Art as a living archive post-1989 performance art in Serbia and Russia

This article examines post-socialist performance art in Serbia and Russia, which has sought to challenge official narratives of nationalism and history in these two countries. The 1990s work of Serbian artist Tanja Ostoji is juxtaposed with a series of more recent public interventions by Russian artist Petr Pavlenskii, to explore how performance art has been used to question identity politics - including the politics of erasure and the systematic manipulation and distortion of history and memory - as promoted by nationalist elites. Performances by these artists are interpreted as living archives', or works that aim to highlight and preserve identities, traditions, and historical memories that are otherwise marginalised or effaced. This conceptual framework opens up a new reading of the bond between art and politics, and highlights an alternative (and archival) potential of art as a medium of protest.