The performativity of provocation: the case of Artur Zmijewski

Abstract

Performativity occurs in, and on behalf of the present. This can be seen with special clarity in the speech act of provocation. In this article, the performative of provocation is analysed by focusing on two works by the Polish artist Artur Zmijewski: Berek (Game of Tag) (1999) and 80064 (2005). Both works deal with the Holocaust in provocative ways and were highly controversial when they were exhibited. In their problematic nature these works substantiate Slavoj Žižek’s paradoxical statement that a coherent, truthful account of the traumatic past belies its own truthfulness. A narrative of trauma cannot be a clear narrative. This requires a different artistic, semiotic posture: not representation but performativity, so that conventional prescriptive moral rules can be replaced by an effective, affect-based ethics. Zmijewski’s videos shake up the fixed notions of Nazi victims and Holocaust survivors. And that is the first necessary step towards opening up the debate to a series of questions about the role of Polish people in the Holocaust. The importance and even necessity of these questions is demonstrated by the recent legislation in Poland that outlaws blaming Poles for the crimes of the Holocaust.