Kaleidoscope 3

In Krzysztof Bagiński’s latest work, the sadness of impermanence is a feeling worth immersing ourselves in.

Acting tasks and improvisations performed by the puppets generate an ambiguous choreography. Gestures, interactions and moments of stillness form a strange dance, a pantomime, a ritual even. Wide shots reveal the wings of backstage, usually obscure and hidden in the darkness. The artist reveals the magic of puppet performances, like the relation between puppets and puppeteers. The bond between them is certainly one of the several individual themes of the piece. Bagiński composes his cinematic world using the skillful puppeteer performance and texts of prose and poetry which, even if not present in the piece as such, evoke the literary aura of their authors. With this gesture, the artist introduces difficult emotions, ones that might not be associated with the common idea of puppet theatre audiences.

Bagiński’s storytelling is inspired by Bruce Nauman’s methods, and especially by his work, Clowns torture. Just as Nauman, Bagiński creates a situation for his protagonists where they have to continuously go through extreme emotions on-screen. However, the images might also resemble (perhaps not as the artist intended) traces of the most lonely little boy in literature history, the Little Prince, or the 14th-century emo poem Roman de la Rose.

Does the artist see himself (his little self) in these little performers? What story can they tell on his behalf? What emotions can they experience for him? Regardless of the artist’s intentions, his puppets are not only an artistic medium. Perhaps they are also objects capable of establishing interconnections between ghosts — read minds and give their bodies to the hearts of others.