Design Art Papers 2025 | No. 13

space functioned as a space of spiritual cohesion, „under the circumstances of the time and place unity, [53] ” and the pressures of the political power. The most important aspect is that it was only possible to organize the colloquimfar away fromBucharest,inSibiu,acityknownforitsmoreliberalstance. Even so, the events had to be pushed further into secrecy, in the underground. Both a medieval construction, just like in the case of the Budapest happening, and a space suitable for a ritualistic act, just like in Kraków, the Sibiu basement resonatedwithAntik's longstandingpreoccupationwithhow representation petrified living subjects. When current social reality was too constrictive for freely-expressed ideas, it was muchmore accessible to tap into a historical timeframe and to use the format of archetypal spiritualities. The division of the cellar into two chambers created a spatial metaphor for the divided condition of the artist, and by extension, the individual, under authoritarian rule. The outer room represented the semi-public sphere, where one could display selected objects and perform controlled gestures, such as reading texts and playing music. The risk of such liberties, however, was marked by the extraction of the artist from the group, the re-education step begun with hair cutting, and inregimentation in a cell. The inner space represented vulnerability and authentic expression violently subjected to confinement, separated from the audience by bars that simultaneously enabled witnessing and enforced distance. The barredwindowbetween cell and audiencewas perhaps the action’s most potent site-specific element. It invoked a prison, specimen display or asylum observation room, spaces where bodies are simultaneously revealed and contained, watched but not touched, heard but separated. The bars made the audience complicit witnesses, unable to intervene as Antik subjected himself to increasing violence, yet unable to look away. This enforced spectatorship echoed the position of citizens under dictatorship: seeing injustice, registering suffering, but held at a distance that made action seem impossiblewithout consequences. Theassistant's roleas acoustic amplifier, standingoutside the unit and echoing Antik's whispered poetry, created a bridge between the interior experience and external witness. What couldbarely beheard fromwithinwas given volume,making private suffering more audible. This amplification literalized what underground art spaces sought to achieve: taking experiences that the regime wanted to render inaudible and giving them resonance, making them heard despite attempts at silencing. Furthermore, details about this event were kept in informal collective memory, transmitted further in closed circles, and eventually, one year later, synthetized in the only art publication in the country at the time, Arta magazine.[54] The memory of the cellar action remains vivid and alive in contemporary and theoretical art circles in Romania, many times referred to as the Sibiu Phenomenon . The following day's continuation of the colloquiumoccurred in an irrevocably altered atmosphere. Some participants distanced themselves fromAntik, fearing association; others offered subtle solidarity despite official demands for silence. The events resumed with presentations and a closing party where tension slightly eased,[55] but the interruption had exposedthefragilityofevenperipheral culturalopenings.The cellar had enabled radical expression while simultaneously proving that no space, however hidden or distant from power centers, existed beyond the regime's reach. The DreamDid Not Die tested the boundaries of the permissible to their breaking point, creating work possible only in such architectural and political circumstances, until those same circumstances led to its ending. The performance revealed both the necessity and the limits of underground spaces in late-socialist Romania. They provided essential territories for experimentation, yet remained vulnerable to penetration and suppression. The dream persisted not despite, but because of this contradiction, testifying to why such spaces and actions remained vital even when they could not be sustained. Conclusion: Ephemeral Bodies, Enduring Spaces The three basement performances examined in this study, Jerzy Bereś's Prophecy II in Kraków 1968, the collaborative The Lunch - In Memoriam Batu Kán in Budapest 1966 by Tamás Szentjóby, Gábor Altorjay and Miklós Erdély, and Alexandru Antik's The Dream Did Not Die in Sibiu 1986, reveal how underground spaces functioned as more than mere venues of convenience during the Cold War era. The architectural features of these cellars were inseparable elements from the conceptual frameworks of the actions they housed. The physical descent into darkness enacted a symbolic departure from the surveilled world of official culture, creating temporary autonomous zones where alternative realities could be briefly inhabited. Across all three case studies, the basement's inherent qualities, such as the concealment, separation, intimacy and constraint, shaped both the phenomenological experience of the performances and their political significance. The KrzysztoforyGallerybasementinKrakówprovidedthesensory intensity necessary for Bereś's ritualistic manifestation, symbolising sacrifice and social awakening. The medieval cellar in Budapest, amplified the visceral chaos of the happening,while creatinga liminal zonewherenormal social rulesweresuspended. Finally, thePharmacyMuseum’scellar