The Arms That Shook the System: Kovanda, Havel, and the Art of Disobedience

Prague, 1976. One man. Arms wide open. A crowdthat won’t come near. In this episode of The Bigger Picture, Dr Peter Tuka dives into Czech conceptual art and Eastern European performance art through Jiří Kovanda’s action art on Wenceslas Square — an experiment in public space, body politics, and everyday resistance under state surveillance inCommunist Czechoslovakia’s Normalization era (Cold War, Soviet bloc). With photographic documentation as our evidence, we connect art under communism to dissident culture via Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless, post-totalitarianism, self-censorship, and “living in truth.” Press play for art history with political bite and follow for more Central and Eastern European art stories.Jiří Kovanda, Untitled, 19th November 1976, black and white photographMark Carney's speech at the World Economic Forum, davos, January 2026In the next episode:Nikita Gashunin, The Fly, 1991, assembled sculpture, Glasgow Museums Instagram : ⁠https://www.instagram.com/thebiggerpicture.arthistory/⁠