Art - Performance Art: Background

Bringing together contributors from dance, theater, visual studies, and art history, this title addresses the conundrum of how live art is positioned within history. Set apart from other art forms in that it may never be performed in precisely the same way twice, ephemeral artwork exists both at the time of its staging and long after in the memories of its spectators and their testimonies, as well as in material objects, visual media, and text, all of which offer new critical possibilities. Essays are written by artists, theorists, and historians.

RoseLee Goldberg pioneered the study of performance art with this seminal book in1979. The latest edition maps the global rise of performance over 100 years, from its antecedents in the early 20th c. through the first decade of the 21st. Reviews the interaction of this art form with politics, tradition, social engagement, and the art world itself, while evaluating the changing status of performance and its ever-increasing relevance to artists and audiences. Features work by leading performance artists.

The first comprehensive history of feminist performance art in North America , Jayne Wark situates feminist performance art in the social context of the feminist movement and avant-garde art from the 1970s to 2000. She shows that artists drew from feminist politics to create works that, after a long period of modernist aesthetic detachment, made a unique contribution to the re-politicization of art.