Performance Art in Eastern Europe

虽然行为艺术，或视觉艺术家创造的现场艺术，在西欧和北美已经成为无数展览、文本和研究的主题，但东欧的行为艺术仍然处于研究阶段。因此，这项研究将探讨以下问题：在东欧特定的社会政治环境中创作行为艺术意味着什么？在这种背景下，行为艺术的作用和意义是什么？东欧对表演艺术实践的认识和理解如何在全球范围内加强我们对这一流派的理解？20世纪60年代和70年代，行为艺术作为一种流派独立出现在西欧和北美。它的功能和意义各不相同，但创造一种短暂的艺术形式背后的主要动机之一是既要超越画布的框架，又要通过拒绝生产艺术品来逃避艺术的商品化。女权主义艺术家也抓住了这一流派，因为它使他们成为积极的代理人，而不是被动的主体。然而，在东欧，没有什么艺术市场可言。国家是主要的赞助人，绘画和雕塑是官方唯一允许的艺术流派。尽管如此，东欧的艺术家们发展了自己的表演艺术传统，这些表现形式往往因国家而异。例如，在前南斯拉夫，由铁托在全国各地为遏制学生骚乱而设立的学生文化中心的艺术家们在半官方水平上发展了表演。在捷克斯洛伐克和俄罗斯等其他地方，艺术家们撤退到乡村，在那里他们体验到了摆脱监视和逃避日常生活的自由，这是他们过去创作的。在匈牙利，尤其是在20世纪70年代更自由的氛围中，表演经常在艺术开幕式上举行，这是官方和非官方之间的一个有限空间，更宽松的氛围为实验工作提供了空间。1998年，该地区首批也是唯一一次对表演艺术的探索采取了展览和目录的形式，题为《身体与东方》(莫迪纳·加莱里亚，卢布尔雅那)，由Zdenka Badovinac策划。由于其范围的性质和范围，对艺术品的分析仍然限于单一国家的研究和简短的目录条目。该项目将产生一项全面的专题研究--东欧的行为艺术，该研究将在这一开创性工作的基础上展开，并对该地区该流派的发展进行全面的叙述和分析。我按主题组织我的书，以避免在逐个国家的研究中固有的一刀切的方法。这项研究还提供了一个额外的维度，通过考察当今在前人背景下工作的艺术家的作品，来检验自共产主义时期以来，行为艺术的意义、表现形式和功能发生了怎样的变化。虽然这项研究将填补行为艺术文献的空白，但这些新的知识和信息也是针对非学术受众的。在该项目中纳入了动态和互动的活动，以便该地区的艺术家和艺术历史学家参与进来，例如通过公开征集论文和表演的会议和展览。就像这本书和会议的目的是让东欧艺术家融入话语一样，学校工作坊将把当代艺术实践，如行为艺术，纳入课程。

While performance art, or live art created by visual artists, in Western Europe and North America has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, texts and studies, performance art in Eastern Europe remains under-studied. This research, then, will probe the following questions: what does it mean to create performance art in the specific socio-political circumstances of Eastern Europe? What was the function and significance of performance art in this context? How does the knowledge and understanding of performance art practices from Eastern Europe enhance our understanding of the genre in a global sense?Performance art emerged as a genre in its own right in Western Europe and North America in the 1960s and 1970s. Its function and significance varied, but one of the main drives behind creating an ephemeral art form was to both expand beyond the frame of the canvas, and to escape the commodification of art by refusing to produce art objects. Feminist artists also seized upon the genre because it enabled them to become active agents, instead of passive subjects. In Eastern Europe, however, there was no art market to speak of. The state was the main patron, and painting and sculpture were the only officially tolerated genres of art. Nevertheless, artists in Eastern Europe developed their own performance art traditions, and these manifestations often varied depending on the country in question. For example, in the former Yugoslavia, performance developed on a semi-official level among artists in Student Culture Centres, established by Tito across the country to contain student unrest. In other places, such as Czechoslovakia and Russia, artists retreated to the countryside, where they experienced freedom from surveillance and an escape from the everyday, which they used to create. In Hungary, especially in the more liberal atmosphere of the 1970s, performances often took place at art openings, a liminal space between the official and unofficial where a more relaxed atmosphere provided room for experimental work. One of the first and only explorations of performance art in the region took the form of an exhibition and catalogue in 1998, entitled "Body and the East" (Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana), curated by Zdenka Badovinac. Due to the nature and range of its scope, the analysis of artworks remained limited to single-country studies and brief catalogue entries. This project will result in a comprehensive monographic study, Performance Art in Eastern Europe, that expands on this groundbreaking undertaking and provides a thorough narrative and analysis of the development of the genre in the region. I organise my book thematically, so as to avoid a broad-brush approach inherent in a country-by-country study. This research also provides an additional dimension, by examining the work of artists working nowadays in the context of their predecessors, to examine how the significance, manifestation and function of performance art has changed since the communist period, if at all. While the research will fill a gap in the literature on performance art, this new knowledge and information is targeted at a non-academic audience as well. Dynamic and interactive activities have been integrated into the project so as to involve artists and art historians in the region, such as a conference and exhibition that will solicit both papers and performances through an open call. Just as the book and conference aim to integrate Eastern European artists into the discourse, school workshops, with both educators and pupils, will integrate contemporary art practices, such as performance art, into the curriculum.