Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship - autonomous ...

notes to pages 132– 5
is an everyday reality.’ (Bohumila Grögerová, cited in Pavlina
Morganova, ‘Fluxus in the Czech Period Press’, in Fluxus East: Fluxus
Networks in Central Eastern Europe, Berlin: Kunstlerhaus Bethanien
GmbH, 2007, p. 181.)
11 Milan Knížák, ‘The Principles of Action Art According to Milan Knížák’
(1965), in Knížák, Actions For Which at Least Some Documentation
Remains, p. 7. He continues: ‘Vostell exhorts: reality is more interesting
than fi ction, even as he makes engines and cars collide whilst the participants
observe calmly and with interest, knowing that nobody will be hurt
and that this is not an accident, but the staging of an accident. Vostell also
describes the poor reactions of participants, such as those who began to
sing an unpopular song in the bus during one of his happenings in
Wuppertal. However, there is no such thing as a poor reaction on the part
of participants, only a poor happening’ (p. 8).
12 Knížák, cited in Morganova, ‘Fluxus in the Czech Period Press’, p. 183,
emphasis added. He continues: ‘Thank god for the so- called Iron Curtain.
Little art and its little creators suffered, of course, on this account. One
couldn’t see through the “curtain”. But this perfect isolation meant that
we did not degenerate as swiftly or as tragically as the rest of Europe.’
The third issue of Aktual’s samizdat journal had the title Ntuna cinnost:
necessary activity.
13 The work was produced in collaboration with Vít Mach, Soňa Švecová
and Jan Trtílek. A full description of the work, titled A Demonstration
for All the Senses, is included in Kaprow’s anthology Assemblage, Environments
& Happenings, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1966, p. 305. See
also Knížák, Actions For Which at Least Some Documentation Remains,
pp. 42– 3.
14 Surrealism remained a strong force in the 1960s in Prague in the circle
around Karel Teige, although Knížák paid more attention to Fluxus.
15 On the rare occasions when Knížák makes reference to current political
events, it is in the context of reading articles from the daily press through
a loudspeaker – as in Ritus (1964). However, this happens simultaneously
with another person reading conventional love poetry, while a
third barks orders at the participants (‘Hurry up! Faster! Barbarians!
Faster!’). See Knížák, Actions For Which at Least Some Documentation
Remains, pp. 54– 5.
16 Ibid., p. 61. Tomáš Pospiszyl has argued that the circulation of public
letters has a long tradition in Czech art history; see Pospiszyl, Srovnávací
Studie, Prague: Agite/ Fra, 2005. Vladimír Boudník wrote hundreds of
letters each year (produced as prints) and sent them to signifi cant fi gures
and organisations such as embassies, the United Nations, the Pope, etc. In
the 1960s Knížák and Boudník were aware of each others’ work and had
something of a mutual rivalry.
17 ‘In the beginning the former method [i.e. enforced participation] was
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