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自己的民族身份，使其在更广泛的行为艺术史上与众不同。该项目旨在调查斯洛伐克和捷克行为艺术从20世纪60年代到现在的发展，这是两个截然不同但又互补的谱系。尽管近年来对东欧和中欧行为艺术历史的研究越来越多，但在捷克和斯洛伐克的行为艺术方面却很少有实质性的工作，而且所进行的少量研究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（捷克斯洛伐克和平解体）以来，艺术家们也越来越担心谁拥有这两个国家的文化遗迹和文物。这两个国家的合并似乎赋予了捷克（前捷克共和国）高于斯洛伐克的特权，并顺便削弱了斯洛伐克艺术在国际上的研究方式。正如历史学家马克Stolárik所指出的那样，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，捷克斯洛伐克艺术的持续合并取决于民族身份，这是一种简化。我试图表明斯洛伐克的行为艺术受到匈牙利传统的影响，主要集中在以音乐为基础的表演、偶然事件和土地艺术上。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，两国目前极右翼政治的兴起和仇外移民焦虑所造成的日益紧张的局势，阻碍了艺术和学术对西欧行为艺术历史上一些关键问题的关注（如酷儿和身份政治）。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介入这一复杂的政治局势，以理清他们的民族身份，并在更广泛的行为艺术史中建立他们独特的谱系。我的项目将依赖于对一手和二手资料的分析、档案研究、翻译、定性研究访谈，以及对演出文件和事件进行密切的文本和历史分析的方法。我在捷克语和斯洛伐克语方面的语言能力使我处于一个独特的位置，可以进行初级研究，否则英语国家的奖学金就无法获得这些研究。这种以翻译为重点的努力还将部分关注艺术家用母语谈论自己的方式，他们作品的批判性接受，以及英语批判性词汇（尤其是被采用的“表演”一词）在两国经常被挪用、改编和使用的影响。我将对艺术家档案进行广泛的初步研究。它们大多存在于艺术家家中，没有机构的支持——比如Tomás Ruller或Sláva daubnerov<e:1>。在极少数情况下，它们会在朱利叶斯·科勒协会（Julius Koller Society）等组织举行。档案研究构成了行为艺术研究的主要研究来源，并被Heike Roms和Dominic Johnson等行为艺术史学家所采用。此外，捷克斯洛伐克在苏联统治下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外，我还会采访艺术家、艺术专业人士和观众，以重建那些已经丢失的知识。

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.