses the union between Nature and art. Within this
space Andrzej Różycki introduced his numerous collages composed of
fragments of texts, photographs, and press cuttings, to illustrate
his reflections on daily life. Everything which generates the
ambience of this extraordinary house serves as a source of
inspiration for the author’s art of photography, in which the
theme of the house constitutes also a sui generis universe,
pursued not particularly often but consistently within his entire
oeuvre.
Wojciech Prażmowski
Places and Spiritus Loci –
Travelling Across Poland Along the Trails of Pornografia by Witold Gombrowicz
An originally devised text by a
photographer (written in the form of a letter), derived from the
Berlin fragment of Dzienniki (Journals). The author confronts nostalgic fragments
written from the perspective of the Berlin Tiergarten with his own
stay in Berlin and subsequent journeys to the writer’s homeland.
The text is accompanied by a vast photographic documentation of the
Polish provinces.
Zbigniew Benedyktowicz
Poles, Poles – Visual Anthropology
and Multiple Portraits by Krzysztof Gierałtowski
Jan Strzelecki From Records, Letters, Notes. Sweden, Norway
A continuation of records and
reflections by the author – a sociologist and passionate
mountaineer – from
his scientific stay in Sweden and
Norway in 1988.
Bożenna Stokłosa
Remarks
on Books by Izabela Kowalczyk: Ciało i władza.
Polska sztuka krytyczna lat 90.(Body
and Power. Polish Critical Art of the 1990s), Warszawa 2002, and Niebezpieczne
związki sztuki z ciałem (Dangerous
Unions of Art and Body), Poznań 2002
A critical review of two books by I.
Kowalczyk about the functioning of the body in contemporary art. The
author draws attention to the inadequacy of theoretical language vis
a vis a description of the discussed phenomena. Emphasis is placed
on Kowalczyk dogmatic adherence to her own interpretation concepts,
and a prevalence of postmodern theory (ideology) over an analysis of
the art work, which takes into account historical reality.
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