The dissertation presents a comprehensive study of performance art in Ukrainian artistic culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The study examines the phenomenon of performance art within a broad art historical and cultural-studies context context, which makes it possible to identify its origins, historical dynamics, and specific features of functioning in the Ukrainian artistic space. 18 Special attention is paid to the interpretation of performance art as an artistic form of visual art, its visual-compositional nature, and its correlation with related practices. The relevance of the research is conditioned by the need for a comprehensive understanding of performance art in Ukrainian artistic culture, particularly within the field of visual art. Despite the significant role of performance in the development of contemporary art, its formation in Ukraine was fragmentary and non-linear, due to historical upheavals, ideological restrictions, and institutional discontinuity. This resulted in insufficient scholarly attention to early forms of performance, happenings, and experimental artistic actions, and thus actualized the need to study the prerequisites for the emergence of performance art in Ukraine in the second half of the twentieth century, as well as the specific features of its development within the artistic underground. An important aspect of the dissertation is the analysis of the processes of institutionalization of performance art in Ukrainian visual art at the end of the twentieth century, when it developed predominantly within independent initiatives and was gradually integrated into the contemporary art field through new exhibition, curatorial, and interdisciplinary formats. A separate scholarly problem addressed in the dissertation is the documentation of performance art, especially its early forms that emerged before the widespread introduction of digital technologies. The study demonstrates that the ephemeral nature of the artistic event complicates its further arthistorical analysis, whereas the incorporation of performance into cultural memory takes place through photography, video, textual descriptions, and archival materials. The dissertation traces the transformations of performance art in Ukraine at the beginning of the twenty-first century, in particular the influence of this phenomenon on the practice of contemporary artists. In this context, the activities of the platform “Novitni Spriamuvannia” make it possible to identify the role of performance art and its individual elements in the construction of the artistic image and in the expansion of the artist’s toolkit. The spread of hybrid artistic projects with a performative component, the integration of digital technologies, and active engagement with public space indicate a transformation in the modes of functioning of performance art and the enrichment of its artistic and medium-specific nature in contemporary culture. Keywords: Ukrainian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, visual art, performance, performance art, artistic action, happening, documentation of performance art.
