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Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a public in a
fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwor ...
context in an interdisciplinary mode. Also known as ''artistic action'', it has been developed through the years as a genre of its own in which art is presented live. It had an important and fundamental role in 20th century
avant-garde art The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, Wikt:radical#Adjective, radical, or unorthodox with respect to The arts, art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Av ...
. It involves four basic elements: time, space, body, and presence of the artist, and the relation between the creator and the public. The actions, generally developed in art galleries and museums, can take place in the street, any kind of setting or space and during any time period. Its goal is to generate a reaction, sometimes with the support of improvisation and a sense of aesthetics. The themes are commonly linked to life experiences of the artist themselves, or the need of denunciation or social criticism and with a spirit of transformation. The term "performance art" and "performance" became widely used in the 1970s, even though the history of performance in visual arts dates back to futurist productions and cabarets from the 1910s. The main pioneers of performance art include Carolee Schneemann,
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
, Ana Mendieta, Chris Burden, Hermann Nitsch,
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
, Nam June Paik, Tehching Hsieh, Yves Klein and
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...
. Some of the main exponents more recently are Tania Bruguera,
Abel Azcona Abel Azcona (born 1 April 1988) is a Spanish artist, specializing in performance art. His work includes installations, sculptures, and video art. He is known as the "''enfant terrible''" of Spanish contemporary art. His first works dealt with ...
, Regina José Galindo, Marta Minujín and
Petr Pavlensky Pyotr (or Petr) Andreyevich Pavlensky (russian: link=no, Пётр Андреевич Павленский; born 8 March 1984) is a Russian contemporary artist. He is known for his controversial political art performances, which he calls "events of ...
. The discipline is linked to '' happening'', the
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
movement, body art and
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called inst ...
.


Definition

The definition and historical and pedagogical contextualization of performance art is controversial. One of the handicaps comes from the term itself, which is polysemic, and one of its meanings relates to the scenic arts. This meaning of performance in the scenic arts context is opposite to the meaning of performance art, since performance art emerged with a critical and antagonistic position towards scenic arts. Performance art only adjoins the scenic arts in certain aspects such as the audience and the present body, and still not every performance art piece contains these elements. The meaning of the term in the narrower sense is related to postmodernist traditions in Western culture. From about the mid-1960s into the 1970s, often derived from concepts of visual art, with respect to
Antonin Artaud Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...
,
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
, the Situationists,
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
,
installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...
, and
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called inst ...
, performance art tended to be defined as an
antithesis Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introduced together f ...
to theatre, challenging orthodox art forms and cultural norms. The ideal had been an ephemeral and authentic experience for performer and audience in an event that could not be repeated, captured or purchased. The widely discussed difference, how concepts of visual arts and concepts of performing arts are used, can determine the meanings of a performance art presentation. Performance art is a term usually reserved to refer to a conceptual art which conveys a content-based meaning in a more drama-related sense, rather than being simple performance for its own sake for entertainment purposes. It largely refers to a performance presented to an audience, but which does not seek to present a conventional theatrical play or a formal linear narrative, or which alternately does not seek to depict a set of fictitious characters in formal scripted interactions. It therefore can include action or spoken word as a communication between the artist and audience, or even ignore expectations of an audience, rather than following a script written beforehand. Some types of performance art nevertheless can be close to performing arts. Such performance may use a script or create a fictitious dramatic setting, but still constitute performance art in that it does not seek to follow the usual dramatic norm of creating a fictitious setting with a linear script which follows conventional real-world dynamics; rather, it would intentionally seek to satirize or to transcend the usual real-world dynamics which are used in conventional theatrical plays. Performance artists often challenge the audience to think in new and unconventional ways, break conventions of traditional arts, and break down conventional ideas about "what art is". As long as the performer does not become a player who repeats a role, performance art can include satirical elements; use robots and machines as performers, as in pieces of the
Survival Research Laboratories Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) is an American performance art group that pioneered the genre of large-scale machine performance. Founded in 1978 by Mark Pauline, the group is known in particular for their performances where custom-built mac ...
; involve ritualised elements (e.g.
Shaun Caton Shaun Caton is a British performance artist and painter, who has created over 280 live performances worldwide since the early 1980s. Often characterised by extreme duration (some performances have lasted 3 weeks) or brevity (some performan ...
); or borrow elements of any performing arts such as dance, music, and
circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and uni ...
. Some artists, e.g. the
Viennese Actionists Viennese Actionism was a short-lived art movement in the late 20th-century that spanned the 1960s into the 1970s. It is regarded as part of the independent efforts made during the 1960s to develop the issues of performance art, Fluxus, happening, ...
and neo-Dadaists, prefer to use the terms "live art", "action art", "actions", "intervention" (see
art intervention Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience, venue/space or situation. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada mov ...
) or "manoeuvre" to describe their performing activities. As genres of performance art appear body art, fluxus-performance, happening,
action poetry Action poetry is a form of poetry that is fierce, unpredictable, and full of energy. It is meant to be read aloud with emphasis and feelings to exhibit the true emotions of the poems. This form of poetry can be found in murals, books, and poetic c ...
, and intermedia.


Origins

Performance art is a form of expression that was born as an alternative artistic manifestation. The discipline emerged in 1916 parallel to dadaism, under the umbrella of conceptual art. The movement was led by Tristan Tzara, one of the pioneers of
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
. Western culture theorists have set the origins of performance art in the beginnings of the 20th century, along with constructivism,
Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...
and Dadaism. Dada was an important inspiration because of their poetry actions, which drifted apart from conventionalisms, and futurist artists, specially some members of Russian futurism, could also be identified as part of the starting process of performance art.


Cabaret Voltaire

The Cabaret Voltaire was founded in Zurich, Switzerland by the couple Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings for artistic and political purposes, and was a place where new tendencies were explored. Located on the upper floor of a theater, whose exhibitions they mocked in their shows, the works interpreted in the cabaret were avant garde and experimental. It is thought that the Dada movement was founded in the ten-meter-square locale. Moreover, Surrealists, whose movement descended directly from Dadaism, used to meet in the Cabaret. On its brief existence—barely six months, closing the summer of 1916—the Dadaist Manifesto was read and it held the first Dada actions, performances, and hybrid poetry, plastic art, music and repetitive action presentations. Founders such as Richard Huelsenbeck,
Marcel Janco Marcel Janco (, ; common rendition of the Romanian name Marcel Hermann Iancu ; 24 May 1895 – 21 April 1984) was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect and art theorist. He was the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Cons ...
, Tristan Tzara, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Jean Arp participated in provocative and scandalous events that were fundamental and the basis of the foundation for the anarchist movement called Dada. Dadaism was born with the intention of destroying any system or established norm in the art world. It is an anti-art movement, anti-literary and anti-poetry, that questioned the existence of art, literature and poetry itself. Not only was it a way of creating, but of living; it created a whole new ideology. It was against eternal beauty, the eternity of principles, the laws of logic, the immobility of thought and clearly against anything universal. It promoted change, spontaneity, immediacy, contradiction, randomness and the defense of chaos against the order and imperfection against perfection, ideas similar to those of performance art. They stood for provocation, anti-art protest and scandal, through ways of expression many times satirical and ironic. The absurd or lack of value and the chaos protagonized their breaking actions with traditional artistic form.De Micheli, Mario: ''Le Avanguardie artistiche del Novecento'', 1959. Cabaret Voltaire closed in 1916, but was revived in the 21st century.


Futurism

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...
was an artistic
avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
movement that appeared in 1909. It first started as a literary movement, even though most of the participants were painters. In the beginning it also included sculpture, photography, music and cinema. The First World War put an end to the movement, even though in Italy it went on until the 1930s. One of the countries where it had the most impact was Russia. In 1912 manifestos such as the ''Futurist Sculpture Manifesto'' and the ''Futurist Architecture'' arose, and in 1913 the ''Manifesto of Futurist Lust'' by Valentine de Saint-Point, dancer, writer and French artist. The futurists spread their theories through encounters, meetings and conferences in public spaces, that got close to the idea of a political concentration, with poetry and music-halls, which anticipated performance art.


