Artists & Agents
Performance Art and Secret Services = Aktionskunst und die Geheimdienste
by George Baker

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Author(s)

Sylvia Sasse, Kata Krasznahorkai

Publication

Leipzig : Spector, 2023

Scope

688 Pages, illustrated, 21.5 cm.

ISBN

9783959053334

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Publication accompanying the similar named exhibition at Hartware Medien KunstVerein (HMKV) Dortmund (Oct. 25 2019 - March 22, 2020). Subversion can come from artists who outwit the state or from intelligence agencies who infiltrate the art scene on behalf of the state. But what happens when the two sides meet? After the old state security archives in many Eastern European countries were opened, it became possible for this interaction to be studied in detail. Drawing on scientific essays and artistic contributions, the editors shows how the secret police monitored happenings, performance art, and action art and look at the debates they had about the new art form; they also demonstrate not only how the police documented artistic actions in detail using forensic techniques but also how they manipulated them and sought to thwart them with counter-actions. In addition to this, they also reveal how artists dealt with the possibility that they were being observed by the secret police and how they now work with the material stored in the archives maintained by the intelligence services.

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Person as subject

Alexandru Antik, Tina Bara & Alba D‘Urbano, Kurt Buchwald, Károly Elekes / Árpád Nagy / Gruppe MAMŰ, György Galántai / Artpool, Ion Grigorescu, Sanja Iveković, Voluspa Jarpa, Jens Klein, Daniel Knorr, Csilla Könczei, Korpys/Löffler ;Jiří Kovanda, Jill Magid, Simon Menner, Arwed Messmer, Clara Mosch, Orange Alternative, Peng! Collective, Józef Robakowski, Cornelia Schleime, Nedko Solakov, Gabriele Stötzer, Tamás St.Turba (NETRAF -agent) / Gábor Altorjay

Keywords

various , surveillance , fear

Geographical location

Eastern Europe

Location

Cabinet 11 - 4: Surveillance ; Veiligheid ; Angst

Remarks

Includes notes, indexes, imprint