Tadeusz Kantor, The Letter, 1967 (1-50/93)

On January 21, 1967 an unusual march walked the streets of Warsaw, from the post office on Ordynacka Street to the Foksal Gallery. Eight postmen in uniforms, escorted by militia, carried an enormous, 14-meters big, letter addressed to the Foksal Gallery.

The happening was organized by Tadeusz Kantor and the participants (with the exception of the postmen and militia) included artists and critics associated with the gallery such as Zbigniew Gostomski, Edward Krasiński, Wiesław Borowski, Mariusz Tchorek, Maria Stangret i Anka Ptaszkowska.

The music score was based on "L'enveloppe" ["An Envelope"], "a one-act play based on Tadeusz Kantor's work of art" that was written by Henri Galy-Carles, a French playwright and Kantor's friend. The audience waited in an orange-painted and barely illuminated gallery. Every once in awhile, announcements by reporters informing of the march's proceeding (ones that had been written in advance) were read with a megaphone. When the postmen delivered the letter to the gallery, a tape of Galy-Carles reading his own play was played. It was a monologue of a distraught hero who had received a mysterious envelope that kept growing bigger. This caused a sense of an undefined danger that, in the end, made him go mad. At the same time, the crowd that was gathered in the gallery threw themselves at the letter and tore it to pieces.

In accordance with his concept of art, Kantor implemented "ready-made elements" which included objects (the letter), people (militia, postmen), procedures, and real-life situations (letter delivery or receiving) in the happening. He rid them of their neutral character: he enlarged one of the objects (the letter) so that its size was unnatural. The envelope, just like other types of packaging e.g., bags and packages were objects that particularly fascinated him as they were connected to the concept of assemblage. The idea of an "exhibition at the post office" reflected the artist's interest in the existence of a transfer in the state of suspension between a sender and a receiver.

The unusual nature of the event, just like of other ones organized by the Foksal Gallery, was not about expressing specific political notions, but about creating (with the government's consent) ambiguous situations that confused the authorities and made them lose control over the messages. Even though Kantor avoided obvious political matters, at the time the enormous letter escorted by policemen and postmen was associated with censorship. It was the first event to partially take place outside of the Foksal Gallery.


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