Neo-Avant-Garde in Action: Performative Artistic Practices in Divided Europe 1960-1990

The course explores performance and action art histories on both sides of the Iron Curtain between 1960 and 1990. It examines the question of the disturbing and unsettling potential of performance art in the West and in former socialist Europe and addresses the problem of studying and historicizing performance art in both locations. Through the presentation of several artistic positions, particularities of national and regional contexts for the development of performance and action art are examined. The course reconstructs local genealogies of performance art and the points of convergence of performative art practices between former East and West. It showcases various regional and transnational exhibitions and festivals that brought performing arts practitioners from both sides of the Iron Curtain together, negotiating the history of the European art of that period, seen from the perspective of sharp divisions and isolations.

The course has a double focus - it concentrates on the historical positions, events and canons of performance art in the former socialist and western Europe and demonstrates their interactions and connections. On the other hand, the focus is on the contemporary theorization of performance art and instruments of its historicization.