Invisible Labour: Women's Experimental Art in East-Central Europe, 1970-1989

“朝鲜能有当代艺术吗？”Octavian Esanu （Esanu 2021）质疑“当代”的市场导向逻辑，以及将没有或有限市场经济的非西方社会含蓄地描述为“落后”和需要现代化。在苏联后期影响的背景下，我的项目关注中东欧女性艺术家的实验性作品（包括表演、参与性实践和视觉媒体），挑战再现中心/边缘范式的“落后”理论，尤其是对历史上被边缘化的主题，如女性艺术家。前东方女性实验艺术史之所以能够拓展当代女权主义思想，正是因为它们没有将对性别不平等的批判锚定在由市场支配的关系上。我的论文回应了波兰艺术史学家Piotr Piotrowski对国家社会主义下中东欧实验艺术的细致入微的方法（Piotrowski 2009年和2012年）。这种对被忽视的艺术场景的重新评估对于非殖民主义的现当代艺术史至关重要，它使更多来自该地区的艺术家得以展示，并阐释他们的历史和社会经济价值（Piotrowski 2009 & 2012; Bryzgel 2013 & 2017; kempp - welch 2014 & 2018; Esanu 2021）。然而，这种横向艺术史的一个主要弱点是女性艺术家的边缘化（Jakubowska和Radomska 2022），复制了女性在西方文化中的隐形地位。我的项目通过仔细研究在“当代艺术”的主要参数在全球范围内建立的时期（20世纪70年代和80年代）中东欧艺术劳动中的性别鸿沟来解决这一限制。对我的研究至关重要的是，“当代艺术”一词并不是中立的，而是通过市场霸权公开或隐蔽地定义的——尤其是在20世纪70年代和80年代，后现代主义成为一种“文化主导”，尽管它是针对西方“消费社会”的（Jameson 1984 & 1991）。这一时期，在市场主导的西方，第二波女权主义要求女性作为文化创造者的可见度，但女性艺术家在不同优先事项和决定因素的背景下（如东欧）采用的策略却鲜为人知。我将把女性艺术家有形和无形的劳动作为对市场和国家权力都很重要的工作的一个指标。“有形劳动”指的是女性艺术家如何需要“更加努力地工作”才能被视为文化的生产者——例如，在波兰艺术二人组Kwiekulik的表演中，Zofia Kulik允许自己受到身体上的限制和精神上的羞辱（Jakubowska 2020）。“无形劳动”指的是一种特殊形式的维护工作，与家庭劳动无关——计划、生产、记录、归档和推广艺术。与西方发展起来的旨在吸引策展人和买家的营销手段不同，这种性别维护工作作为艺术生产的一部分，对于女性艺术家与国家（当地）和市场（作为一个想象中的“国际”目的地）边缘化的斗争至关重要。鉴于到目前为止，国际艺术史学者强调西方社会再生产活动的例子（例如Mierle Laderman Ukeles， Maintenance Manifesto, 1968），这就产生了对女性艺术家作品组成的不同理解。对艺术家的采访、证词、目录和档案材料是我的主要来源。除了Richard Demarco Archive（苏格兰）、Piotr Piotrowski Archive（波兰）、Artpool Archive（匈牙利）等档案馆外，我还会查阅由中东欧独立研究人员和机构运营的在线数据库，包括Forgotten Heritage、Secondary Archive、ARTLIST、Web umenia等。

'Can there be contemporary art in North Korea?' asks Octavian Esanu (Esanu 2021), contesting the market-oriented logic of 'the contemporary' and the implicit portrayal of non-Western societies with no or limited market economies as 'backward' and in need of modernisation. Attending to East-Central European women artists' experimental work (including performance, participatory practices and visual media) in the late Soviet-influenced context, my project challenges the 'backwardness' thesis that reproduces the centre/periphery paradigm, not least for historically marginalised subjects such as women artists. The histories of women's experimental art in the former East can expand contemporary feminist thinking precisely because they do not anchor the critique of gender inequality to relations dictated by the market.My thesis responds to Polish art historian Piotr Piotrowski's nuanced approach towards the experimental art of East-Central Europe under state socialism (Piotrowski 2009 and 2012). This reassessment of overlooked art scenes is essential to a decolonial modern and contemporary art history, rendering visible more artists from the region and explicating their historical and socio-economic values (Piotrowski 2009 & 2012; Bryzgel 2013 & 2017; Kemp-Welch 2014 & 2018; Esanu 2021). Yet a major weakness in this horizontal art history is its marginalisation of women artists (Jakubowska and Radomska 2022), replicating women's invisibility in western culture. My project addresses this limitation by closely examining the gender divide in artistic labour in East-Central Europe in the period (1970s and 1980s) when the main parameters of 'contemporary art' were established globally.Crucial to my research is the idea that the term 'contemporary art' has not been neutral but has been overtly or covertly defined through a market hegemony - especially so in the 1970s and 1980s when postmodernism became a 'cultural dominant' despite being specific to western 'consumer society' (Jameson 1984 & 1991). This was the period when second-wave feminism in the market-dominated West claimed visibility for women as makers of culture, but it is far less known what strategies women artists deployed in contexts of different priorities and determinants, such as those of East-Central Europe. I will approach women artists' visible and invisible labour as an indicator of the work that matters to the market as well as to state power. 'Visible labour' refers to how women artists needed to 'work harder' to be viewed as producers of culture - e.g. in Polish artistic duo Kwiekulik's performances, Zofia Kulik allowed herself to be physically restricted and mentally humiliated (Jakubowska 2020). 'Invisible labour' refers to a particular form of maintenance work, not connected with domestic labour - planning, producing, documenting, archiving, and promoting art. Unlike the marketing apparatus developed in the West, designed to appeal to curators and buyers, this gendered maintenance work as part of artistic production was essential to women artists' struggle against their marginalisation both by the state (locally) and the market (as an imagined 'international' destination). This generates a different understanding of what women artists' work consisted of, given that so far international art historical scholarship has highlighted western examples of social reproduction activities (e.g. Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Maintenance Manifesto, 1968).Interviews with artists, testimonies, catalogues, and archival material are my primary sources. Besides archives such as the Richard Demarco Archive (Scotland), the Piotr Piotrowski Archive (Poland), the Artpool Archive (Hungary), etc., I will consult online databases run by independent researchers and institutions from East-Central Europe, including Forgotten Heritage, Secondary Archive, ARTLIST, Web umenia etc.