• Login
    View Item 
    •   DORA Home
    • De Montfort University e-theses
    • PhD
    • View Item
    •   DORA Home
    • De Montfort University e-theses
    • PhD
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    ‘Even the thing I am …’: Tadeusz Kantor and the Poetics of Being

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    'Even the thing I am ...'—Tadeusz Kantor and the Poetics of Being (M. Leach).pdf (1.974Mb)
    Date
    2012
    Author
    Leach, Martin
    Metadata
    Show attachments and full item record
    Abstract
    This thesis explores ways in which the reality of Kantor’s existence at a key moment in occupied Kraków may be read as directly informing the genesis and development of his artistic strategies. It argues for a particular ontological understanding of human being that resonates strongly with that implied by Kantor in his work and writings. Most approaches to Kantor have either operated from within a native perspective that assumes familiarity with Polish culture and its influences, or, from an Anglo-American theatre-history perspective that has tended to focus on his larger-scale performance work. This has meant that contextual factors informing Kantor’s work as a whole, including his happenings, paintings, and writings, as well as his theatrical works, have remained under-explored. The thesis takes a Heideggerian-hermeneutic approach that foregrounds biographical, cultural and aesthetic contexts specific to Kantor, but seemingly alien to Anglo-American experience. Kantor’s work is approached from Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian perspectives that read the work as a world-forming response to these contexts. Read in this way, key writings, art and performance works by Kantor are revealed to be explorations of existence and human being. Traditional ontological distinctions between process and product, painting and performance, are problematised through the critique of representation that these works and working practices propose. Kantor is revealed as a metaphysical artist whose work stands as a testament to a Heideggerian view of human being as a ‘positive negative’: a ‘placeholder of nothing’, but a ‘nothing’ that yet ‘is’ …
    Description
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/2086/7332
    Research Institute : Institute of Drama, Dance and Performance Studies
    Collections
    • PhD [1359]

    Submission Guide | Reporting Guide | Reporting Tool | DMU Open Access Libguide | Take Down Policy | Connect with DORA
    DMU LIbrary
     

     

    Browse

    All of DORACommunities & CollectionsAuthorsTitlesSubjects/KeywordsResearch InstituteBy Publication DateBy Submission DateThis CollectionAuthorsTitlesSubjects/KeywordsResearch InstituteBy Publication DateBy Submission Date

    My Account

    Login

    Submission Guide | Reporting Guide | Reporting Tool | DMU Open Access Libguide | Take Down Policy | Connect with DORA
    DMU LIbrary