Panoramic Sea Happening:
It was 50 years ago!
Perhaps the best-known photo in the history of Polish art was made on 23 August 1967 on the beach at Łazy, on the Baltic coast near the village of Osieki.
The iconic photo is a record of the "Sea Concert", one of four performances organized that day by Kantor on the Baltic beach warmed by the late summer sun. The picture lives on, documenting artistic life at the peak of the era known in Poland as Gomułka’s “little stabilization,” and as an online curiosity stirring the imagination of internet users from the farthest corners of the earth.
The title "Panoramic Sea Happening" referred collectively to the set of four performances, although it is typically associated only with Krasiński directing the waves.
There are many other pictures surviving from that crazy day on the Baltic beach, full of art people gathered for the International Encounter of Artists, Teachers and Theoreticians in Osieki (an event also known as the “Osieki plein-air” or “Koszalin plein-air” convention, organized by the artistic community of Koszalin and held for nearly 20 years, from 1963 to 1981), as well as random holidaymakers.
That legendary day on the beach in Łazy generated countless footnotes in the annals of art history. Kantor’s performance was accompanied by initiatives of other artists. The context of the Osieki plein-air event was significant in itself. The 1967 edition is remembered down to the present day, along with Kossakowski’s photo, as one of the most important events of post-war Polish art and the world history of performance art.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the event, apart from links to the complete set of photos from the "Panoramic Sea Happening" available at the museum’s online archive, we also present scans of the documentary flyer about the performance issued immediately afterwards. Apart from the photo negatives, it is the only tangible souvenir of the event that occurred exactly half a century ago.