Documentation of Performances
Poland: 1978. 25 ½ x 37 ¾ in. Offset poster. Very good with some edgewear and small closed tears. Item #POS142
Documentary photographs of Theatrical happenings between 1973 and 1978 by the Akademia Ruchu, or Academy of Movement, a polish radical avant-garde theatrical troupe. The verso of the poster has descriptions of each event in French, English, and Polish. Along with Teatr Stu, Akademia Ruchu was among the most well-known experimental theatrical troupes of Eastern Europe. Led by Wojciech Krukowski, they were incredibly prolific during the 1970s, producing at least 27 separate happenings within the first three years of the company’s existence. Many of their productions were performance-based, and drawn from procedure rather than plot. Indeed, due in part to the censorship in Poland at that time, their work, often not overtly political, was able through subterfuge and subtle use of allegory to call into question power dynamics and politics while not overtly speaking about them. For example, a 1975 work required the actors to be in total darkness where they tried to puzzle together loose fragments of political slogans from torn apart banners. The lights turned on at the end revealing a confused pell-mell of found-slogans. Though little known in the United States, their work is a powerful contemporary to Fluxus happenings and performance art.
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