The Introduction – performance by Anna Kutera

1/1Photos of the performance. Photo: Romuald Kutera (courtesy of Anna Kutera)

The performance was presented during the festival. Kutera sat behind a table. She provoked interactions between herself and the nine invited male members, whom she called by their names to take their places by her side. This performance is part of  cycle Stimulated Situations, and it was documented in a photo series and a black-and-white ten-minute 16 mm film (which were shown during the exhibition “Contextual Art” in 1976 in Lund, Sweden). The actions were presented to the viewers only by the mute gestures of Kutera herself or her partners (we always see a one-to-one relation), as well as by the accessories held by the partners. The pretext for this intercourse was the situation of creation portraits of Kutera and showing her through relations with people in different social and cultural roles. But in the images we see her every time in the same place, beside the table. The partners sat on her left. Every meeting lasted only around one minute in silence and action was introduced by Anna in these words: “I am happy to be together with a group who understands the meaning of being together in art and getting to know each other without words.” She describes it as a very difficult emotional situation of intimacy. All encounters seem to be similar, the changes are very subtle—which creates a large field for interpretation and calls the viewer’s attention to compare details and look for a significance, or even giving up when the most important—what happened in the immanency of the space and time in between the social actors—is no longer available to understand.