Bauhaus

The
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 2 ...
, founded in Weimar in 1919, included an experimental performing arts workshops with the goal of exploring the relationship between the body, space, sound and light. The
Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educatio ...
, founded in the United States by instructors of the original Bauhaus who were exiled by the Nazi Party, continued incorporating experimental performing arts in the scenic arts training twenty years before the events related to the history of performance in the 1960s. The name Bauhaus derives from the German words Bau, ''construction'' and Haus, ''house''; ironically, despite its name and the fact that his founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department the first years of its existence.


Action painting

In the 1940s and 1950s, the action painting technique or movement gave artists the possibility of interpreting the canvas as an area to act in, rendering the paintings as traces of the artist's performance in the studio According to art critic Harold Rosenberg, it was one of the initiating processes of performance art, along with abstract expressionism.
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a ho ...
is the action painter par excellence, who carried out many of his actions live. Names to be highlighted are
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter ...
and
Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert M ...
, whose work include abstract and action painting.


Nouveau réalisme

Nouveau réalisme is another one of the artistic movements cited in the beginnings of performance art. It was a painting movement founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany and painter Yves Klein, during the first collective exhibition in the Apollinaire Gallery in Milan. Nouveau réalisme was, along with Fluxus and other groups, one of the many avant garde tendencies of the 1960s. Pierre Restany created various performance art assemblies in the
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
, amongst other spaces. Yves Klein is one of the main exponents of the movement. He was a clear pioneer of performance art, with his conceptual pieces like ''Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle'' (1959–62), ''Anthropométries'' (1960), and the photomontage ''Saut dans le vide''. All his works have a connection with performance art, as they are created as a live action, like his best-known artworks of paintings created with the bodies of women. The members of the group saw the world as an image, from which they took parts and incorporated them into their work; they sought to bring life and art closer together.


Gutai

One of the other movements that anticipated performance art was the Japanese movement Gutai, who made action art or happening. It emerged in 1955 in the region of
Kansai The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolitan ...
( Kyōto,
Ōsaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population o ...
, Kōbe). The main participants were Jirō Yoshihara, Sadamasa Motonaga, Shozo Shimamoto, Saburō Murakami, Katsuō Shiraga, Seichi Sato, Akira Ganayama and Atsuko Tanaka. The Gutai group arose after World War II. They rejected capitalist consumerism, carrying out ironic actions with latent aggressiveness (object breaking, actions with smoke). They influenced groups such as Fluxus and artists like
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
and Wolf Vostell.


Land art and performance

In the late 1960s, diverse
land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
artists such as
Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...
or Dennis Oppenheim created environmental pieces that preceded performance art in the 1970s. Works by conceptual artists from the early 1980s, such as
Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pre ...
, who made mural drawing into a performance act, were influenced by Yves Klein and other land art artists. Land art is a
contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...
movement in which the landscape and the artwork are deeply bound. It uses nature as a material (wood, soil, rocks, sand, wind, fire, water, etc.) to intervene on itself. The artwork is generated with the place itself as a starting point. The result is sometimes a junction between sculpture and architecture, and sometimes a junction between sculpture and landscaping that is increasingly taking a more determinant role in contemporary public spaces. When incorporating the artist's body in the creative process, it acquires similarities with the beginnings of performance art. File:Valentine de Saint-Point 1914 (2).jpg, Portrait of Valentine de Saint-Point in the space of creation File:1916 Olga Rozanova oblozhka Zaumnaya kniga.jpg, Intervened cover by Russian Futurist Olga Rozanova (1912) File:Willem de Kooning in his studio.jpg, Portrait of
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter ...
,
action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
painter in his studio File:Gutai_Venice1.jpg, Installation by Gutai Group, in the 2009
Venice Biennial The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
File:Blickachsen-7--23-dennis-oppenheim-hg-004.jpg, Installation by Dennis Oppenheim in Hesse, Germany File:Spiral Jetty Smithson Laramee.jpg,
Land art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
work by
Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...
File:Restany-Brajo-Verdet1972web.jpg, Portrait of Pierre Restany in one of his openings File:Klein Beaubourg 2007.jpg, Freeing of 1001 blue balloons, "sculpture aérostatique" by Yves Klein


1960s

In the 1960s, with the purpose of evolving the generalized idea of art and with similar principles of those originary from Cabaret Voltaire or
Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...
, a variety of new works, concepts and a growing number of artists led to new kinds of performance art. Movements clearly differentiated from Viennese Actionism,
avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
performance art in New York City, process art, the evolution of The Living Theatre or happening, but most of all the consolidation of the pioneers of performance art.


Viennese actionism

The term Viennese Actionism (''Wiener Aktionismus'') comprehends a brief and controversial art movement of the 20th century, which is remembered for the violence, grotesque and visual of their artworks. It is located in the Austrian vanguard of the 1960s, and it had the goal of bringing art to the ground of performance art, and is linked to Fluxus and Body Art. Amongst their main exponents are Günter Brus,
Otto Muehl Otto Muehl (16 June 1925 – 26 May 2013) was an Austrian artist, who was known as one of the co-founders as well as a main participant of Viennese Actionism and for founding the Friedrichshof Commune. In 1943, Muehl had to serve in the German ...
and Hermann Nitsch, who developed most of their actionist activities between 1960 and 1971. Hermann Nitsch presented in 1962 his ''Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries'' (Orgien und Mysterien Theater), pioneer of performance art, close to scenic arts.


New York and avant-garde performance

In the early 1960s, New York City harbored many movements, events end interests regarding performance art. Amongst others,
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
began creating films and videos, and mid decade he sponsored
The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. The original line-up consisted of singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise. MacL ...
and staged events and performative actions in New York, such as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966), that included live rock music, explosive lights and films.


The Living Theatre

Indirectly influential for art-world performance, particularly in the United States, were new forms of theatre, embodied by the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Living Theatre and showcased in Off-Off Broadway theaters in SoHO and at La MaMa in New York City. The Living Theatre is a theater company created in 1947 in New York. It is the oldest experimental theatre in the United States. Throughout its history it has been led by its founders: actress Judith Malina, who had studies theatre with Erwin Piscator, with whom she studied
Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a ...
's and Meyerhold's theory; and painter and poet Julian Beck. After Beck's death in 1985, the company member Hanon Reznikov became co-director along with Malina. Because it is one of the oldest random theatre or live theatre groups nowadays, it is looked upon by the rest. They understood theatre as a way of life, and the actors lived in a community under libertary principles. It was a theatre campaign dedicated to transformation of the power organization of an authoritarian society and hierarchical structure. The Living Theatre chiefly toured in Europe between 1963 and 1968, and in the U.S. in 1968. A work of this period, ''Paradise Now'', was notorious for its audience participation and a scene in which actors recited a list of social taboos that included nudity, while disrobing.


Fluxus

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
, a Latin word that means ''flow'', is a visual arts movement related to music, literature, and dance. Its most active moment was in the 1960s and 1970s. They proclaimed themselves against the traditional artistic object as a commodity and declared themselves a sociological art movement. Fluxus was informally organized in 1962 by
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
(1931–1978). This movement had representation in Europe, the United States and Japan. The Fluxus movement, mostly developed in North America and Europe under the stimulus of John Cage, did not see the avant-garde as a linguistic renovation, but it sought to make a different use of the main art channels that separate themselves from specific language; it tries to be interdisciplinary and to adopt mediums and materials from different fields. Language is not the goal, but the mean for a renovation of art, seen as a global art. As well as
Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
, Fluxus escaped any attempt for a definition or categorization. As one of the movement's founders, Dick Higgins, stated:
Fluxus started with the work, and then came together, applying the name Fluxus to work which already existed. It was as if it started in the middle of the situation, rather than at the beginning.
Robert Filliou Robert Filliou (17 January 1926 – 2 December 1987) was a French artist associated with Fluxus, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro. Life In 1943, Filliou became a member of the French Communis ...
places Fluxus opposite to conceptual art for its direct, immediate and urgent reference to everyday life, and turns around Duchamp's proposal, who starting from
Ready-made A readymade ( found object) is a piece of art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects or products that are not normally considered art. Readymade may also refer to: * Prefabrication, the practice of assembling components in a factor ...
, introduced the daily into art, whereas Fluxus dissolved art into the daily, many times with small actions or performances. John Cage was an American composer, music theorist, artist, and philosopher. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music,
electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instr ...
, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of
modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...
, mostly through his association with choreographer
Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.


