Performance in Contemporary Art

In this important new survey, Catherine Wood proposes performancenot as a genre of art separate from object-making but as an attitudethat has infiltrated the entire terrain of contemporary art. Fromthe musical-theatricals of Marvin-Gaye Chetwynd to the publicencounters created by Tino Seghal and the social activism of TaniaBruguera, a hugely divergent set of practices has emerged in the pasttwenty to thirty years which embrace the worlds of sculpture andpainting, spectacle and protest. Examining in turn individual, social and object-based approachesin the field, Wood first examines the influential performance art ofthe 1960s to 1980s: the body art of the Viennese actionists, the rawperformances of Yoko Ono and Chris Burden, and the experimentsof the Japanese Gutai group among others.She then exploreshow these sources have been revisited, reformed or rejected bycontemporary artists in the twenty-first century. This impressive bookencompasses international artists who fall outside the traditionalEuropean and North American focus, giving the reader the broadestand most up-to-date insight into the subject yet published.