Years of Compromise and Political Servility—Kantor and Grotowski during the Cold War

Abstract

In communist Poland, the output of every active artist was affected by the political context. Involvement in various relationships with the authorities became a survival strategy, and often allowed artists to gain recognition not only within the countries of the Eastern bloc, but also from wider audiences. During the Cold War, artists who are now part of the canon of Polish art either emigrated and worked abroad, or, like Tadeusz Kantor and Jerzy Grotowski, remained in Poland and in various ways struggled to be able to present their work to the world. The aim of this paper is to show Kantor’s and Grotowski’s political connotations as artists as well as the reception of their art in the West, perceived as art from behind the Iron Curtain.