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- Author Tadeusz Kantor
- Date of production 1975
- Dimensions height: 60 cm, width: 85 cm, depth: 32 cm
- ID no. cradle — CRC/VII/46/1-4; balls — CRC/VII/46/1/1-2
- Museum The Cricoteka Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor
- Subjects theatre, body, death
- Technique casting, painting
- Material wood, metal, acrylic paint
- Object copyright The Cricoteka Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor
- Digital images copyright © all rights reserved, The Cricoteka Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor
- Digitalisation RDW MIC, Małopolska's Virtual Museums project
- Tags theater , Tadeusz Kantor , 3D , © all rights reserved
The Mechanical cradle is an exhibit from Tadeusz Kantor’s performance, Umarła klasa [The Dead Class]. The premiere took place in the Krzysztofory Gallery in Kraków in November 1975. It comprises a wooden chest on a metal support frame, which resembles a child’s cradle. It was designed to enable the rocking movement of the chest. This movement could be triggered with a pedal, or with an installed electrical engine. Inside the exhibit, there were two wooden balls that caused a hollow rattle when they hit the chest walls during the rocking movement...
more The Mechanical cradle is an exhibit from Tadeusz Kantor’s performance, Umarła klasa [The Dead Class]. The premiere took place in the Krzysztofory Gallery in Kraków in November 1975. It comprises a wooden chest on a metal support frame, which resembles a child’s cradle. It was designed to enable the rocking movement of the chest. This movement could be triggered with a pedal, or with an installed electrical engine. Inside the exhibit, there were two wooden balls that caused a hollow rattle when they hit the chest walls during the rocking movement. In the Umarła klasa [The Dead Class] play the mechanical cradle was brought in by the Cleaning Lady (figure played by Stanisław Rychlicki). The object was assigned to the Woman with the Mechanical Cradle (Maria Stangret), who kept on reciting the text of Gamboline from Tumor Mózgowicz [Tumor Brainiowicz] by Witkacy. Kantor wrote that the “mechanical cradle belongs to a special series of objects displaying illusory symptoms of biological life because of their brutal mechanisation (...) cruel and tragic.
“When the symbolism of the performance was dominated by the theme of death (Cleaning Lady’s interventions, All Souls’ remembrances, Jewish lullaby), the hollow sound of two wooden balls from the mechanical cradle could be heard,” wrote Krzysztof Pleśniarowicz in his book, Kantor. Artysta końca wieku [Kantor. The Artist of the End of the Century].
Apart from the François waltz, Umarła klasa [The Dead Class] features another musical theme of the rattle of a mechanical cradle that is strangely similar to the brutal and steady bar of a parade march. The rhythm of the performance becomes more and more nervous and convulsively twitchy (...). The woman at the cradle hoarsely sings a Jewish lullaby which sounds like a thrilling psalm of despair, and in a moment, transformed into Gamboline, she jabbers when trying to absurdly prove some point, wrote Elżbieta Morawiec[1]. Today this exhibit is most often displayed as a collection of objects from the Umarła klasa [The Dead Class] play.
In a later play by Tadeusz Kantor — Nigdy tu już nie powrócę [I Shall Never Return] (1988), an object that is also called the Cradle appears, with similar dimensions and structure but covered with a galvanised metal sheet for a change.
Elaborated by Józef Chrobak, Justyna Michalik (The Cricoteka Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor), © all rights reserved
[1] E. Morawiec, Apokalipsa według Tadeusza Kantora, „Życie literackie”, 51/52 (1975).
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