re.act.feminism #2 – a performing archive

Published Live Art Development Agency and Verlag fur Moderne Kunst, 2013

17.5cm x 24cm, 312 pages, hardback with colour photos throughout

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This publication is based upon the touring exhibition project re.act.feminism #2 – a performing archive, an expanding, temporary and living performance archive that travelled through six European countries from 2011 to 2013.

It explores feminist, gender-critical and queer performance art, which played a key role in the development of performance. The project brought together works by over 180 artists and artist collectives from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s, as well as contemporary positions from Eastern and Western Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the USA and Latin America.

With essays by curators and scholars Kathrin Becker, Mathias Danbolt, Eleonora Fabião, Bettina Knaup, Laima Kreivytė, Laurence Rassel, Angelika Richter, Oxana Sarkisyan, Rebecca Schneider, Mare Tralla, Linda Valdés, Reet Varblane and more than 200 illustrations.

“re.act.feminism is a project of immense importance for the recent history of art worldwide. The publication re.act.feminism #2 – a performing archive is a further precious manifestation and documentation of the brilliant work that has been done by cross links e.V. in the fields of research and archive, of theory and discourse, and, in curating performances and exhibitions of feminist art, thereby giving evidence of this most crucial artistic and political contribution.”

Silvia Eiblmayr, PhD, curator and author, Vienna

“This comprehensive, thoroughly researched archive offers a compelling argument for re-locating feminism (in all its forms) as a fundamental force, shaping the political dynamics of performance art from its formative years up to the present. Simultaneously, the impressive range of works and variety of artists surveyed makes this volume an essential contribution to the understanding of performance art’s centrality to feminism’s tactics, strategies and discourses.”

André Lepecki, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Performance Studies, New York University