The Performativity of Tadeusz Kantor’s Multipart

Abstract

The article is an attempt to analyze the Multipart project as an example and a model of an experimental archive. This archive is, on the one hand, a collection and materialization of Kantor’s ideas, previous experiences, and inspirations, and, on the other hand, an ‘artistic’ documentation of the everyday life of the buyers and ‘users’ of these peculiar works. In particular, I focus on the extent to which Multipart may have been an inspiration for Kantor, or a stimulus, to create a ‘living archive’ of his work, on which he principally focused towards the end of his life. I read such attempts in the wider context of critical and theoretical texts written by the critics associated with the Foksal Gallery at the time, who discussed the way in which an art gallery was run and posed questions about documentation or the gallery as a ‘living archive’.