Process art

Process art is an artistic movement where the end product of ''art'' and ''craft'', the '' objet d’art'' (
work of art A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
/ found object), is not the principal focus; the process of its making is one of the most relevant aspects if not the most important one: the gathering, sorting, collating, associating, patterning, and moreover the initiation of actions and proceedings. Process artists saw art as pure human expression. Process art defends the idea that the process of creating the work of art can be an art piece itself. Artist Robert Morris predicated "anti-form", ''process'' and ''time '' over an objectual finished product.


Happening

Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort in ''The New Media Reader'', "The term 'Happening' has been used to describe many performances and events, organized by Allan Kaprow and others during the 1950s and 1960s, including a number of theatrical productions that were traditionally scripted and invited only limited audience interaction." A ''happening'' allows the artist to experiment with the movement of the body, recorded sounds, written and talked texts, and even smells. One of Kaprow's first works was ''Happenings in the New York Scene'', written in 1961. Allan Kaprow's happenings turned the public into interpreters. Often the spectators became an active part of the act without realizing it. Other actors who created ''happenings'' were
Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, ...
,
Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
, ''Robert Whitman'' and Wolf Vostell: ''Theater is in the Street'' (Paris, 1958).


Main artists

The works by performance artists after 1968 showed many times influences from the political and cultural situation that year. Barbara T. Smith with ''Ritual Meal'' (1969) was at the vanguard of body and scenic feminist art in the seventies, which included, amongst others, Carolee Schneemann and Joan Jonas. These, along with
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
,
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
, Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell,
Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well a ...
,
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...
, Chris Burden and Dennis Oppenheim were pioneers in the relationship between body art and performance art, as well as the Zaj collective in Spain with Esther Ferrer and Juan Hidalgo. Barbara Smith is an artist and United States activist. She is one of the main African-American exponents of
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
and
LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term i ...
activism in the United States. In the beginning of the 1970s she worked as a teacher, writer and defender of the black feminism current. She has taught at numerous colleges and universities in the last five years. Smith's essays, reviews, articles, short stories and literary criticism have appeared in a range of publications, including ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'', ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
'' and ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
''.Smith, Barbara, interview by Loretta Ross, transcript of video recording, May 7, 2003
Voices of Feminism Oral History Project
Sophia Smith Collection, p. 2.
Carolee Schneemann was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative,
sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied wi ...
and
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...
. She created pieces such as ''Meat Joy'' (1964) and ''Interior Scroll'' (1975). Schneemann considered her body a surface for work. She described herself as a "painter who has left the canvas to activate the real space and the lived time." Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of
video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
and performance art, who is one of the most important female artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Faculty: Joan Jonas
ACT at MIT – MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology.
Jonas' projects and experiments provided the foundation on which much video performance art would be based. Her influences also extended to
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called inst ...
, theatre, performance art and other visual media. She lives and works in New York and Nova Scotia, Canada."Joan Jonas: Biography"
, Electronic Arts Intermix, Retrieved June 6, 2020.
Immersed in New York's downtown art scene of the 1960s, Jonas studied with the choreographer Trisha Brown for two years. Jonas also worked with choreographers Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton.
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
was part of the avant-garde movement of the 1960s. She was part of the Fluxus movement. She is known for her performance art pieces in the late 1960s, works such as ''Cut Piece'', where visitors could intervene in her body until she was left naked. One of her best known pieces is ''Wall piece for orchestra'' (1962).
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
was a German Fluxus, happening, performance artist, painter, sculptor, medallist and
installation artist Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...
. In 1962 his actions alongside the Fluxus neodadaist movement started, group in which he ended up becoming the most important member. His most relevant achievement was his socialization of art, making it more accessible for every kind of public. In ''How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare'' (1965) he covered his face with honey and gold leaf and explained his work to a dead hare that lay in his arms. In this work he linked spacial and sculptural, linguistic and sonorous factors to the artist's figure, to his bodily gesture, to the conscience of a communicator whose receptor is an animal. Beuys acted as a shaman with healing and saving powers toward the society that he considered dead. In 1974 he carried out the performance ''
I Like America and America Likes Me ''I Like America and America Likes Me'', also known as ''Coyote'', was a 1974 performance by conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. Description In 1974, the German conceptual artist landed in a New York City airport whereupon assistants wrapped h ...
'' where Beuys, a coyote and materials such as paper, felt and thatch constituted the vehicle for its creation. He lived with the coyote for three days. He piled United States newspapers, a symbol of capitalism. With time, the tolerance between Beuys and the coyote grew and he ended up hugging the animal. Beuys repeats many elements used in other works. Objects that differ form Duchamp's ready-mades, not for their poor and ephemerality, but because they are part of Beuys's own life, who placed them after living with them and leaving his mark on them. Many have an autobiographical meaning, like the honey or the grease used by the tartars who saved in World War Two. In 1970 he made his ''Felt Suit''. Also in 1970, Beuys taught sculpture in the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. In 1979, the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
of New York City exhibited a retrospective of his work from the 1940s to 1970. File:Barbara Smith at NWSA 2017.jpg, Portrait of Barbara Smith File:2012 Yoko Ono (8170166921).jpg, Conference by
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
in the Viena Biennial, 2012 File:Yoko Ono at John Lennon Plaque Unveiling (5107729471).jpg, Portrait of
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
File:CaroleeSchneemann2008.jpg, Video art piece from the Brooklyn Museum with an interview with Carolee Schneemann File:Joan Jonas Vertical Roll.jpg, Joan Jonas during a performance documented on video and installed, 1972 File:Joan Jonas (4518929754).jpg, Portrait of artist Joan Jonas File:BeuysAchberg78.jpg, Portrait of
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
in a conference-performance, 1978 File:Joseph Beuys Filtz TV by Lothar Wolleh.jpg,
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
in a video art piece
Nam June Paik was a South Korean performance artist, composer and video artist from the second half of the 20th century. He studied music and art history in the University of Tokyo. Later, in 1956, he traveled to Germany, where he studied Music Theory in Munich, then continued in Cologne in the Freiburg conservatory. While studying in Germany, Paik met the composers
Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...
and John Cage and the
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called inst ...
ists Sharon Grace as well as
George Maciunas George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...
,
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
and Wolf Vostell and was from 1962 on, a member of the experimental art movement
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
. Nam June Paik then began participating in the Neo-Dada art movement, known as
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
, which was inspired by the composer John Cage and his use of everyday sounds and noises in his music. He was mates with
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
as a member of
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
. Wolf Vostell was a German artist, one of the most representative of the second half of the 20th century, who worked with various mediums and techniques sucha as painting, sculpture, installation, decollage, video art, happening and
fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
.
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...
was an influential American performance, video and
installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...
ist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational performance and video art was characterized by "existential unease," exhibitionism, discomfort, transgression and provocation, as well as wit and audacity, and often involved crossing boundaries such as public–private, consensual–nonconsensual, and real world–art world. His work is considered to have influenced artists including
Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...
,
Karen Finley Karen Finley (born 1956) is an American performance artist, musician and poet. Her performance art, recordings, and books are used as forms of activism. Her work frequently uses nudity and profanity. Finley incorporates depictions of sexuality, ...
, Bruce Nauman, and Tracey Emin, among others. Acconci was initially interested in radical poetry, but by the late 1960s, he began creating Situationist-influenced performances in the street or for small audiences that explored the body and public space. Two of his most famous pieces were ''Following Piece'' (1969), in which he selected random passersby on New York City streets and followed them for as long as he was able, and '' Seedbed'' (1972), in which he claimed that he masturbated while under a temporary floor at the Sonnabend Gallery, as visitors walked above and heard him speaking. Chris Burden was an American artist working in
performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...
, sculpture and
installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...
. Burden became known in the 1970s for his performance art works, including '' Shoot'' (1971), in which he arranged for a friend to shoot him in the arm with a small-caliber rifle. A prolific artist, Burden created many well-known installations, public artworks and sculptures before his death in 2015. Burden began to work in performance art in the early 1970s. He made a series of controversial performances in which the idea of personal danger as artistic expression was central. His first significant performance work, ''
Five Day Locker Piece ''Five Day Locker Piece'' was a 1971 performance by Chris Burden in which he stayed in a student locker for five days as part of his UC Irvine Master's thesis. Description For his UC Irvine Master of Fine Arts thesis, performance artist Chris B ...
'' (1971), was created for his master's thesis at the University of California, Irvine, and involved his being locked in a locker for five days.Work Ethic
by Helen Anne Molesworth, M. Darsie Alexander, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Baltimore Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Wexner Center for the Arts; published 2003 by
Penn State Press The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, was established in 1956 and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State Uni ...
Dennis Oppenheim was an American
conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called inst ...
ist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photographer. Dennis Oppenheim's early artistic practice is an epistemological questioning about the nature of art, the making of art and the definition of art: a meta-art which arose when strategies of the Minimalists were expanded to focus on site and context. As well as an aesthetic agenda, the work progressed from perceptions of the physical properties of the gallery to the social and political context, largely taking the form of permanent public sculpture in the last two decades of a highly prolific career, whose diversity could exasperate his critics.Simon Taylor, ''Dennis Oppenheim, New Works'', Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY: 2001. Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who, throughout her career, has worked with a great variety of media including:sculpture, installation, painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts; the majority of them exhibited her interest in psychedelia, repetition and patterns. Kusama is a pioneer of the pop art, minimalism and feminist art movements and influenced her coetaneous,
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
and
Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan and a very relevant voice in avant garde art. File:Korea-Nam June Paik-One hundread-and-eight Tourments.jpg, Video-installation-performance by Nam June Paik in 2008 File:"Perpetual Mobile I" within "Fish Flies On Sky".jpg, Video-installation-performance by Nam June Paik in Düsseldorf File:Wolf Vostell, 1980 in Spain.jpg, Portrait of Wolf Vostell in 1980 File:Allan Kaprow.jpg, Portrait of
Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well a ...
in 1973 File:Vito1973.jpg,
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...
during a video-performance in 1973 File:Vito acconci, multi bed -1, 1992.jpg, Installation by
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...
in the Luigi Pecci Contemporary Art Centre File:Dennis Oppenheim "Engagement" Vancouver Sulpture Biennale (5086405361).jpg, Installation by Dennis Oppenheim in the Vancouver Sculpture Biennial


