Slovak and Czech Performance Art from the 1960s to the Present

1993年捷克斯洛伐克解体后，捷克和斯洛伐克艺术家一直在努力维护他们在更广泛的行为艺术史上的民族身份。该项目旨在研究斯洛伐克和捷克表演艺术从20世纪60年代到现在的发展，作为两个可以说是不同但互补的谱系。尽管近年来对东欧和中欧行为艺术史的研究越来越多，但捷克和斯洛伐克行为艺术方面的实质性工作很少，而且所进行的研究很少，往往将它们合并为一个单一的民族文化。虽然这两个国家在历史上有着很强的社会和文化亲和力，但自1993年天鹅绒离婚（捷克斯洛伐克的和平解体）以来，艺术家们对谁拥有这两个国家的文化遗迹和文物越来越感到焦虑。这些国家的合并似乎使捷克（前捷克共和国）比斯洛伐克更有特权，并且顺便对斯洛伐克艺术在国际上的研究方式产生了减少的影响。正如历史学家马克·斯托拉里克（Mark Stolárik）所指出的，天鹅绒离婚的关键原因之一正是缺乏同质的捷克斯洛伐克身份，因此，捷克斯洛伐克艺术与民族身份的持续融合是还原性的。我试图表明，斯洛伐克的行为艺术一直受到匈牙利传统的影响，主要集中在基于音乐的表演，偶发事件，和土地艺术。另一方面，捷克的行为艺术侧重于行动艺术，干预和身体艺术传统。此外，两国目前极右政治和仇外移民焦虑的兴起所造成的日益紧张局势阻碍了艺术和学术界对西欧行为艺术历史上的一些关键问题（如酷儿和身份政治）的关注。拟议的博士研究将通过分析斯洛伐克和捷克的一系列案例研究来干预这种复杂的政治局势，以解开他们的民族身份，并在更广泛的行为艺术历史中建立他们的谱系。我的项目将依赖于对主要和次要来源的分析，档案研究，翻译，定性研究访谈，以及对绩效文件和事件进行密切的文本和历史分析的方法。我的捷克语和斯洛伐克语的语言能力使我处于一个独特的位置，进行主要的研究，否则将仍然无法进入英语奖学金。这一以预防为重点的努力的一部分也将集中在艺术家谈论自己的方式在他们的母语，他们的工作的关键接收，以及与英语关键词汇（特别是采用词“性能”）往往是挪用，适应和部署在这两个国家的影响。我将对艺术家的档案进行广泛的初步研究。这些机构大多存在于没有机构支持的艺术家家中，如托马斯·鲁勒或斯拉瓦·多布内罗娃。在一些罕见的情况下，他们被关押在朱利叶斯科勒协会等组织。档案研究构成了行为艺术研究的主要来源，并由行为艺术历史学家如Heike Roms和Dominic约翰逊部署。此外，苏联统治下的捷克斯洛伐克的特殊政治历史以及行为艺术对文献的抵制要求行为艺术通过口头传统传播。除了参观艺术家的档案，我将采访艺术家，艺术专业人士和观众，以重建知识，否则已经失去了。

After Czechoslovakia's dissolution in 1993, Czech and Slovak artists have been struggling to assert their national identities as distinct in wider performance art histories. This project seeks to investigate the development of Slovak and Czech performance art from the 1960s to the present as two arguably distinct yet complementary genealogies. Despite growing research into Eastern and Central European histories of performance art in recent years, there has been little substantial work in terms of Czech and Slovak performance art, and what little research has been undertaken tends to conflate them into a single national culture. While these two countries have a strong social and cultural affinity historically, there has also been an increasing anxiety among artists since the Velvet Divorce (the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia) in 1993 about who owns the cultural remnants and artefacts of the two countries. The conflation of the countries seems to privilege Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic) over Slovakia and has incidentally had a reductive effect on the way Slovak art in particular has been researched internationally. As historian Mark Stolárik points out, one of the key reasons for the Velvet Divorce was precisely the lack of a homogenous Czechoslovak identity and, therefore, the continuous conflation of Czechoslovak art contingent on national identity is reductive. I seek to show that Slovak performance art has been influenced by Hungarian traditions and focuses predominantly on music-based performance, happenings, and land art. On the other hand, Czech performance art focuses on action art, interventions and body art traditions. Moreover, the growing tensions caused by the current rise of Far-Right politics and xenophobic migration anxiety in both countries have prevented artistic and scholarly focus on what have historically been some of the key issues of performance art in Wester Europe (such as queer and identity politics). The proposed doctoral research will intervene in this complex political situation by analysing a series of case studies from both Slovakia and Czechia in order to disentangle their national identities and establish their genealogies as distinct within wider performance art histories. My project will rely on analysis of primary and secondary sources, archival research, translation, qualitative research interviewing, and with methods concerning close textual and historical analysis of performance documents and events. My language abilities in Czech and Slovak put me in a unique position to undertake primary research that would otherwise remain inaccessible to Anglophone scholarship. Part of this translation-focused effort will also focus on the way artists talk about themselves in their native languages, the critical reception of their work, and the effects with which English critical vocabularies (especially the adopted word 'performance') is often appropriated, adapted and deployed in the two countries. I will undertake extensive primary research in artists' archives. These mostly exist without institutional support in the homes of artists - such as Tomás Ruller or Sláva Daubnerová. In some rare cases, they are held at organizations such as Julius Koller Society. Archival research constitutes a major source of research in performance art studies and is deployed by performance art historians such as Heike Roms and Dominic Johnson. Moreover, the particular political history of Czechoslovakia under the USSR as well as performance art's resistance to documentation requires performance art to be disseminated by oral traditions. As well as visiting artists' archive, I will interview artists, arts professionals and audiences to re-construct knowledge that has otherwise been lost.