Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere

Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere is the first interdisciplinary analysis of performance art in East, Central and Southeast Europe under socialist rule. By investigating the specifics of event-based art forms in these regions, each chapter explores the particular, critical roles that this work assumed under censorial circumstances. The artistic networks of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, East Germany and Czechoslovakia are discussed with a particular focus on the discourses that shaped artistic practice at the time, drawing on the methods of Performance Studies and Media Studies as well as more familiar reference points from art history and area studies.

Katalin Cseh-Varga is lecturer at the Universität Wien and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany. Her research focuses on the theory of public spheres in the former Eastern bloc, archival theory, and performative and medial spaces of the experimental art scene of the 1960s-80s. Adam Czirak is Assistant Professor in Performance Studies at the Freie University Berlin, Germany. His research focuses on aesthetics of contemporary theatre, visual culture, and performance art in Eastern Europe. His publications include: Partizipation der Blicke (Bielefeld 2011); Melancholy and Politics (co-ed., Athens 2013).

Acknowledgments. Introduction, Katalin Cseh-Varga and Adam Czirak. Part I Geopolitics and Transnationalism of Art Production. 01 Beyond "East" and "West" through "The Eternal Network": Networked Artists' Communities as Counter-publics of Cold War Europe, Roddy Hunter. 02 Tactical Networking: The Yugoslav Performing and Visual Arts between East and West, MiSko suvakovic. 03 Connection with the World: Internationalism and New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, Dietmar Unterkofler. 04 Questioning the East: Artistic Practices and Social Context on the Edge, Ileana Pintilie. Part II Locating the Second Public Sphere. 05 Basements, Attics, Streets and Courtyards: The Reinvention of Marginal Art Spaces in Romania during Socialism, Cristian Nae. 06 Performing the Proletarian Public Sphere: Gender and Labour in the Art of Tomislav Gotovac, Andrej Mircev. 07 Outside by Being Inside: Unofficial Artistic Strategies in the Former Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, Andrea Bátorová. 08 From a Local to a National to a Transnational Public Sphere: The Emergence of Solidarity in Poland from a Theatrical Perspective, Berenika Szymanski-Düll. 09 Surveilling the Public Sphere: The First Hungarian Happening in Secret Agents' ReportsKata Krasznahorkai. 10 Performance Art in Latvia as Intermedial Appropriation, Laine Kristberga. 11 Escape into the Nature! The Politics of Melancholy in Czechoslovakian Performance Art, Adam Czirak. Part III Facets of Gender in the Second Public Sphere. 12 Gender, Feminism, and the Second Public Sphere in East European Performance Art, Amy Bryzgel. 13 Decision as Art: Performance in the Balkans, Jasmina Tumbas. 14 Communities of Practice: Performing Women in the Second Public Sphere, Beáta Hock. 15 Artistic Collaborations of Performing Women in the GDR, Angelika Richter. Part IV Post-Socialist Performance. 16 Socialist Performance Replaced: Re-enactment as a Critical Strategy in Contemporary East European Art, Maja Fowkes and Reuben Fowkes. Index of works. Index of names. Subject index.