1970s

In the 1970s, artists that had derived to works related to performance art evolved and consolidated themselves as artists with performance art as their main discipline, deriving into installations created through performance, video performance, or collective actions, or in the context of a socio-historical and political context.


Video performance

In the early 1970s the use of video format by performance artists was consolidated. Some exhibitions by Joan Jonas and
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...
were made entirely of video, activated by previous performative processes. In this decade, various books that talked about the use of the means of communication, video and cinema by performance artists, like ''Expanded Cinema'', by Gene Youngblood, were published. One of the main artists who used video and performance, with notorious audiovisual installations, is the South Korean artist Nam June Paik, who in the early 1960s had already been in the Fluxus movement until becoming a media artist and evolving into the audiovisual installations he is known for. Carolee Schneemann's and Robert Whitman's 1960s work regarding their video-performances must be taken into consideration as well. Both were pioneers of performance art, turning it into an independent art form in the early seventies. Joan Jonas started to include video in her experimental performances in 1972, while Bruce Nauman scenified his acts to be directly recorded on video. Nauman is an American multimedia artist, whose sculptures, videos, graphic work and performances have helped diversify and develop culture from the 1960s on. His unsettling artworks emphasized the conceptual nature of art and the creation process. His priority is the idea and the creative process over the result. His art uses an incredible array of materials and especially his own body. Gilbert and George are Italian artist Gilbert Proesch and English artist George Passmore, who have developed their work inside conceptual art, performance and body art. They were best known for their live-sculpture acts. One of their first makings was ''The Singing Sculpture'', where the artists sang and danced "Underneath the Arches", a song from the 1930s. Since then they have forged a solid reputation as live-sculptures, making themselves works of art, exhibited in front of spectators through diverse time intervals. They usually appear dressed in suits and ties, adopting diverse postures that they maintain without moving, though sometimes they also move and read a text, and occasionally they appear in assemblies or artistic installations. Apart from their sculptures, Gilbert and George have also made pictorial works, collages and photomontages, where they pictured themselves next to diverse objects from their immediate surroundings, with references to urban culture and a strong content; they addressed topics such as sex, race, death and HIV, religion or politics, critiquing many times the British government and the established power. The group's most prolific and ambitious work was ''Jack Freak Pictures'', where they had a constant presence of the colors red, white and blue in the Union Jack. Gilbert and George have exhibited their work in museums and galleries around the world, like the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum of
Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
(2007). They have participated in the Venice Biennale. In 1986 they won the Turner Prize.


Endurance art

Endurance performance art deepens the themes of trance, pain, solitude, deprivation of freedom, isolation or exhaustion. Some of the works, based on the passing of long periods of time are also known as long-durational performances. One of the pioneering artists was Chris Burden in California since the 1970s. In one of his best known works, ''Five days in a locker'' (1971) he stayed for five days inside a school locker, in ''Shoot'' (1971) he was shot with a firearm, and inhabited for twenty two days a bed inside an art gallery in ''Bed Piece'' (1972). Another example of endurance artist is Tehching Hsieh. During a performance created in 1980–1981 (''Time Clock Piece''), where he stayed a whole year repeating the same action around a metaphorical clock. Hsieh is also known for his performances about deprivation of freedom; he spent an entire year confined.Andrew Taylor
"Tehching Hsieh: The artist who took the punches as they came"
''Sydney Morning Herald'', April 30, 2014: "Don't try this endurance art at home. That is Tehching Hsieh's advice to artists inspired to emulate the five year-long performances he began in the late 1970s."
In ''The House With the Ocean View'' (2003),
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
lived silently for twelve days without food.Thomas McEvilley, "Performing the Present Tense – A recent piece by Marina Abramovic blended endurance art and Buddhist meditation," ''Art in America'', 91(4), April 2003.
The Nine Confinements or The Deprivation of Liberty ''The Nine Confinements'', also known as ''The Deprivation of Liberty'' is a conceptual, endurance art and performative work of critical and biographical content by artist Abel Azcona. The artwork was a sequence of performances carried out betwee ...
is a conceptual endurance artwork of critical content carried out in the years 2013 and 2016. All of them have in common the illegitimate deprivation of freedom.


Performance in a political context

In the mid-1970s, behind the Iron Curtain, in major Eastern Europe cities such as
Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
,
Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 159 ...
, Belgrade,
Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Sl ...
,
Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the P ...
and others, scenic arts of a more experimental content flourished. Against political and social control, different artists who made performance of political content arose.
Orshi Drozdik Orshi Drozdik (born 1946 in Hungary) is a feminist visual artist based in New York City. Her work consists of drawings, paintings, photographs, etchings, performances, videos, sculptures, installations, academic writings and fiction, that explore ...
's performance series, titled ''Individual Mythology'' 1975–77 and the ''NudeModel'' 1976–77. All her actions were critical of the patriarchal discourse in art and the forced emancipation programme and constructed by the equally patriarchal state. Drozdik showed a pioneer and feminist point of view on both, becoming one of the precursors of this type of critical art in Eastern Europe. In the 1970s, performance art, due to its fugacity, had a solid presence in the Eastern European avant-garde, specially in Poland and Yugoslavia, where dozens of artists who explored the body conceptually and critically emerged.


The Other

In the mid-1976s,
Ulay Frank Uwe Laysiepen (; 30 November 1943 – 2 March 2020), known professionally as Ulay, was a German artist based in Amsterdam and Ljubljana, who received international recognition for his Polaroid art and collaborative performance art with lon ...
and
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
founded the collective The Other in the city of
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. When Abramović and Ulay started their collaboration. The main concepts they explored were the ego and artistic identity. This was the start of a decade of collaborative work. Both artists were interested in the tradition of their cultural heritage and the individual's desire for rituals. In consecuense, they formed a collective named ''The Other''. They dressed and behaved as one, and created a relation of absolute confidence. They created a series of works in which their bodies created additional spaces for the audience's interaction. In ''Relation in Space'' they ran around the room, two bodies like two planets, meshing masculine and feminine energies into a third component they called "that self". ''Relation in Movement'' (1976) had the couple driving their car inside the museum, doing 365 spins. A black liquid dripped out of the car, forming a sculpture, and each round represented a year. After this, they created ''Breathing In/Breathing Out'', where both of them united their lips and inspired the air expired by the other one until they used up all oxygen. Exactly 17 minutes after the start of the performance, both of them fell unconscious, due to their lungs filling with carbon dioxide. This piece explored the idea of the ability of a person to absorb the life out of another one, changing them and destroying them. In 1988, after some years of a tense relationship, Abramović and Ulay decided to make a spiritual travel that would put an end to the collective. They walked along the Great Wall of China, starting on opposite ends and finding each other halfway. Abramović conceived this walk on a dream, and it gave her what she saw as an appropriate and romantic ending to the relationship full of mysticism, energy and attraction. Ulay started on the Gobi dessert and Abramovic in the Yellow sea. Each one of them walked 2500 kilometres, found each other in the middle and said goodbye.


