Abnormal peripheries

Name: Abnormal peripheries
Price: 240.22 AUD
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ISBN: 9781526190697

Slovak and Czech performance art in the 1960s and 70s

Sam Cermak

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Hardback

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English

Manchester University Press
01 April 2026

Performance art

Series: Rethinking Art's Histories

This book traces an early history of performance art from the former Czechoslovakia, which 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.

The book draws on Czech and Slovak scholarship as well as primary research in archives, 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. By analysing both works of established artists such as Aktual, Alex Mlynrcik, Petr tembera, Jan Mlcoch, as well as under-theorised practitioners including Luba Lauffov, Karel Miler, Temporary Society of Intense Living, and Crusaders School of Pure Humour with no Joke, this book analyses how performance can survive and sometimes even thrive on the background of a politically oppressive regime. Cermak tells 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.

By: Sam Cermak
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 676g
ISBN: 9781526190697
ISBN 10: 1526190699
Series: Rethinking Art's Histories
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 01 April 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: Towards a peripheral pluralism of performance 1: Disappeared Luba: Slovak body art and feminist politics in the work of Luba Lauffová 2: Selfish Performances: Marxist Humanism as individualism in Czech body art 3: Days of Joy: the political of public space in the work of Alex Mlynárcik 4: Total Engagements: policing and artistic co-operation in the work of Aktual Conclusion: Despite overwhelming greyness Bibliography -- .

Sam Cermk is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Manchester.

Reviews for Abnormal peripheries: Slovak and Czech performance art in the 1960s and 70s

‘This book will become a touchpoint for scholars of contemporary art history and performance art history of the region.’ — Amy Bryzgel, Northeastern University -- .