The subject of this dissertation is the art of the Polish theatre director, set designer, and visual artist Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990) and its inherent width of artistic expressions. The aim is to contribute with new interpretations that add to previous research that primarily has studied the body of work from the perspectives of the artist’s intention and biography, and divided his artistic work between visual art and theatre. 

By using perspectives from theories of performativity, the starting-point for the study is that artworks interplay with a presumed spectator, contribute to the interpretation, and continue to produce new meaning beyond the original context. The study sets out to answer how the interaction between artwork and spectator can be understood, and what effects the artworks have on each other, when being analysed together, mediated by public presentations. Two exhibitions, one anthology, and a group of artworks from the respective presentations, are being analysed. 

The first analysis explores the solo exhibition Tadeusz Kantor, emballage at Kulturhuset, Stockholm, 1975–76. Questions regarding representation, materiality, and conceptual modes are discussed in relation to a presumed spectator. In the following analysis, the anthology Tadeusz Kantor: Ein Reisender – seine Texte und Manifeste, published by Verlag für moderne Kunst & Institut für moderne Kunst, 1988, is analysed. In this chapter issues related to verbal and visual expressions are being discussed in relation to the motif of the book, that is identified as the literary narrator. In the last analysis, the retrospective exhibition Tadeusz Kantor at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, 2008, is explored. The chapter deals with issues related to spatial, material, and temporal aspects, connecting to a theoretical discussion on the live event of performance and theatre and their subsequent reproductions.      

The dissertation demonstrates how questions of media and materiality can deepen the way we understand the oeuvre of an artist that actively shaped the reception of his work with contextual references and themes. The chosen perspective and method take the artworks in a relatively unexplored direction, showing how public appearances can be considered as events of becoming.