Khrenov, N. A. From Performance Art in Its Actual Protest Forms to Cultural Precedent. Article 1

Abstract: A creative personality as a public figure is the topic of this article. The said personality can express itself in different forms. In this particular case among all possible forms the author is emphasizing and considering the one where the protest is coming to the fore. Such forms of the contemporary art as performance and happening, and most of all those pieces of art which are laying a special emphasize on the protest, are appearing as a concrete expression of this form. Radicalism appearing in these art forms aids detecting aspects of artist’s creativeness which are promoting transformation of any creative person to a public figure. Pertain of performance and happening to art it is not obvious. These art forms are perceived as marginal one and are exclusive of the conventional art system. More often than not their radical protest is liable to prosecution. However legal evaluation does not facilitate but complicate esthetic evaluating. In order to overcome the doubtful status of these forms, it is necessary to consider them as cultural phenomenon with past precedents. “Yurodstvo” (idiotic action) of the times of Ancient Rus is their immediate predecessor. This is the first attempt to analyze the creative personality at such culturological angel. Based on researches of A. van Gennep and W. Turner, the author is revealing a latent character in creative person’s activity, which is known as liminality, in other words, a necessity and ability to express protest which is not only a protest against the power, but as protest against the society stagnating in conformism. In pre-industrial societies any bearer of liminality, i.e. a wacky, was a sacred person, who should not suffer persecution of authorities. In secularized societies the artist and images of his/her heroes are bearers of liminality. And happenings and performances are the contemporary forms for expressing the spirit of liminality.

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