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 Mlyn�rcik, Petr Stembera, 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.
| ISBN: | 9781526190697 |
| Publication date: | 17th March 2026 |
| Author: | Sam Cermák |
| Publisher: | Manchester University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 264 pages |
| Series: | Rethinking Art's Histories |
| Genres: |
Performance art |
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 Mlyn�rcik, Petr Stembera, 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.
Abnormal Peripheries features in the following genres: Performance art
Abnormal Peripheries is available in Hardback
Abnormal Peripheries was written by Sam Cermák and published by Manchester University Press
Abnormal Peripheries has 264 pages
Yes it is part of Rethinking Art's Histories series
£76.50