Main artists

In 1973,
Laurie Anderson Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and ...
interpreted ''Duets on Ice'' in the streets of New York.
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
, in the performance ''Rhythm 10'', included conceptually the violation of a body. Thirty years later, the topic of rape, shame and sex exploitation would be reimagined in the works of contemporary artists such as ''Clifford Owens'', ''Gillian Walsh'', ''Pat Oleszko'' and ''Rebecca Patek,'' amongst others. New artists with radical acts consolidated themselves as the main precursors of performance, like Chris Burden, with the 1971 work ''Shoot'', where an assistant shot him in the arm from a five-meter distance, and
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...
the same year with ''Seedbed''. The work ''Eye Body'' (1963) by Carolee Schneemann en 1963, had already been considered a prototype of performance art. In 1975, Schneemann recurred to innovative solo acts such as ''Interior Scroll'', that showed the feminine body as an artistic media. One of the main artists was Gina Pane, French artist of Italian origins. She studied at the
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French '' grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Scien ...
in París from 1960 until 1965 and was a member of the performance art movement in the 1970 in France, called "Art Corporel". Parallel to her art, Pane taught in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Mans from 1975 until 1990 and directed an ''atelier'' dedicated to performance art in the Pompidou Centre from 1978 to 1979. One of her best known works is ''The Conditioning '' (1973), in which she was lied into a metal bed spring over an area of lit candles. ''The Conditioning '' was created as an homage to
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
, part of her ''Seven Easy Pieces''(2005) in the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
in New York City in 2005. Great part of her works are protagonized by self-inflicted pain, separating her from most of other woman artists in the 1970s. Through the violence of cutting her skin with razors or extinguishing fires with her bare hands and feet, Pane has the intention of inciting a ''real experience'' in the visitor, who would feel moved for its discomfort. The impactful nature of these first performance art pieces or actions, as she preferred to call them, many times eclipsed her prolific photographic and sculptural work. Nonetheless, the body was the main concern in Panes's work, either literally or conceptually.
File:Ulay.jpg, Portrait of
Ulay Frank Uwe Laysiepen (; 30 November 1943 – 2 March 2020), known professionally as Ulay, was a German artist based in Amsterdam and Ljubljana, who received international recognition for his Polaroid art and collaborative performance art with lon ...
in 1972 File:Furgone Abramovic-Ulay 02.jpg, Abramovic and
Ulay Frank Uwe Laysiepen (; 30 November 1943 – 2 March 2020), known professionally as Ulay, was a German artist based in Amsterdam and Ljubljana, who received international recognition for his Polaroid art and collaborative performance art with lon ...
's Furgone File:Marina Abramović in Stockholm 2017-2.jpg, Exhibition of Marina Abramović's first works in Stockholm File:Truncated Pyramid Room.jpg, Installation by Bruce Nauman in Germany File:NTSC color bar calibration-(for Video Flag Z by artist Nam June Paik) 2013-07-20 18-21.jpg, Video installation by Nam June Paik File:20150203백남준의 비디오 타워 다다익선 多多益善190.jpg, Videoinstallation by Nam June Paik File:Gilbert.george.jpg, Gilbert and George in a presentation File:Orshi Drozdik Brains on High Heels, 1993 installation, photo 2006.jpg, Orshi Drozdik in one of her exhibitions


1980s


The technique of performance art

Until the 1980s, performance art has demystified virtuosism, this being one of its key characteristics. Nonetheless, from the 1980s on it started to adopt some technical brilliancy. In reference to the work ''Presence and Resistance'' by Philip Auslander, the dance critic Sally Banes writes, "... by the end of the 1980s, performance art had become so widely known that it no longer needed to be defined; mass culture, especially television, had come to supply both structure and subject matter for much performance art; and several performance artists, including Laurie Anderson, Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Willem Dafoe, and Ann Magnuson, had indeed become crossover artists in mainstream entertainment." In this decade the parameters and technicalities built to purify and perfect performance art were defined.


Critique and investigation of performance art

Despite the fact that many performances are held within the circle of a small art-world group, Roselee Goldberg notes in ''Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present'' that "performance has been a way of appealing directly to a large public, as well as shocking audiences into reassessing their own notions of art and its relation to culture. Conversely, public interest in the medium, especially in the 1980s, stems from an apparent desire of that public to gain access to the art world, to be a spectator of its ritual and its distinct community, and to be surprised by the unexpected, always unorthodox presentations that the artists devise." In this decade, publications and compilations about performance art and its best known artists emerged.


Performance art from a political context

In the 1980s, the political context played an important role in the artistic development and especially in performance, as almost every one of the works created with a critical and political discourse were in this discipline. Until the decline of the European Eastern bloc during the late 1980s, performance art had actively been rejected by most communist governments. With the exception of Poland and Yugoslavia, performance art was more or less banned in countries where any independent public event was feared. In the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Latvia it happened in apartments, at seemingly spontaneous gatherings in artist studios, in church-controlled settings, or was covered as another activity, like a photo-shoot. Isolated from the western conceptual context, in different settings it could be like a playful protest or a bitter comment, using subversive metaphors to express dissent with the political situation. Amongst the most remarkable performance art works of political content in this time were those of Tehching Hsieh between July 1983 and July 1984, ''Art/Life: One Year Performance'' (Rope Piece).


Performance poetry

In 1982 the terms "poetry" and "performance" were first used together.
Performance poetry Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe p ...
appeared to distinguish text-based vocal performances from performance art, especially the work of escenic and musical performance artists, such as Laurie Anderson, who worked with music at that time. Performance poets relied more on the rhetorical and philosophical expression in their poetics than performance artists, who arose from the visual art genres of painting and sculpture. Many artists since John Cage fuse performance with a poetical base.


