Rethinking Art's Histories Abnormal Peripheries

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Abnormal peripheries traces an early history of performance art from the former Czechoslovakia, telling a unique story of localised resistance to a monolithic public sphere through artistic intervention, a closely knit community, artistic exchange, and agonistic reframing of socialism as a philosophy rather than state ideology ‘This book will become a touchpoint for scholars of contemporary art history and performance art history of the region.’—Amy Bryzgel, Northeastern UniversityAbnormal peripheries traces an early history of performance art from the former Czechoslovakia, formulating a history of performance based on peripherality as a critical strength. These works emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in the context of the Prague Spring and the subsequent policy of Normalization that brought on cultural censorship, prosecution, and state violence against artists. This book draws on Czech and Slovak scholarship as well as original archival research, interviews, and fieldwork to dispel misreadings of visual and cultural idioms in pre-existing Anglophone scholarship about the region. Although the former Soviet Bloc is often equated with repression and lack of experimental art in public spaces, performance artists within the former Socialist Czechoslovakia often used public, semi-public, and clandestine spheres to create their performances. Analysing the work of both established artists such as Aktual, Alex Mlynárcik, Petr Štembera, and Jan Mlcoch, as well as under-theorised practitioners including Luba Lauffová, Karel Miler, Temporary Society of Intense Living, and Crusaders School of Pure Humour with no Joke, this book examines how performance can survive and sometimes even thrive on the background of a politically oppressive regime. This book tells a unique story of localised resistance to a monolithic public sphere through artistic intervention, a close-knit community, artistic exchange, and agonistic reframing of socialism as a philosophy rather than state ideology. This book traces the early history of performance art in the former Czechoslovakia, which developed in the 1960s and 1970s amid the Prague Spring and the subsequent Normalization period marked by censorship, prosecution, and state pressure on artists. Drawing on Czech and Slovak scholarship, as well as archival research, interviews, and fieldwork, it challenges Anglophone misinterpretations of the region’s visual and cultural languages. Although the Soviet Bloc is often associated with repression and limited artistic experimentation, performers in Socialist Czechoslovakia used public, semi-public, and clandestine spaces to create influential works. By examining artists such as Aktual, Alex Mlynárcik, Petr Štembera, Jan Mlcoch,, Temporary Society of Intense Living, and the Crusaders School of Pure Humour with No Jokes, the book shows how performance persisted—and sometimes thrived—through local resistance, artistic networks, and alternative interpretations of socialism.

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Pagina's: 262, Hardcover, Manchester University Press