Art Word of the Day: Performance art

artopium (66)in #wordoftheday • 5 years ago

Term: Performance art

Definition: Art in which there is

no concrete single object, but rather a series of events performed by the artist in front of an audience, possibly including music, sight gags, recitation, audio-visual presentations, or other elements. The term is fairly open ended and embraces art activities from the late 1970s. However it is applicable to earlier movements such as Body Art, Happenings and Fluxus, and these expressions brought into the mix make for a less-than-definite explanation of the term. Performance Art grew from the desire of artists to communicate more directly with their viewers. American artists involved since the 1970s include Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, Anna Banana, Rebecca Horn and Karen Finley. Source: Robert Atkins, "Art Speak"

Art in which works in any of a variety of media are executed premeditated before a live audience. Although this might appear to be theater, theatrical performances present illusions of events, while performance art presents actual events as art. One of the things setting postmodernism apart from modernism is its acceptance of aspects of theater. Performance elements surfaced in a number of conceptual art movements of the 1960s, including: Fluxus, Happenings, body art, process art, street works, etc. The 1980s saw the emergence of performance artists like David Byrne (American) and Laurie Anderson (American, 1947-), who had each been students of visual art, but whose work gradually incorporated voice, music, costumes, projected image, stage lighting, etc.Example: Laurie Anderson (American, 1947-), Oh, Superman, 1981.Other resources concerning performance art: Franklin Furnace has been one of the leading venues for performance art. Franklin Furnace uses the term "temporal art" as a synonym for performance art. Also see content, dance, interdisciplinary, narrative art, and new media.

Art Word of the Day

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