in Sibiu, also a historic, 16th century sight, provided a divided area with an outer room and inner cell, which materialized the divided condition of the individual under authoritarian rule, with its barred window transforming spectators into complicit witnesses of suffering, who could observe, but not prevent. These underground locations embodied what theoreticians termed gray spaces , or the third space , areas colonized by art rather than designated for it, operating ambiguously between official public culture and private domestic life. As such, the underground afforded artists a bit more freedom from ideological constraint and institutional norms, that were governing conventional exhibition practices. This feeling of liberation was manifested most significantly in the experimental and alternative nature of the creative act. There was no need to produce a finite or archivable work of art. On the contrary, temporary actions, marked by the bodies of the performers represented unconstrained art manifestations in the underground. The ephemeral basement performances only remained in the memories of those present and in fragmentary documentation that circulated through underground networks. Their value lay precisely in their temporality, in their refusal to become commodified or institutionalized. The human body emerged as the crucial medium in these confined underground spaces. Whether Bereś standing atop a pyre, Erdély and Altorjay eating and vomiting at a cellar table, or Antik throwing himself against cell walls, the performing body activated the space and implicated viewers in the action. These temporary bodies showcased vulnerability, suffering, and defiance, functioning as activating tools for audiences and social movement. The symbolismwasclear: inPoland,movement versusstillness; in Hungary, transformation versus stasis; in Romania, dreaming versus awakening.Within the architectural constraints, these bodily actions carried heightened significance, embodying both the physical and psychological constraints of life under authoritarianism and the transgressive potential of refusing those constraints. This study also reveals the limits of underground spaces. All three performances encountered or operated within the shadow of surveillance and censorship. The Krakow manifestation took place on the day of a violent protest suppression, the Budapest happening precipitated immediate crackdowns on subsequent events which resulted in a shift towards peripheral cultural zones, and the Sibiu performance was actually stopped by the authorities summoned by an anonymous audience member. These interruptions demonstrate that no space, however hidden or peripheral, existed entirely beyond the regime's reach. The cellars provided essential territory for radical experimentation, but that territory remained contested and precarious. The persistence of these performances in the collective memory of limited circles testifies their enduring significance. Their continuity remains documented in samizdat publications, and referrences such the „Sibiu Phenomenon” as Magda Cârneci stated, or the legacy of Osieki plein air art camps. The basements may have been spaces for temporary bodies performing temporary actions, but their impact was long-lasting. They demonstrated what became possible when artists claimed marginal spaces and transformed them into sites of radical presence. In doing so, they established a model for underground artistic practice that resonated throughout Eastern Europe and continues to inform our understanding of how art functions under repressive conditions. The underground time-space continuum referenced in this study's title operates on multiple registers: the literal underground of basements and cellars, the metaphorical underground of unofficial culture, the temporal dimension of ephemeral performances, and the spatial dimension of gray spaces operating outside institutional frameworks. These basement performances existed at the intersection of all these meanings, creating brief openings where alternative realities could be glimpsed before the weight of authoritarian control reasserted itself. The dream, as Alexandru Antik proclaimed, did not die, it simply retreated in the underground, waiting in cellars and basements for the next opportunity to emerge. NOTE / END NOTES [1] Mădălina Brașoveanu, O singurătate destul de zgomotoasă , Editura Idea, Cluj-Napoca, 2022, pp. 244-255 [2] Ferreira Gullar, „Theory of the Non-Object, 1959”, re-published in Marta Dziewanska, Dieter Roelstraete, Abigail Winograd (eds.), The Other Trans-Atlantic. Kinetic and Op Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America , Books N 14, Warsaw, 2017, pp. 321-324 [3] Edward W. Soja, „Thirdspace: Expanding the Scope of the Geographical Imagination”, in Human Geography Today , Polity Press, Cambridge, 1999, pp. 265-269 [4] Mădălina Brașoveanu, op. cit. , pp. 244-255 [5] ***, „Jerzy Bereś”, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/jerzy- beres [6] Ibidem [7] Ibidem [8] Ibidem [9] ***, „Wladyslaw Hasior och Jerzy Bereś Av Jerzy Bereś, Wladyslaw Hasior”, interview given by Jerzy Bereś in 1972 in Sweden, digitized by Anneli Karlsson, Södertälje Konsthalls Archive, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://www.sodertaljekonsthall.se/exhibitions/wladyslaw- hasior-och-jerzy-beres/ ***, „Jerzy Bereś (1930-2012)- Sculptor and Actionist. A Student of the Eminent Sculptor Xawery Dunikowski”, CC Maria Pinińska-Bereś and Jerzy Bereś