History and Genealogy of Performance Art in Latvia

This book offers the first comprehensive study of the emergence and development of performance art in Latvia from the 1960s to the late 1980s under Soviet occupation. The book examines artistic practices that remained marginal to both international historiography and local art historical discourse. Because performance often emerged without stable terminology, institutional frameworks, or critical discourse in Soviet Latvia, its histories remain dispersed across fragmented archives, photographic documentation, personal collections, interviews, and ephemeral traces.Drawing on microhistorical methodology, Laine Kristberga reconstructs informal artistic networks, overlooked collaborations, and intermedial practices spanning photography, painting, pantomime, happenings, environmental interventions, experimental video, fashion theatre, and exhibition practices. Through case studies of artists including Andris Grinbergs, Zenta Dzividzinska, Modris Tensions, Vitas Luckus, Miervaldis Polis, Ojārs Feldbergs, Maija Tabaka, Imants Lancmanis, Ivars Mailītis, the NSRD collective and many others, the book demonstrates how performance developed as a dispersed field of artistic experimentation shaped by shifting conditions of visibility under late socialism.By situating Latvia within broader debates on Eastern European art history, canon formation, intermediality, and performance historiography, this study expands the geographical and conceptual boundaries of global performance art history and contributes to broader discussions of art under state socialism.This is an ideal book for researchers in performance art, modern art, Eastern European Art, Soviet art and history.

Laine Kristberga, PhD, is Head of the Arts Department at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art at the University of Latvia and Associate Professor at the Department of Art and Technologies, Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, at the University of Latvia, where she leads the Arts section and directs the MA programme Process Design in Art and Culture. She is also founder of the Latvian Centre for Performance Art and director of the Riga Performance Art Festival Starptelpa.