Performance Art in Russia

Live art and Action art in Russia.

For hundreds of years, Red Square has been a frontier zone between the sacred and the profane. The famous square appeared as a result of a fire in 1493, when a large area between Moscow’s Market and the walls of the Kremlin burnt down, and the land was left unreconstructed.

In the 1990s history took a turn, and Red Square was opened to the public again. Such a symbolic and visible public space was soon seized upon by performance artists, whose long tradition in Russia can be traced back to medieval “fools-for-Christ”, the crazy-wise Orthodox ascetics that counted St Basil among their number. The provocative, unruly and yet meaningful performances have operated, like Red Square itself, on the cusp of the sacred and the profane. (link to article)