Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2007 - 61

PHOTO BY CARL WALLING

of cultural identity is frequently
taken for granted. Usually, website addresses are printed in catalogues and business cards. But
in Prague it was telling that a few
exhibitors, notably the U.S. and
Poland, did not just employ digital
technology to offer interactive databases of additional designs and
information. In the Polish exhibit,
there was a deﬁnite intentionality
in the construction of a pedestal
for the computers.
A striking majority of curators I met at the Prague Quadrennial told me that they had explicitly
wanted to veer away from the traditional strategy of displaying the
best scenographic works from
the past four years (an approach
which the U.S. curators embraced
with striking dedication and passion). In Poland's case, Wodzinski
said, the curators sought to present the phenomenon of an actively
political and community-engaged
contemporary Polish theatre in
which the pavilion was "a metaphorical object or installation"
instead of a typical exhibition
stand. He added: "The main accent was put on this new artistic
idea rather than [an assortment
of] individual aesthetic choices.
In this exhibition you could see
projects ranging from the plays
of young Polish authors to new
ways of looking at classics. But
what's more signiﬁcant is that it shows the new
attitudes of young Polish theatre artists to their
own tradition, [their responses to] the myth of
Solidarno (solidarity), to modern politics and
to collective memory. Past Polish exhibits at PQ
were focused on presentations of the scenography works created by great artists of the 1960s
and 1970s-they were showcases of theatre
decorators."
Whether or not exhibiting countries confronted philosophical issues or struggled with
monetary considerations, the standalone video
or digital media pavilions that were eventually
delivered in Prague challenged the conventional
retrospective approach, which argue in favor
of uniform displays of nationally-based works

poland
projections. "In this way people could see two
aspects of our country, two parts of Poland,"
Wodzinski explained. On the outside, Poland
seemed "modernized and transformed," and inside the country still is mired by "its own social
and political problems." Furthermore, the color
of this 3D architectural simulation of Poland
alluded playfully and sardonically to the Polish
national colors of red and white. "But the red
color is a little gayish," Wodzinski said. "This
can be understood as a reference to recent critical comments by Polish politicians who are full
of intolerance to homosexuals."
Because of the ubiquity of personal
websites and social networking spaces (like
MySpace), the use of cyberspace as an extension

THEATRE

DESIGN

TECHNOLOGY
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2007

showing the development of theatre design in
a particular country. For one thing, these installations question, probe and reexamine the
artist-versus-craftsmen dichotomy. Consider the
criteria and values that went into the creation
of Hungary's architectural "Liliom in Baghdad"
exhibit, which took the form of an ideological
way station, a terminal at an airport, stadium or
any public place under terrorist threat. According to the curator András Forgách, past Hungarian exhibitions had always consisted of "(with
one exception) one big architectural idea" that
included as "many designs (pictures, scale
models) as possible." "We clearly didn't want
that," Forgách insisted. "On one occasion they
chose a huge set, which had many small rooms,
which you could climb. It was a closed, circular
building where the spectator could watch inside, downwards on a grassy stage, and in these
small rooms they exhibited their drawings and
pictures."
For PQ2007, Forgách stated that he was
quite obstinate. He asked the ﬁve selected
Hungarian designers "to ﬁnd a common language (two of them, by the way, left us during
this journey)." "I wanted a clear idea, a kind
of provocation, and something that is burning
and actual," Forgách said. The starting point
for Hungary was not technology at all, although
the end result seemed to suggest this. The Hungarians were determined to declare, express
and represent their present state of mind, not
simply as theatre practitioners but through the
medium of a pavilion. The Hungarians aimed to
offer radicality and counter-gesture, as well as
humor and irony. The Liliom exhibit summed
up in one singular hyperbolic image Hungarians' strong scenographic personality. "Two of
the set designers, Márton Ágh and Zsolt Khell,
often use this method in their scenic works: a
certain capacity for iconic citations and retrodesigns in seemingly realistic stage designs, and
for ﬁlm-like, happening-like performances,"
Forgách said.

Because of the ubiquity of
personal websites and social
networking spaces, the use of
cyberspace as an extension of
cultural identity is frequently
taken for granted.

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