Performance Art in the Czech Republic

Man dressed head to toe in black including covering face walking on a finished rooftop deck.

Live and Action art in the Czech Republic.

Artist and Performance Art Groups

Literature, Resources and more information

  • Artlist — Center for Contemporary Arts Prague
  • “Ready Met“ Rooftop Performance
  • Action! Czech Performance Art from the 1960s to the 1970s
  • We Are All Emotional – a festival of Performance Art (Czech Republc)
  • Performance Crossings – International Performance Art Festival (Czech Republc)
  • Performing New Sincerity in the Czech Republic
  • Performance Art in Czechoslovakia – Remembered, Described, Interpreted, Photographed and Filmed, Sometimes Even Reenacted
  • Helena Kontová, interview with Petr Rezek, Karel Miler, Jan Mlčoch and Petr Štembera, April 4th 1977, published in the catalogue Karel Miler, Petr Štembera, Jan Mlčoch, 1970‒1980 (Prague: Gallery of the City of Prague, 1997), pp. 78‒79.
  • A Walk Through Prague: Actions, Performances, Happenings 1949−1989 (Prague: VVP AVU 2017),
  • Czech Action Art / Happenings, Actions, Events, Land Art, Body Art and Performance Art Behind the Iron Curtain (Prague: Karolinum Press 2015).
  • Andrea Bátorová, Aktionskunst in der Slowakei in den 1960er Jahren. Aktionen von Alex Mlynárčik (Berlin: Lit, 2009).
  • Amy Bryzgel, Performance Art in Eastern Europe since 1960 (Manchester University Press, 2017).
  • Vít Havránek (ed.), Jiří Kovanda, 2005‒1976. Actions and Installations (Zürich: tranzit & JRP Ringier, 2006).
  • Pavlína Morganová, “České akční umění 60. let v dobovém tisku” (Czech Action Art of 1960s in the Press), in Akce, slovo, pohyb, prostor / Experimenty v umění šedesátých let (Action, Word, Movement, Space / Experimental Art of the Sixties), catalogue of the exhibition, Gallery of the City of Prague, Prague 1999, pp. 54‒60.
  • Pavlína Morganová, “Fluxus in the Czech Period Press,” in Petra Stegman (ed.), Fluxus East. Fluxus Netzwerke in Mittelosteuropa (Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH, 2000), pp. 177‒196
  •  Pavlína Morganová, Czech Action Art. Happenings, Actions, Events, Land Art, Body Art and Performance Art Behind the Iron Curtain, Karolinum Press, Prague 2014
  • Morganová, Pavlína. 2020. “Performance Art in Czechoslovakia – Remembered, Described, Interpreted, Photographed and Filmed, Sometimes Even Reenacted.” Sandra Frimmel, Tomáš Glanc, Sabine Hänsgen, Katalin Krasznahorkai, Nastasia Louveau, Dorota Sajewska, Sylvia Sasse (eds.). 2020. Doing Performance Art History. Berlin: Apparatus Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2020.0000.206
  • Petra Stegmann (ed.), Fluxus East. Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe (Berlin: Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH, 2007).