Foundation, 2022, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://beresfoundation.pl/o-nim/ [10] ***, „Jerzy Bereś”, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/jerzy- beres [11] Agata Jakubowska, „Ambiguous Liberation: The Early Works of Maria Pinińska-Bereś”, in Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History , no. 83:2, 2014, pp. 168-182 [12] ***, „Jerzy Bereś (1930-2012)- sculptor and actionist. A student of the eminent sculptor Xawery Dunikowski”, CC Maria Pinińska-Bereś and Jerzy Bereś Foundation, 2022, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://beresfoundation.pl/o-nim/ [13] Ibidem [14] Klara Kemp-Welch, Antipolitics in Central European Art. Reticence as Dissidence under Post- Totalitarian Rule 1956-1989 , Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2014, pp. 227-229 [15] ***, „Wladyslaw Hasior och Jerzy Bereś Av Jerzy Bereś, Wladyslaw Hasior”, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://www.sodertaljekonsthall.se/exhibitions/wladyslaw-hasior-och-jerzy- beres/ [16] Jerzy Hanusek, „O polityczności sztuki Jerzego beresia na tle Politycznym”, in Sztuka i dokumentacja , nr. 16, 2017, p. 64 [17] Edit Sasvári, „Autonómia és kettős beszéd a hatvanas–hetvenes években”, in Edit Sasvári, Sándor Hornyik, Turai Hedvig (coord.), Művészet Magyarországon 1956-1980, Túl a kettősbeszéden , Vince Kiadó, Budapest, 2018, pp. 8-21 [18] Boros Géza, “Tabu és trauma: 1956”, in Edit Sasvári, Sándor Hornyik, Turai Hedvig (coord.), Művészet Magyarországon 1956-1980, Túl a kettősbeszéden , Vince Kiadó, Budapest, 2018, pp. 193-205 [19] Ibidem [20] Maja Fowkes, „Off the Record: Performative Practices in the Hungarian Neo-avant-garde and their Resonances in Contemporary Art”, in Centropa , no. 14.1, 2014, pp. 57-71 [21] Maja Fowkes, The Green Block, Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism , CEU Press, Budapest, 2015, p. 63 [22] Maja Fowkes, op. cit. , 2014, pp. 57-71 [23] Éva Forgács, Tyrus Miller, „The Avant-Garde in Budapest and the Exile in Vienna”, Peter Brooker, Sascha Bru, Andrew Thacker, Christian Weikop (eds.), in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines , Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013, pp. 1128-1156 [24] Dóra Hegyi, Zsuzsa László, „ [transit.hu] in conversation with Támas St. Auby”, in Hegyi- László, The Invisible History of Exhibitions , WHW Publishing, Zagreb, 2009, p. 38 [25] Beata Hock, „What was Aided, Rejected, Tolerated in Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s”, Lecture held at the Actinart - Symposium and Workshop , in the Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, 2001 [26] György Galántai, Júlia Klaniczay, Artpool Experimental Art Archive of Eastern Europe, Erste Stiftung, Budapest, 2013, p. 11 [27] Dora Hegyi, Sandor Hornyik, Zsuzsa Laszlo (eds.), Paralell Chronologies - Invisible History of Exhibitions Newspaper , tranzit.hu Publisher, Budapest, 2011, p. 16 [28] Maja Fowkes, op. cit. , 2014, pp. 57-71 [29] ***, „Tilos Művészet 1966-1988 [Prohibited Art] – c3’s archive of secret agent reports on progressive art events”, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://tranzit.org/exhibitionarchive/ texts/agent-report/ [30] Maja Fowkes, op. cit , 2014, pp. 60-65 [31] ***, „Tilos Művészet 1966-1988 [Prohibited Art] – c3’s archive of secret agent reports on progressive art events”, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://tranzit.org/exhibitionarchive/ texts/agent-report/ [32] Katalin Cseh Varga, op. cit. , pp. 184-187. [33] Ibidem [34] György Galántai, Júlia Klaniczay, op. cit. , pp. 11-14. [35] ***, „Tilos Művészet 1966-1988 [Prohibited Art] – c3’s archive of secret agent reports on progressive art events”, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://tranzit.org/exhibitionarchive/ texts/agent-report/ [36] Magda Cârneci, Arta in Romania 1945 - 2000 , Polirom, Pitești, 2013, pp. 97-100 [37] Magda Cârneci, „The 80s in Romanian Art”, in Alexandra Titu (ed.), Experiment in Romanian Art After 1960 , CSAC, Bucharest, 1997, pp. 52-67 [38] Alexandru Antik, Articole, interviuri, studii , IDEA Design & Print, Cluj, 2018, p. 114 [39] Idem , pp. 115-118 [40] Ibidem [41] Caterina Preda, „The Aesthetic Surveillance of Performance Art by the Romanian Securitate in the 1970s and 1980s”, in Third Text , Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, Vol. 35, Issue 3, 2021, p. 7 [42] Sebestyén Székely, “Laurenţiu Ruţă: The Performance, Sibiu, 1986”, November 2018, Institutul Prezentului, last accessed on November 26 at URL: https://institutulprezentului.ro/en/2018/11/08/ laurentiu-ruta-the-performance-sibiu-1986/#_ftn8 [43] Cristian Nae, „Basements, attics, streets and courtyards”, in Katalin Cseh-Varga & Adam Czirak, Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere , Routledge, 2018, pp. 83-84. [44] Idem , pp. 119-121 [45] Ibidem [46] Adrian Guță, „Riders on the Storm- Performance Art in Romania between 1986 și 1996”, in Alexandra Titu (ed.), Experiment in Romanian Art After 1960 , CSAC, Bucharest, 1997, pp. 78-95 [47] Alexandru Antik, op. cit. , p. 120 [48] Caterina Preda, op. cit. , pp. 7-10 [49] Ibidem [50] Adrian Guță, op. cit. , pp. 84-85 [51] Idem , pp. 82-83 [52] Caterina Preda, op. cit. , pp. 7-10 [53] Adrian Guță, op. cit. , pp. 84-85 [54] Ibidem [55] Alexandru Antik, op. cit. , pp. 120-121 323 322 / / / / Caiete de Arte și Design / nr. 13 / 2025 / / / / Publicație a Centrului de Cercetare și Creație în Artele Decorative și Design / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /