curators: Tomáš Glanc, Sabine Hänsgen, from the Universität Zürich (Slavisches Seminar, Project „Performance Art in Eastern Europe“)
Since the second half of the twentieth century, in particular poets and artists in Eastern Europe have taken up the challenge of reflecting on and investigating the instrumentalization of language for communicative and political-ideological purposes. They did so by drawing attention to the material and medial dimension of language, and by creating performative situations for themselves and their audiences within which possibilities of verbal expression could be tested and acted out. The exhibition presents authors from subcultures in socialist states along with contemporary positions. Now and then, poetry and performance take on an exceptional topicality in periods of political crisis, as these ephemeral and flexible art forms enable the reflection of relations and contexts that remain otherwise undiscussed.
Artists: Milan Adamčiak • Akademia Ruchu • Nikita Alekseev • Gábor Altorjay • Pavel Arsenev • Damir Avdić • Babi Badalov • Bosch+ Bosch (Attila Csernik • Slavko Matković • László Szalma) • Collective Actions Group • Coro Collective • Ľubomír Ďurček • Exterra XX • Else Gabriel / Via Lewandowsky • Rimma Gerlovina • Jelena Glazova • Tomislav Gotovac • Group of Six Artists • Bohumila Grögerová / Josef Hiršal • Gino Hahnemann • Tibor Hajas • Václav Havel • Jörg Herold • Semyon Khanin (Orbita) • Vladimir Kopicl • Dávid Koronczi • Katalin Ladik • Yuri Leiderman / Andrey Silvestrov • Via Lewandowsky/ Durs Grünbein • Vlado Martek • Kirill Medvedev • Jan Měřička • Andrei Monastyrski • Ladislav Novák • Pavel Novotný • NSRD (Hardijs Lediņš • Juris Boiko • Imants Žodžiks) • OHO Group (Nuša & Srečo Dragan • Naško Križnar) • Orange Alternative • Roman Osminkin • Ewa Partum • Bogdanka Poznanović • Dmitri Prigov • Pussy Riot • Lev Rubinstein • Mladen Stilinović • Gabriele Stötzer • Tamás Szentjóby • Bálint Szombathy • Slobodan Tišma • Dezider Tóth (Monogramista T.D) • Raša Todosijević • Jaromír Typlt • Jiří Valoch