PERFORMANCE AND TEXT (BASED UPON THE MATERIALS FROM ONLINE ARCHIVE ‘ODESSA ART IN 1980-S’)

Abstract

The article studies the role of the text in performances conducted during 1980s in Odessa by the participants of so-called ‘Odessa school’ Serhiy Anufriyev, Leonid Voytsekhov, Yuriy Leyderman, Svitlana Martynchyk, Volodymyr Naumets, Alexander Petrelli, Oleh Petrenko, Liydmyla Skrypkina, Ihor Styopin, Ihor Tshatskin (solo or as participants of art groups ‘IU’, ‘Martynchyky’, ‘Pertsi’.

Following research discovers, systematizes, and analyzes materials of online archive ‘Odessa Art of 1980s’ created in 2000 by Odessa Centre of Contemporary Art in collaboration with Institute of Contemporary Art.

The article, therefore, overviews over twenty individual and collective pieces of Performance Art, in particular: ‘Cross-Zero’ (1982), ‘Russian Idyll ’ (1982), ‘Pacifist Demonstration’ (1983), ‘Leaning Against Pillar’ (1983), «[Among Other Things]» (1983), ‘I Admire Friends’ (1983), ‘David’s Shield’ (1983), «Basin» (dedicated to ‘Muhomory’) (1984), ‘This Secret Word’ (1984), ‘Flag Killing Methods’ (1985), ‘There I Were a Man’ (1985), ‘To Hit a Wall and a Black Wife’ (1987), ‘Like a Shot’ (1987), ‘The Most Precious’ (1987), ‘Exploration of Art Deposits’ (1987), ‘Vasia Was Here’ (1987) etc. as well as performance-exhibition ‘Relatives’ (1983). The attribution and description of all studied pieces of Performance Art is based exclusively on the data gained from the online archive (even though some of the data are controversial). The performances mentioned in the archive are catalogized. The main challenges of the archive-based research in performance studies are underlined.