Constructing Czechoslovak and Hungarian performance art history : guardians and narrative shifts

During and after state socialism, issues of identity and ideology, as well as stratified meaning and criticism of culture in Central and Eastern Europe, were thoroughly explored in performance artworks. Despite extensive historizations and theorisations of regional practices, no research has focused on how the related body of ephemera was shaped through interpretation, exhibition, criticism, and academic work. The essay argues that the building of narratives in Central and Eastern European performance art was the duty of intellectuals and networkers, that we call guardians. Therefore, through exploring narrative shifts of performance art, the essay examines the role of guardians in the processes of shaping interpretations, discourses, and canonical understandings, while actively engaging in creative practice. Tracing historical encounters of performance as theory and artistic practice, the focus is on the creative and discursive processes of knowledge formation with examples from Czechoslovakia and Hungary. With the help of the case studies, the essay outlines a research method, which combines performative creativity and interrelationality and, therefore, can open up ways of discovering multiple perspectives, hegemonies, and fluidity of narratives, while addressing how historical knowledge has been created and (per)formed in and outside of Central and Eastern Europe.