Feminist performance art

Since 1973 the Feminist Studio Workshop in the Woman's Building of Los Ángeles had an impact in the wave of feminist acts, but until 1980 they did not completely fuse. The conjunction between feminism and performance art progressed through the last decade. In the first two decades of performance art development, works that had not been conceived as feminist are seen as such now. Still, not until 1980 did artists self-define themselves as feminists. Artist groups in which women influenced by the 1968 student movement as well as the feminist movement stood out. This connection has been treated in contemporary art history research. Some of the women whose innovative input in representations and shows was the most relevant were Pina Bausch and the
Guerrilla Girls Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. The group formed in New York City in 1985 with the mission of bringing gender and racial inequality into focus within ...
who emerged in 1985 in New York City, anonymous feminist and anti-racist art collective. They chose that name because they used guerrilla tactics in their activism to denounce discrimination against women in art through political and performance art. Their first performance was placing posters and making public appearances in museums and galleries in New York, to critique the fact that some groups of people were discriminated against for their gender or race. All of this was done anonymously; in all of these appearances they covered their faces with gorilla masks (this was due to the similar pronunciation of the words "gorilla" and "guerrilla"). They used as nicknames the names of female artists who had died. From the 1970s until the 1980s, amongst the works that challenged the system and their usual strategies of representation, the main ones feature women's bodies, such as Ana Mendieta's works in New York City where her body is outraged and abused, or the artistic representations by Louise Bourgeois with a rather minimalist discourse that emerge in the late seventies and eighties. Special mention to the works created with feminine and feminist corporeity such as Lynda Benglis and her phallic performative actions, who reconstructed the feminine image to turn it into more than a fetish. Through feminist performance art the body becomes a space for developing these new discourses and meanings. Artist Eleanor Antin, creator in the 1970s and 1980s, worked on the topics of gender, race and class.
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
, in her first works in the seventies and already in her artistic maturity in the eighties, continues her critical line of overturning the imposed self, through her use of the body as an object of privilege.
Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...
is an American photographer and artist. She is one of the most representative post-war artists and exhibited more than the work of three decades of her work in the MoMA. Even though she appears in most of her performative photographies, she doesn't consider them slef-portraits. Sherman uses herself as a vehicle to represent a great array of topics of the contemporary world, such as the part women play in our society and the way they are represented in the media as well as the nature of art creation. In 2020 she was awarded with the ''Wolf prize in arts''.
Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...
is an artist and pioneer of feminist art and performance art in the United States. Chicago is known for her big collaborative art installation pieces on images of birth and creation, that examine women's part in history and culture. In the 1970s, Chicago has founded the first feminist art programme in the United States. Chicago's work incorporates a variety of artistic skills such as sewing, in contrast with skills that required a lot of workforce, like welding and pyrotechnics. Chicago's best known work is '' The Dinner Party'', that was permanently installed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art in the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown ...
. ''The Dinner Party'' celebrated the achievements of women throughout history and is widely considered as the first epic feminist artwork. Other remarkable projects include ''International Honor Quilt'', ''The Birth Project,'' ''Powerplay,'' and ''The Holocaust Project.'' File:Students visiting Martha Rosler's show with Gregory Sholette.jpg, Students in a Martha Rosler exhibition File:Guerrilla Girls - V&A Museum, London.jpg, The
Guerrilla Girls Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. The group formed in New York City in 1985 with the mission of bringing gender and racial inequality into focus within ...
in an opening in London File:Guerrilla girls MOMA.jpg, Works of the 'Guerrilla Girls' in an exhibition in the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...
,
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of co ...
, New York File:Mjellby konstmuseum interiör 2019 guerrilla girls.jpg,
Guerrilla Girls Guerrilla Girls is an anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. The group formed in New York City in 1985 with the mission of bringing gender and racial inequality into focus within ...
exhibition File:Aranha, Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (5878031270).jpg, Installation by Louise Bourgeois in a Brazilian museum File:Madrid - Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (35796312500).jpg, Esculpture by Louise Bourgeois in the Museo Reina Sofia File:Judy Chicago with flight hood.jpg, Portrait of
Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...


Expansion to Latin America

In this decade performance art spread until reaching Latin America through the workshops and programmes that universities and academic institutions offered. It mainly developed in Mexico, Colombia -with artists such as ''Maria Teresa Hincapié''—, in Brasil and in Argentina. Ana Mendieta was a conceptual and performance artist born in Cuba and raised in the United States. She's mostly known for her artworks and performance art pieces in land art. Mendieta's work was known mostly in the feminist art critic environment. Years after her death, specially since the Whitney Museum of American Art retrospective in 2004 and the retrospective in the Haywart Gallery in London in 2013 she is considered a pioneer of performance art and other practices related to body art and land art, sculpture and photography. She described her own work as ''earth-body art''. Tania Bruguera is a Cuban artist specialized in performance art and political art. Her work mainly consists of her interpretation of political and social topics. She has developed concepts such as "conduct art" to define her artistic practices with a focus on the limits of language and the body confronted to the reaction and behavior of the spectators. She also came up with "useful art", that is ought to transform certain political and legal aspects of society. Brugera's work revolves around power and control topics, and a great portion of her work questions the current state of her home country, Cuba. In 2002 she created the Cátedra Arte de Conducta in La Habana. Regina José Galindo is a Guatemalan artist specialized in performance art. Her work is characterized by its explicit political and critical content, using her own body as a tool of confrontation and social transformation. Her artistic career has been marked by the Guatemalan Civil War that took place from 1960 to 1996, which triggered a genocide of more than 200 thousand people, many of them indigenous, farmers, women and children. With her work, Galindo denounces violence, sexism (one of her the main topics is femicide), the western beauty standards, the repression of the estates and the abuse of power, especially in the context of her country, even though her language transgresses borders. Since her beginnings she only used her body as media, which she occasionally takes to extreme situations (like in ''Himenoplasty'' (2004) where she goes through a hymen reconstruction, a work that won the Golden Lyon in the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
), to later have volunteers or hired people to interact with her, so that she loses control over the action.


1990s

The 1990s was a period of absence for classic European performance, so performance artists kept a low profile. Nevertheless, Eastern Europe experienced a peak. On the other hand, Latin American performance continued to boom, as well as feminist performance art. There also was a peak of this discipline in Asian countries, whose motivation emerged from the
Butō is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II, butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founders ...
dance in the 1950s, but in this period they professionalized and new Chinese artists arose, earning great recognition. There was also a general professionalization in the increase of exhibitions dedicated to performance art, at the opening of the Venice Art Biennial to performance art, where various artists of this discipline have won the Leone d'Oro, including Anne Imhof, Regina José Galindo or Santiago Sierra.


Performance with political context

While the
Soviet Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
dissolved, some forbidden performance art pieces began to spread. Young artists from the former Eastern Bloc, including Russia, devoted themselves to performance art. Scenic arts emerged around the same time in Cuba, the Caribbean and China. "In these contexts, performance art became a new critical voice with a social strength similar to that of Western Europe, the United States and South America in the sixties and early seventies. It must be emphasized that the rise of performance art in the 1990s in Eastern Europe, China, South Africa, Cuba and other places must not be considered secondary or an imitation of the West".


Professionalization of performance art

In the Western World, in the 1990s, performance art joined the mainstream culture. Diverse performance artworks, live, photographed or through documentation started to become part of galleries and museums that began to understand performance art as an art discipline. Nevertheless, it was not until the next decade that a major institutionalization happened, when every museum started to incorporate performance art pieces into their collections and dedicating great exhibitions and retrospectives, museums such as the la
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
in London, the MoMA in New York City or the Pompidou Centre in Paris. From the 1990s on, many more performance artists were invited to important biennials like the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
, the Sao Paulo Biennial and the
Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...
Biennial.


Performance in China

In the late 1990s, Chinese contemporary art and performance art received great recognition internationally, as 19 Chinese artists were invited to the Venice Biennial. Performance art in China and its history had been growing since the 1970s due to the interest between art, process and tradition in Chinese culture, but it gained recognition from the 1990s on. In China, performance art is part of the fine arts education programme, and is becoming more and more popular. In the early 1990s, Chinese performance art was already acclaimed in the international art scene. File:Fitness culturel (Biennale 2013, Lyon) (10787512893).jpg, Performance art in the Lyon Biennale File:Fitness culturel (Biennale 2013, Lyon) (10783977835).jpg, Performance art in the Lyon Biennale File:Le pavillon de la Roumanie (55ème Biennale de Venise) (10168262204).jpg, Performance at the entrance of the Romanian Pavilion at the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
File:Table with Accumulator Beuys Tate Modern AR00603.jpg, Performative installation by
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
in the
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
of London File:Re publica 2013 Tag 3 – Ai Weiwei (8735247120).jpg, Video installation with the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei File:Documentation of Tehching Hsieh's project in NYC (1395277535).jpg, Tehching Hsieh exhibition in downtown New York City File:Chien-Chi Chang-China Town Venezia Biennale-2009.jpg, China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale File:Wang Xiaoshuai-2120.jpg, Portrait of Wang Xiaoshuai File:Liu Xiaodong.jpg, Liu Xiaodong during a performance artwork


Since the 2000s


New-media performance

In the late 1990s and into the 2000s, a number of artists incorporated technologies such as the World Wide Web, digital video, webcams, and streaming media, into performance artworks. Artists such as Coco Fusco, Shu Lea Cheang, and Prema Murthy produced performance art that drew attention to the role of gender, race, colonialism, and the body in relation to the Internet. Other artists, such as Critical Art Ensemble,
Electronic Disturbance Theater The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), established in 1997 by performance artist and writer Ricardo Dominguez, is an electronic company of cyber activists, critical theorists, and performance artists who engage in the development of both the th ...
, and
Yes Men The Yes Men are a culture jamming activist duo and network of supporters created by Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. Through various actions, the Yes Men primarily aim to raise awareness about problematic social and political issues. To date, ...
, used digital technologies associated with hacktivism and interventionism to raise political issues concerning new forms of capitalism and consumerism. In the second half of the decade, computer-aided forms of performance art began to take place. Many of these works led to the development of
algorithmic art Algorithmic art or algorithm art is art, mostly visual art, in which the design is generated by an algorithm. Algorithmic artists are sometimes called ''algorists''. Overview Algorithmic art, also known as computer-generated art, is a subset o ...
, generative art, and robotic art, in which the computer itself, or a computer-controlled robot, becomes the performer. Coco Fusco is an interdisciplinary Cuban-American artist, writer and curator who lives and works in the United States. Her artistic career began in 1988. In her work, she explores topics such as identity, race, power and gender through performance. She also makes videos, interactive installations and critical writing.


