Ghosts and Landscapes. Philippe Quesne

Philippe Quesne, the French theatre director and stage designer who saw Kantor’s theatre as a teenager, is bringing audiovisual installations, costumes and robots from his productions to Cricoteka. The show, co-organised with the National Stary Theatre, will be open from 19 November 2026 to 28 February 2027, on a separate 25 PLN ticket.

Cricoteka on the exhibition (the museum’s own English text):

Philippe Quesne revolutionises the traditional creative process by beginning work on each performance with the construction of its stage environment. He has taken a similar approach to creating his exhibition at Cricoteka. Ghosts and Landscapes is an immersive world governed by its own laws of physics, with its own natural environment and even its own microclimate. Quesne’s stage designs are autonomous landscapes: meteors, layers of artificial snow, fans, and stuffed or artificial animals appear on stage. Rather than following a plot, visitors are invited to contemplate these painterly, intensely atmospheric and melancholic images.

What to expect

The exhibition will take up the gallery on level +3 of the main building at ul. Nadwiślańska 2-4; you can take the lift or the stairs. You will not see the set of a single production here. According to the page of the “Playing with Kantor” festival, objects from different productions will be rearranged specially for this gallery, with references to the contexts they come from.

The museum names several groups of objects:

• Pianos from the exhibition “Fantasmagoria” (2022) - instruments from an earlier Quesne exhibition.
• Mole costumes from “La Nuit des taupes. Welcome to Caveland” (2016) - the giant moles who are the heroes of a production about an underground community.
• Robots from “Le Paradoxe de John” (2025) - the most recent of the works the museum names.
• Recordings of three productions on screen: “La Mélancolie des dragons” (hard-rock fans with a broken-down Citroën in a snowy forest), the Bosch-inspired “Jardin des délices” and “La Nuit des taupes”.

Cricoteka gives neither the number of objects nor the length of the screenings, and it does not say whether the productions will be shown in full. The museum has only announced the accompanying public programme; it is to form part of the Poland-France Cultural Season 2027. The description of the show has also been published in English, but the museum has not said what language the labels in the gallery will be in.

Context

Quesne was born in 1970 and studied in Paris: graphic design at the École Estienne and stage design at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs. For about ten years he designed sets for other directors and for museums, and in 2003 he founded his own company, Vivarium Studio. The name refers to a vivarium, the glass case through which one watches animals in an artificially arranged habitat.

French Wikipedia records that his production “L’Effet de Serge” won an Obie Award in New York and stayed in the repertoire for more than ten years. From 2014 to 2020 Quesne ran the Nanterre-Amandiers theatre outside Paris, and from 2022 to 2025 the Paris venue Ménagerie de verre. “Jardin des délices”, one of the three productions shown here, was performed at the Avignon Festival in 2023, for Vivarium Studio’s twentieth anniversary.

The show is part of this year’s “Playing with Kantor”, a Cricoteka project running since 2018 and organised as a festival since 2023. The 2026 edition, curated by Dorota Semenowicz, is devoted to France, where Kantor’s “The Dead Class” caused a stir in the 1970s. Besides Quesne, it features the choreographer Gisèle Vienne and the dancer Nach.

Cricoteka announces the premiere of Quesne’s new production at the National Stary Theatre for 13 March 2027. The festival page says the exhibition will run until March 2027, but the show’s own page, in Polish and in English, gives 28 February 2027 as the last day. Going by the second date, you will see the production only after the exhibition has closed.

Tickets and time

Separate ticket: 25 PLN regular, 15 PLN reduced, the same as the permanent exhibition “Kantor. Vision Therapy”. The price list also offers a combined ticket for the permanent and the temporary exhibition at Cricoteka: 40 PLN, reduced 20 PLN, which is 10 PLN less than two separate regular tickets. Holders of the Kraków Card (Karta Krakowska) can buy a regular ticket at the reduced price.

Wednesday is free only for the permanent exhibition. The price list gives free admission on Wednesdays to the permanent exhibition and to the Gallery-Studio on ul. Sienna, and does not list it for this show. On a Wednesday you will therefore spend 25 PLN on Quesne and see the permanent exhibition for free, which costs less than the combined ticket. The museum does not say so in so many words; this follows from the price list.

Cricoteka is open Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00-19:00 (11 AM-7 PM), last admission a quarter of an hour before closing, closed on Mondays. Neither the price list (Polish-language page) nor the show page gives hours for the period from Christmas Eve to Epiphany (6 January). Check them in advance before a visit on those days. Tickets are sold at the ticket office on level -1 and in Cricoteka’s online shop .

Allow an hour for the exhibition alone, longer if you want to watch the recordings of the productions. With the permanent exhibition, count on two and a half hours. It is best for theatregoers, stage-design students and anyone who already knows the permanent exhibition and wants to see how Kantor’s thinking about the object works for a contemporary artist. If you are looking for pictures on the walls or a story with a clear plot, choose another exhibition.

According to a museum notice, Cricoteka Square has been closed for renovation since 28 September 2026, and the museum has not given a date for the end of the works. You enter the building through the main entrance on level -1, by the ticket office. For help at the entrance or with the stair lift, call 12 442 77 70 (ext. 101). Assistance, Polish Sign Language interpreting and audio description are arranged by the accessibility coordinator, tel. 505 319 882.

The nearest stops are Korona (tram and bus) and Plac Bohaterów Getta (tram). The museum has no car park for visitors.

Events

• 18 Nov 2026, 18:00 - opening of the exhibition at Cricoteka; the museum has not yet said whether admission is free or whether registration is required - festival programme

See also

• Cricoteka and the permanent exhibition “Kantor. Vision Therapy” - the permanent exhibition in the same building, with objects and stage machines of the Cricot 2 Theatre; the best starting point for understanding what Quesne takes from Kantor.
• I Was Tadeusz Kantor’s Assistant. Andrzej Wajda - in the Galeria Szatnia of the same building until 10 January 2027: documents from Wajda’s work on the film of “The Dead Class”, on a separate 10 PLN ticket.
• Andrzej Pawłowski. Kineforms - at Kantor’s Gallery-Studio on ul. Sienna: moving light images that Pawłowski also projected on the Cricot 2 stage. Another example of a theatre in which the object and the light perform alongside the actor.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Cricoteka website .

Museum profile: Cricoteka - Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor .