“thresholds are simply to be crossed la la la la I eliminate all exaggerations, symbols and metaphors [...] la la ra I mean barriers in everyday life la la ra neutral la la ra ta anonymous la la la la they do not affect my imagination la la ra they do not affect any imagination at all la la la they do not draw attention la la ra they are common la la ra as simple as that la la ra [...]” [1]. 

​

Thresholds are to be crossed, but they can also be painted green in one of the most important Polish galleries, announcing the willingness to repeat this gesture in a space designated by anyone who wants to. One can also hang paintings on the park’s trees, or put tin troughs filled with paint or chalk under the canvases. One can recreate on a monumental scale a page from a notebook and a tailor’s tape measure. Marysia – as she was affectionately called by almost everyone who came across this extraordinary figure – never shied away from actions of that kind.

 

The versatility of her art and acting were highly appreciated in the artistic circles, also by her life partner – Tadeusz Kantor, whom she met during the first year of their studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. In spite of the many years of working together, helping him in his projects and involvement in the activities of his Cricot 2 theatre, she remained independent in her artistic endeavours, often treading paths not yet explored in Poland at the time. Maria Stangret repeatedly emphasized her enduring fascination with gestural painting. She laughed, however, saying that her work was not about splashing paint, but, as she put it, about creating an internal landscape, something spontaneous but controlled. Remembering the artist, Wiesław Borowski said that her paintings were not the result of painting alone, but also of seeking inspiration, then analysing it and deciding to transfer her thoughts onto canvas. In this sense, Maria Stangret’s painting was a constant gesture of understanding, empathy, intimate familiarity with the works she had read and human fate. A gesture that would mature in her for months, sometimes years. 

The works exhibited at the HOS Gallery were created in the first half of the 1970s, a period of her particularly intense travels with the Cricot 2. Years later, she recalled that frequent travel was not conducive to painting, and at that time she was making large paintings and could not bring such large canvases with her to paint in spare time, in hotel rooms. The pieces presented at the exhibition expand on the themes that Stangret outlined earlier in her “Continental Landscapes” (Galeria Foksal, 1967) and the above mentioned action of painting thresholds and real landscapes, covering tree trunks and branches with paint in the gallery courtyard (“Winter Assemblage”, Galeria Foksal, January 1969). With these actions she reduced painting to an everyday activity, anonymous and bound to fade away and fall into pieces.

In 1970, she created a series of works that can be considered the aftermath of reflections on the convention of landscape painting. These Images of the Sky were created semi-mechanically, by means of a spray gun. Troughs filled with water mixed with paint were an immanent part of the works. The visions of the sky seemed to have been painted spontaneously with raindrops, the remnants of which were left in the containers placed under the canvases. In her later projects, she also emphasized the contradictions of the real object and the painted image. She first encountered a similar concept in Jim Dine’s works, which she saw in Paris back in the 1960s. Like the American artist, she was particularly interested in objects like modest, low-profile thresholds. On the one hand, the choice of objects could seem like a frivolous game, as they often bring to mind childhood, games or time spent at school (playing hopschotch, school blackboards, pages from a notebook). This choice can be seen as a sign of affirmative attitude to the world and to art as such, which has the right to free itself from the fetters of seriousness. On the other hand, the artist played with scale, transforming trivial objects into huge monuments, shifting the viewer’s attention from their aesthetic value to the act of creation itself, understood not so much in terms of craftsmanship, but conceptually. Stangret-Kantor stressed that painting was an intellectual matter for her, admitting: “I like my works, but only when they are ready and finished. Unlike the act of painting itself” [2]. 

The poetics of children’s games is also associated with the novel with no beginning and end, which the artist started in 1962 and wrote in her spare time for several years. The story of a crazy grandfather obsessed with healthy lifestyle was inspired by a book on hydrotherapy, which was believed to be a remedy for almost all illnesses, written by the clergyman and physician Sebastian Kneipp. Maria Stangret-Kantor did not see writing as an important aspect of her artistic activity. The original was handwritten in an old notebook, which she gave to Anna Baranowska many years later. Grzegorz Musiał and Janusz Głowacki, who ran Galeria 86 in Łódź, became interested in the novel and published it in 2002 under the title “Pamiętnik Dziadka” (“Grandpa’s Diary”). Wiesław Borowski described this text as “a montage of literary texts extracted from books on unimportant, peripheral subjects, from outdated practical manuals, pamphlets describing banal intrigues and moral conflicts and her own texts about equally unimportant, banal, and embarrassing situations. It is not so much a novel but rather a permanent literary adventure devoid of the form, composition, and sense of ‘dignity’ inherent in all existing genres of literary creation” [3]. 
 

For almost half a century, “Notebook Page”, like the chalk piled up in metal boxes under the “Blackboards”, has been an inspiration for the expression of thoughts and concepts. Despite being truncated, concertinaed and only partially falling to the floor, “Chessboard” invites the viewer to begin another game of chess and make an intellectual effort. Maria Stangret-Kantor’s works have remained open to the sensitivity of the viewer. The artist treated her art as a never-ending adventure into which, as we hope, more viewers will be drawn. May her oeuvre continually unfold in the minds and hearts of the audience like a novel(la) with no end.

 

la la la. 

​

[1] Maria Stangret-Kantor, “Anons” [Announcement], reprinted in: Wiesław Borowski, “nota o Marii Stangret Kantor”, Poezja, No. 12, December 1970, p. 108

[2] Maria Stangret-Kantor, “Malując progi” [“Painting thresholds”], Cricoteka, Krakow 2016, pp. 175-176
[3]Wiesław Borowski, “nota o Marii Stangret-Kantor” [“A note about Maria Stangret Kantor”, Poezja, No. 12, December 1970, p. 108