Radical performance

During the 2000s and 2000s, artists such as
Pussy Riot Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in August 2011, it has had a membership of appr ...
, Tania Bruguera, and
Petr Pavlensky Pyotr (or Petr) Andreyevich Pavlensky (russian: link=no, Пётр Андреевич Павленский; born 8 March 1984) is a Russian contemporary artist. He is known for his controversial political art performances, which he calls "events of ...
have been judged for diverse artistic actions. On February 21, 2012, as a part of their protest against the re-election of
Vladímir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
, various women of the artistic collective Pussy Riot entered the
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour ( rus, Храм Христа́ Спаси́теля, r=Khram Khristá Spasítelya, p=xram xrʲɪˈsta spɐˈsʲitʲɪlʲə) is a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, Russia, on the northern bank of the Moskv ...
of Moscow of the
Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...
. They made the sign of the cross, bowed before the shrine, and started to interpret a performance compound by a song and a dance under the motto "Virgin Mary, put Putin Away". On March 3, they were detained. On March 3, 2012, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Pussy Riot members, were arrested by the Russian authorities and accused of vandalism. At first, they both denied being members of the group and started a hunger strike for being incarcerated and taken apart from their children until the trials began in April. On March 16 another woman, Yekaterina Samutsévitch, who had been previously interrogated as a witness, was arrested and accused as well. On July 5, formal charges against the group and a 2800-page accusation were filed. That same day they were notified that they had until July 9 to prepare their defense. In reply, they announced a hunger strike, pleading that two days was an inappropriate time frame to prepare their defense. On July 21, the court extended their preventive prison to last six more months. The three detained members were recognized as political prisoners by the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners. Amnesty International considers them to be prisoners of conscience for "the severity of the response of the Russian authorities". Since 2012, artist
Abel Azcona Abel Azcona (born 1 April 1988) is a Spanish artist, specializing in performance art. His work includes installations, sculptures, and video art. He is known as the "''enfant terrible''" of Spanish contemporary art. His first works dealt with ...
has been prosecuted for some of his works. The demand that gained the most repercussion was the one carried out by the Archbishopric of
Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...
and
Tudela Tudela may refer to: *Tudela, Navarre, a town and municipality in northern Spain ** Benjamin of Tudela Medieval Jewish traveller ** William of Tudela, Medieval troubadour who wrote the first part of the ''Song of the Albigensian Crusade'' ** Battl ...
, in representation of the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. The Church demanded Azcona for desecration and blasphemy crimes, hate crime and attack against the religious freedom and feelings for his work '' Amen or The Pederasty''. In 2016, Azcona was denounced for extolling terrorism for his exhibition ''Natura Morta'', in which the artist recreated situations of violence, historical memory, terrorism or war conflicts through performance and hyperrealistic sculptures and installations. In December 2014 Tania Bruguera was detained in
La Habana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.
to prevent her from carrying out new reivindicative works. Her performance art pieces have earned her harsh critiques, and she has been accused of promoting resistance and public disturbances. In December 2015 and January 2016, Bruguera was detained for organizing a public performance in the plaza de la Revolución of La Habana. She was detained along with other Cuban artists, activists and reporters who took part in the campaign ''Yo También Exijo'', which was created after the declarations of Raúl Castro and Barack Obama in favor of restoring their diplomatic relationship. During the performance ''El Susurro de Tatlin #6'' she set microphones and talkers in the Plaza de la Revolución so the Cubans could express their feelings regarding the new political climate. The event had great repercussion in international media, including a presentation of ''El Susurro de Tatlin #6'' in Times Square, and an action in which various artists and intellectuals expressed themselves in favour of the liberation of Bruguera by sending an open letter to Raúl Castro signed by thousands of people around the world asking for the return of her passport and claiming criminal injustice, as she only gave a microphone to the people so they could give their opinion. In November 2015 and October 2017
Petr Pavlensky Pyotr (or Petr) Andreyevich Pavlensky (russian: link=no, Пётр Андреевич Павленский; born 8 March 1984) is a Russian contemporary artist. He is known for his controversial political art performances, which he calls "events of ...
was arrested for carrying out a radical performance art piece in which he set on fire the entry of the Lubyanka Building, headquarters of the Federal Security Service of Russia, and a branch office of the Bank of France. On both occasions he sprayed the main entrance with gasoline; in the second performance he sprayed the inside as well, and ignited it with a lighter. The doors of the building were partially burnt. Both times Pavlenski was arrested without resistance and accused of debauchery. A few hours after the actions, several political and artistic reivindicative videos appeared on the internet.


Institutionalization of performance art / performance collecting processes

Since the 2000s, big museums, institutions and collections have supported performance art. Since January 2003,
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
in London has had a curated programme of live art and performance. With exhibitions by artists such as Tania Bruguera or Anne Imhof. In 2012 The Tanks at
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
were opened: the first dedicated spaces for performance, film and installation in a major modern and contemporary art museum. The
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...
held a major retrospective and performance recreation of
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
's work, the biggest exhibition of performance art in MoMA's history, from March 14 to 31, 2010. The exhibition consisted of more than twenty pieces by the artist, most of them from the years 1960–1980. Many of them were re-activated by other young artists of multiple nationalities selected for the show. In parallel to the exhibition, Abramovic performed ''The Artist is Present'', a 726-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, in which she sat immobile in the museum's atrium, while spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her. The work is an updated reproduction of one of the pieces from 1970, shown in the exhibition, where Abramovic stayed for full days next to Ulay, who was his sentimental companion. The performance attracted celebrities such as
Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...
, Orlando Bloom and James Franco who participated and received media coverage. Against the background of the institutionalisation of performance, the Bruxelles-based initiative A Performance Affair and the London-based format Performance Exchange inquire about the collectability of performance works. With The Non-fungible Body?, the Austrian museum and culture centr
OÖLKG/OK
reflects upon recent developments in institutionalizing performance through a discursive festival format that was presented for the first time in June 2022. File:Detail of Facade of Guggenheim Museum with Yoko Ono Banner - Bilbao - Biscay - Spain (14434764509).jpg, Facade of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao with a
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
Banner File:Shibboleth - Tate Modern 2007.jpg, Work by Doris Salcedo in the
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
in London, 2007 File:Marina 1 1.jpg,
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
during her seven performances in ''Seven Easy Pieces'' (2005), in the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
File:Marina Abramović, The Artist Is Present, 2010Marina Abramović, The Artist Is Present, 2010 (4422516908).jpg, Zenith shot of the performance ''The Artist Is Present'' in the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...
File:Marina Abramović. The Cleaner.jpg, Work by
Marina Abramović Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and aud ...
reproduced for the retrospective in
Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
, Italy, 2018 File:128 aktion 22.10.09 613.jpg, Hermann Nitsch carrying out a performance in his homonymous museum (2009) File:Fleeting-glimpse-bryan-zanisnik.jpg, Performance by Bryan Zanisnik, called ''When I Was a Child I Caught a Fleeting Glimpse'', 2009 File:Muestra Yoko Ono- Quito4.jpg, Exhibition dedicated to
Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...
in the Cultural Metropolitan Centre of
Quito Quito (; qu, Kitu), formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, Pichincha ...
(2018)


