عنوان

Figures of reticence :

TLets499531

Figures of reticence :

[Thesis]

kemp-Welch, Klara

action and event in east-central European conceptualism 1965-1989

University College London (University of London)

2009

Ph.D.

University College London (University of London)

2009

This thesis offers a history of conceptual art as a vehicle for politicised action thatgoes beyond ideas of institutional critique and identity politics. It articulates aseries of `figures' that relate to Vaclav Havel's essay `An Anatomy of Reticence'through close readings of the practices of five artists, from Poland, Hungary, andformer Czechoslovakia. Taking as its basis an expanded definition of conceptualart that incorporates action-based practice, the thesis compares disinterestedness,fidelity, ambivalence, doubt, and neutrality as critical positions adopted by artistsin relating to late socialist realities. A pursuit of truth that shares a great deal withthat outlined in the writings of Alain Badiou on the Event emerges as key todrawing out the traffic between these practices. The introduction stakes out themethodological territory and outlines the current state of research in the field.Chapter One reads Tadeusz Kantor's Theatre of Events as a subversion of theWestern trope of the happening, with reference to Mikhail Bakhtin's definition ofCarnival. Chapter Two explores how Jerzy Beres's Manifestations can be read as aform of fidelity to the Event of Duchamp's readymade strategy. Chapter Threeanalyses the collision of affirmation and negation in the ambivalent figure of irony,through the Joy and Zero actions of Endre Tot. Chapter Four is concerned withdoubt in the work of Julius Koller, as against his paradoxical investment in the ideaof the U. F. O. The final chapter considers in detail the minimal actions of JiiiKovanda, and seeks to go beyond the conceptual binaries that emerged in thepreceding chapters, by a discussion of Roland Barthes' definition of the Neutral.The conclusion proposes that the trope of Neutral was in many respects theparadigmatic `figure of reticence' for the unofficial actions carried out in the timeframeof the thesis, which spans the period from 1965, when happenings took overfrom Fluxus in the region, to 1989, when Communism in East-Central Europe, andthe Cold War, ended.

kemp-Welch, Klara

University College London (University of London)

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y