Chapter 2: Art as a Form of Social Action in the Russian Avant-garde (1905–1930)

If you want the audience to burst into laughter,

go to the stage and wait in silence until someone laughs first.

Daniil Kharms, Diaries, September 25, 1933.

One of the most radical periods in world history of art appeared in Russia in the beginning of the twentieth century. Male and female artists through a range of artistic movements and influenced by the general revolutionary mentality experimented with issues of form in order to change the aesthetics of everyday life. In order for this to happen, the means and techniques of art were expanded in various ways, and the artists left their easel and canvas and took to the streets. Speaking about performance in connection with the period 1905–1930 in Russia, I should first make clear that the word ‘performance’, used synthetically in connection with visual arts, or the term ‘performance art’ as used today, appeared much later than the period of the so-called ‘Russian avant-garde’; therefore it is somehow irrelevant to speak about ‘performance’ in a time when ‘art performance’ had not been yet characterized as such.