Collective reivindication performance art

In 2014 the performance art piece ''
Carry That Weight "Carry That Weight" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 album ''Abbey Road''. Written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney, it is the seventh and penultimate song in the album's climactic side-two me ...
'' is created, also known as "the mattress performance". The artist behind this piece is
Emma Sulkowicz Emma Sulkowicz (born October 3, 1992) is an American performance artist and anti-rape activist"Carr ...
who, during her end of degree thesis in visual arts in the
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
in the city of New York City. In September 2014, Sulkowicz's piece began, as she started carrying her own mattress around the
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
campus. This work was created by the artist with the goal of denouncing her rape in that same mattress years before, in her own dormitory, which she reported and was not heard by the university or the justice, so she decided to carry the mattress with her for the entire semester, without leaving it at any moment, until her graduation ceremony in May 2015. The piece generated great controversy, but was supported by a bunch of her companions and activists who joined Sulkowicz multiple times when carrying the mattress, making the work an international revindication. Art critic Jerry Saltz considered the artwork to be one of the most important of the year 2014. In 2019 the collective performance art piece ''
A Rapist in Your Path "A Rapist in Your Path" ( es, Un violador en tu camino), also known as "The Rapist Is You" ( es, El violador eres tú), is a Chilean feminism, feminist performance art, performance piece that originated in 2019 to protest violence against women. ...
'' was created by a feminist group from
Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...
, Chile named Lastesis, which consisted of a demonstration against the women's rights violations in the context of the 2019-2020 Chilean protests. It was first performed in front of the Second Police Station of the
Carabineros de Chile ( en, Carabiniers of Chile) are the Chilean national law enforcement police, who have jurisdiction over the entire national territory of the Republic of Chile. Created in 1927, their mission is to maintain order and enforce the laws of Chile. Th ...
in
Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...
on November 18, 2019. A second performance done by 2000 Chilean women on November 25, 2019, as a part of the
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women The United Nations General Assembly has designated November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women ( Resolution 54/134). The premise of the day is to raise awareness around the world that women are subjected to ...
, was filmed and became viral on social media. Its reach became global after feminist movements in dozens of countries adopted and translated the performance for their own protests and demands for the cessation and punishment of femicide and sexual violence, amongst others. File:Emma Sulkowicz, Mattress Performance, 19 May 2015 (cropped).JPG, Companions of
Emma Sulkowicz Emma Sulkowicz (born October 3, 1992) is an American performance artist and anti-rape activist"Carr ...
and the artist herself carrying the mattress to the graduation as a complaint File:Mattress Performance rules of engagement.jpg, Sulkowicz with the instructions for her performance in the
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
File:Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), 10 September 2014.jpg, Part of Sulkowicz's performance, an action called "Llevemos el peso entre todas" (''Carry That Weight Together'') File:Emma Sulkowicz, 14 December 2014.jpg, Sulkowicz's portrait in one of the presentations of the work File:Roberta Smith, Emma Sulkowicz, 14 December 2014.jpg, Roberta Smith, ''New York Times'' art critic (left), discussing ''Mattress Performance'' with Sulkowicz,
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown ...
, December 14, 2014 File:Un violador en tu camino, performance Oaxaca 2019.jpg, Mexican interpretation of ''
A Rapist in Your Path "A Rapist in Your Path" ( es, Un violador en tu camino), also known as "The Rapist Is You" ( es, El violador eres tú), is a Chilean feminism, feminist performance art, performance piece that originated in 2019 to protest violence against women. ...
'' in
Oaxaca ) , population_note = , population_rank = 10th , timezone1 = CST , utc_offset1 = −6 , timezone1_DST = CDT , utc_offset1_DST = −5 , postal_code_type = Postal ...
, November 27, 2019 File:El violador eres tú, Santiago 20191219 36.jpg, ''A Rapist in Your Path'' presented in the context of the 2019-2020 Chilean protests File:Un violador en tu camino Lima, Perú.png, Peruvian interpretation of ''A Rapist in Your Path'' in Lima, December 12, 2019 File:Estado violador.jpg, ''A Rapist in Your Path'' presented in the context of the 2019-2020 Chilean protests File:"el violador eres tú".jpg, A child intervening during the performance of ''A Rapist in Your Path''


See also

*
ART/MEDIA ART/MEDIA was a social sculpture project in the form of series of socio-political public art events that took place in 1986 in Albuquerque and Santa Fe New Mexico. This groundbreaking artist forum featured artworks presented to the public throug ...
* Classificatory disputes about art *
Conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called inst ...
* COUM Transmissions * Danger music *
Digital Live Art Digital Live Art Sheridan, J.G. (2006). "Digital Live Art: Mediating Wittingness in Playful Arenas". PhD Thesis. University of Lancaster: Lancaster. is the intersection of Live Art (art form), Computing and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). It is us ...
* Endurance art * Experimental theatre * Flash mob *
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
* Graphic arts *
Guerrilla theatre Guerrilla theatre, generally rendered "guerrilla theater" in the US, is a form of guerrilla communication originated in 1965 by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who, in spirit of the Che Guevara writings from which the term '' guerrilla'' is taken, ...
* Happening *
List of performance artists Performance art is a performance presented to an audience within a fine art context, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planne ...
* Living statue * New media art * Noise music * Poetry slam *
Radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
*
Survival Research Laboratories Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) is an American performance art group that pioneered the genre of large-scale machine performance. Founded in 1978 by Mark Pauline, the group is known in particular for their performances where custom-built mac ...


References


Bibliography

* * Bäckström, Per. "Performing the Poem. The Cross-Aesthetic Art of the Nordic Neo-Avant-Garde", ''The Angel of History. Literature, History and Culture'', Vesa Haapala, Hannamari Helander, Anna Hollsten, Pirjo Lyytikäinen & Rita Paqvalen (eds.), Helsinki: The Department of Finnish Language and Literature, University of Helsinki, 2009. * Bäckström, Per
“Kisses Sweeter than Wine. Öyvind Fahlström and Billy Klüver: The Swedish Neo-Avant-Garde in New York”
''Artl@s Bulletin'', vol. 6, 2017: 2 ''Migrations, Transfers, and Resemantization''. * Bäckström, Per
“The Intermedial Cluster.Åke Hodell's Lågsniff”
''Acta Universitatis Sapientiae'', Series Film & Media Studies, de Gruyter, no. 10 2015. * Bäckström, Per
”’The Trumpet in the Bottom’. Öyvind Fahlström and the Uncanny”
''Edda'' 2017: 2. *Beisswanger, Lisa:
Performance on Display. Zur Geschichte lebendiger Kunst im Museum
'' Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2021, ISBN 978-3-422-98448-6 (in German) * ''Beuys Brock Vostell. Aktion Demonstration Partizipation 1949–1983''. ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie,
Hatje Cantz Hatje Cantz Verlag (English: Hatje Cantz Publishing) is a German book publisher specialising in photography, art, architecture and design. It was established in 1945 by Gerd Hatje''Performance Art nach 1945. Aktionstheater und Intermedia.''
München: Wilhelm Fink 2001. (in German) * Fischer-Lichte, Erika: ''Ästhetik des Performativen''. Frankfurt: edition suhrkamp 2004. (in German) * * * * Goldberg, Roselee (1998) ''Performance: Live Art Since 1960''. Harry N. Abrams, NY NY. * Goldberg, Roselee (2001). ''Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present'' (World of Art). Thames & Hudson * Gómez-Peña, Guillermo (2005). ''Ethno-techno: Writings on performance, activism and pedagogy''. Routledge, London. * Jones, Amelia and Heathfield, Adrian (eds.) (2012), ''Perform, Repeat, Record. Live Art in History''. Intellect, Bristol. *Phelan, Peggy: ''Unmarked. The Politics of Performance.'' Routledge, London 1993, ISBN 9780415068222 * Rockwell, John (2004). "Preserve Performance Art?" ''New York Times'', April 30. * Schimmel, Paul (ed.) (1998). ''Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979''. Thames and Hudson, Los Angeles. Library of the Congress NX456.5.P38 S35 1998 * Smith, Roberta (2005). "Performance Art Gets Its Biennial". ''New York Times'', November 2. * Best, Susan, "The Serial Spaces of Ana Mendieta" Art History, April 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8365.2007.00532.x * Best, Susan, "Ana Mendieta: Affect Miniatiarizatin, Emotional Ties and the Silueta Series," Visualizing Feeling: Affect and the Feminine Avant-Garde (London: I B Tauris, 2011) 92–115 *
Del Valle, Alejandro. "Ana Mendieta: Performance in the way of the primitive". ''Arte, Individuo y Sociedad'', 26 (1) 508–523


Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc.
Ana Mendieta: New Museum archive


External links



* ttp://dreher.netzliteratur.net/2_Performance_Kunst_Titel.html Thomas Dreher Intermedia Art: Performance Art (most articles in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Performance Art Contemporary art movements Performing arts Theatre Culture jamming techniques Postmodern theatre