Tomáš Glanc: Russian Performance Art Between Orthodoxy and Activism
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: April 27, 2015, 20:00 – 22:00
The third evening in the lecture series Living Souls: Current Russian Culture and its Czech Connections with Russian Studies expert Tomáš Glanc (Universität Zürich).
Performance art and happenings developed in Russia in a distinctive and authentic manner. How much the avant-garde cultural excesses of the 1950s and 1960s belong to the history of performance art remains an open question. However, since then art from beyond the world of galleries has been ever-present and influential. Paradoxically, its beginnings are linked to members of Dvizhenie (The Movement Group), who – thanks to their subversive imaginations – were brought together by contracts linked to the 50th anniversary of the Great October Revolution (1967).
In the post-Soviet era frequently wild performance art has become the showcase of contemporary art, culminating in the activities of the group Pussy Riot, which have won worldwide attention. Can performance art maintain its individuality? Or will it become hostage to the media and politics?