Performance: Archives and Contemporary Practices

A collective work titled 'La performance, entre archives et pratiques contemporaines', edited by Janig Bégoc, Nathalie Boulouch, and Elvan Zabunyan, addresses the historiography of 1960s and 1970s performance art in France. The book legitimizes the historian's perspective over the witness's authority and recognizes performance as a valid object in art history. It references American authors and discusses photography and video's role in memory construction, as seen in Gina Pane and Schwarzkogler. The second part presents unpublished documents from the Archives de la critique d'art, including letters from Allan Kaprow to Pierre Restany. Anne Tronche's preface highlights the richness of a history that seemed only appreciable in the present.