Talking to James and thinking about the polish theater master

As I was interviewing James Beckett a while ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990). So many things struck me as similar. Kantor, one of the greatest theatre directors of the 20th century, was originally a visual artist. And one could clearly see traces of his obsessions as a visual artist in the way in which he organized the elements on the stage (actors and objects alike). One of this obsessions was looking for objects with a particular aura, that he beautifully described as “being halfway between the trashcan and eternity”. And this phrase fits the work of James Becket like a glove. The South African artist (Becket that is), was also originally trained in the field of the visual arts, and he has been doing research on industrial heritage in Poland for the past few months. This research is, as he himself describes it, a very “concrete” approach to the industrial heritage of this country. He was looking for objects with a sensitivity that Kantor would have approved of. James told me with enthusiasm how he found an electric transistor that had a very primitive quality to it, “It looked like a bone”, he said. James’s choice of country is, lastly, the final connection to Kantor, who was born in Wielopole (a city that makes part of present day Poland) and who had a conflicting and creative relationship to Poland and it’s history.

Click here to watch the interview: