Corps et traces dans la création tchèque 1962–2002: A Cross-Generational Study

Published by Éditions Hazan / Ville de Nancy, this catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy that for the first time links two generations of Czech artists—those active in the 1960s–70s and those of the 1990s—around the theme of the body and performance. Curator Anne Tronche explores how younger artists, while not explicitly referencing their predecessors, inherit their legacy. The book features historical performance photographs and testimonies, revealing the specificity of the Czech body: its deceptiveness, atomization, and eventual disappearance into technological media such as digital photography and installations. Works like Milena Dopitova's "Suite pour cercueil / vêtements pour un cercueil" (1999) and "Suis moi" radicalize earlier practices from the communist era, such as Micoch's 1970s performance where he had himself buried under gravel at the city's periphery, disappointing the audience who left without witnessing anything. The Czech body is defined by its trace rather than its actuality; the dematerialized artist—now digitized and deferred—becomes an instrument of mental intrusion rather than the subject of creation.