Performance Art
Started: Origins in 1910s, Movement in 1960s
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KEY ARTISTS
 | Marina Abramović Quick View Artist Page |
| Marina Abramović |  |
| Marina Abramovic's is one of the key artists in the performance art movement. Her work often involves putting herself in grave danger and performing lengthy, harmful routines that result in her being cut or burnt, or enduring some privation. Art Story: Marina Abramović Artist Page | ||
 | Joseph Beuys Quick View Artist Page |
| Joseph Beuys | |
| Joseph Beuys was a German multi- and mixed-media artist best known for incorporating ideas of humanism, social philosophy and politics into his art. Beuys practiced everything from installation and performance art to traditional painting and "social sculpture." He was continually motivated by the belief of universal human creativity. Art Story: Joseph Beuys Artist Page | ||
 | Zhang Huan Quick View Artist Page |
| Zhang Huan | |
| The Chinese Zhang Huan's performances are confrontational and personally dangerous, often engaging with overpopulation, cultural erasure, political repression, and poverty. Art Story: Zhang Huan Artist Page | ||
 | Yoko Ono Quick View Artist Page |
| Yoko Ono | |
| Yoko Ono is a Japanese-American artist, musician, author, and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to the lendary John Lennon. Ono was highly succcesful iin bringing feminism to the forefront of the art world through her performance and conceptual pieces. Art Story: Yoko Ono Artist Page | ||
 | Vito Acconci Quick View Further External Info  |
| Vito Acconci | |
| Vito Acconci is an American performance/installation artist who began performing in the late 1960s. More recently, he has shifted his focus to architecture and landscape design, particularly works that merge indoor and outdoor space. Further External Info | ||
 | Annie Sprinkle Quick View Further External Info |
| Annie Sprinkle | |
| Annie Sprinkle is an American former prostitute, stripper, pornographic artist, cable television host, magazine editor, writer, and sex film producer. She received a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in 1986. Currently, Sprinkle works as a performance artist and sex educator. Further External Info | ||
"The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible."
Summary of Performance Art
Performance is a genre in which art is presented "live," usually by the artist but sometimes with collaborators or performers. It has had a role in avant-garde art throughout the 20th century, playing an important part in anarchic movements such as Futurism and Dada. Indeed, whenever artists have become discontented with conventional forms of art, such as painting and traditional modes of sculpture, they have often turned to performance as a means to rejuvenate their work. The most significant flourishing of performance art took place following the decline of modernism and Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s, and it found exponents across the world. Performance art of this period was particularly focused on the body, and is often referred to as Body art. This reflects the period's so-called "dematerialization of the art object," and the flight from traditional media. It also reflects the political ferment of the time: the rise of feminism, which encouraged thought about the division between the personal and political and anti-war activism, which supplied models for politicized art "actions." Although the concerns of performance artists have changed since the 1960s, the genre has remained a constant presence, and has largely been welcomed into the conventional museums and galleries from which it was once excluded.
Key Ideas
Yoko Ono said, “I thought art was a verb, rather than a noun,” and embodied the concept in her Cut Piece (1964) – pioneering Performance Art – where, holding a pair of scissors and kneeling on stage, she invited the audience to cut away pieces of her clothing.
Important Art and Artists of Performance Art | |
 Artwork Images | The Anthropometries of the Blue Period (1958)Artist: Yves Klein Artwork description & Analysis: Although painting sat at the center of Yves Klein's practice, his approach to it was highly unconventional, and some critics have seen him as the paradigmatic neo-avant-garde artist of the post-war years. He initially became famous for monochromes - in particular for monochromes made with an intense shade of blue that Klein eventually patented. But he was also interested in Conceptual art and performance. For the Anthropometries, he painted actresses in blue paint and had them slather about on the floor to create body-shaped forms. In some cases, Klein made finished paintings from these actions; at other times he simply performed the stunt in front of finely dressed gallery audiences, and often with the accompaniment of chamber music. By removing all barriers between the human and the painting, Klein said, "[the models] became living brushes...at my direction the flesh itself applied the color to the surface and with perfect exactness." It has been suggested that the pictures were inspired by marks left on the ground in Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the atomic explosions in 1945. - Performed at Robert Godet's, Paris 1958 and at Galerie Internationale d'Art Contemporain, Paris 1960 |
 Artwork Images | Cut Piece (1964)Artist: Yoko Ono Artwork description & Analysis: Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, first performed in 1964, was a direct invitation to an audience to participate in an unveiling of the female body much as artists had been doing throughout history. By creating this piece as a live experience, Ono hoped to erase the neutrality and anonymity typically associated with society’s objectification of women in art. For the work, Ono sat silent upon a stage as viewers walked up to her and cut away her clothing with a pair of scissors. This forced people to take responsibility for their voyeurism and to reflect upon how even passive witnessing could potentially harm the subject of perception. It was not only a strong feminist statement about the dangers of objectification, but became an opportunity for both artist and audience members to fill roles as both creator and artwork. - Performed at Yamaichi Concert Hall, Kyoto, Japan 1964 |
 Artwork Images | Shoot (1971)Artist: Chris Burden Artwork description & Analysis: In many of his early 1970s performance pieces, Burden put himself in danger, thus placing the viewer in a difficult position, caught between a humanitarian instinct to intervene and the taboo against touching and interacting with art pieces. To perform Shoot, Burden stood in front of a wall while one friend shot him in the arm with a .22 long rifle, and another friend documented the event with a camera. It was performed in front of a small, private audience. One of Burden's most notorious and violent performances, it touches on the idea of martyrdom, and the notion that the artist may play a role in society as a kind of scapegoat. It might also speak to issues of gun control and, in the context of the period, the Vietnam War. - Performed at F Space, Santa Ana, California |
More Performance Art Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Anne Marie Butler
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Anne Marie Butler
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
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First published on 22 Jan 2012. Updated and modified regularly. 
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