Performance Art

Performance Art, presentational genre, usually involving some degree of improvisation, in which an artist draws upon dance, music, drama, and sometimes motion pictures, customarily mixing these forms of expression. The terms happenings, mixed-means theater, action art, or simply performance are sometimes used to describe this art form. All performance art shares two elements: First, the various parts of the performance function disharmoniously, in the tradition of visual-art collage, which is based upon assembling elements normally found apart; second, a piece of performance art must be live, because a recorded piece, whether on film or audio tape, has no spontaneity. Performance art may also incorporate elements of shock, social criticism or protest, and audience involvement.

Performance art has its origins in the work of several avant-garde artists of the late 1950s. American artist and professor Allan Kaprow coined the term happenings to describe a one-time event, generally held outdoors, in which people come together to execute instructions they had not seen before. Central to such happenings are the elements of discovery and surprise. Happenings later took place within a performance space. An example of this was Moviehouse (1965), a piece by American sculptor Claes Oldenburg, in which several artists performed in the seats of a movie theater while spectators watched from the aisles. American composer John Cage explored performance art differently. In his pioneering 45-minute untitled piece, staged in 1952 at Black Mountain College, one person read a text, another performed choreography, and a third produced sounds, all with minimum rehearsal.

In the 1970s the term performance art came to describe more modest theatrical events, often involving only one person who was not only the performer but also the writer and director. The cross-discipline trends begun in the 1960s continued in these performances. Performers often used media previously unfamiliar to them: Someone trained in theater or writing might use motion-picture images or choreographed movements, or a performer trained in dance might use more language than movement in the performance. Performance art after 1975 reflected the influences of minimal art, which focused on extreme simplicity, and of conceptual art, which considered the creative process more important than the finished product (see Modern Art).

The most innovative and influential contributions to performance art in the 1990s came from women initially trained in dance, including German Pina Bausch, who incorporated sound and setting in grandiose spectacles, and American Elizabeth Streb, whose theatrical pieces mixed dance with gymnastics and circus acrobatics. Other successful performance artists include Americans Anna Halprin, Meredith Monk, and Yvonne Rainer, all of whom trained initially in dance; American Laurie Anderson, who combined music, video, speech, and electronics in her work; American Robert Wilson, who contributed text and spectacular decor to his performances; and American David Moss, who experimented with percussive vocal sounds in his solo works.