Performance Art

Feature image: Installation view of Kjartansson’s Take Me Here by the Dishwasher: Memorial for a Marriage. Photograph: Tristan Fewings/ Getty Images, courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine New York and i8 gallery Reykjavik

Performance art consists of presenting actions by the artist or other participants. It is usually demonstrated in public exhibitions or documented on video. Over the decades, performance art has emerged as a genre of its own in which art is produced and presented in real time. Although performance in visual arts dates back to futurist productions and cabaret in the early 20th century, the term “performance art” became widely used in the 1970s, coinciding with the Fluxus movement and the emergence of conceptual art. 

Performance art aims to expand the range of what is considered art. As such, the genre has been simultaneously celebrated and criticized for its exploration of societal norms and ability to evoke visceral responses from audiences. Here are some of the most provocative pieces of performance art.

Meat Joy is one of Carolee Schneemann’s best-known works. As a radical artist, Schneemann dealt with feminist themes, such as the objectification of women, taboos surrounding the female body, and human suffering. She obsessively documented her work, inviting photographers and filmmakers to every performance. Her work also lives on in notes, sketches, and scores from the performances.

Meat Joy relies on the concept of “kinetic theater,” in which Shneemann placed her body into her work, simultaneously performing the roles of image and image-maker. The piece featured eight performers, including the artist herself, covered in paint and surrounded by paper and paintbrushes. They crawl and writhe on a sheet of plastic while embracing and grasping for raw meat and fish.

Meat Joy explored the transformation of social dynamics and the rawness of sexuality. What happens when cultural taboos surrounding nudity and sex are lifted? The reactions to the performance were so extreme that one enraged audience member allegedly tried to strangle Schneemann. Thus, the piece achieved its goal of challenging expectations and performance art’s overarching goal of inducing a reaction.

Marina Abramović is undoubtedly one of the most well-known and influential performance artists. Her work consists of body art and endurance art, exploring the limits of the body and the possibilities of the mind. Rhythm 0 is her most famous and controversial work, capturing the themes of her style.

In 1974, she produced Rhythm 0 to explore the relationship between performer and audience and her own endurance. She invited participants to do anything they desired to her for six hours. On a table next to her were 72 objects, including a gun with a single bullet and knives. There were also harmless objects like a rose, a feather, honey, and olive oil. 

During the third hour, all of her clothes were cut off, and her body was subjected to multiple sexual attacks and violence. After the six hours were up, she began walking towards the audience. They all ran away to escape the confrontation. The truth of humanity and objectification of the female body is unraveled in this piece. What would people do if there were no consequences?

Orlan is a French artist known for using medicine and biotechnology in her performance art to question modern society. Her most notable work is her ongoing performance art series, The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, which began in 1990. This piece documented her nine plastic surgeries to explore themes of identity, beauty, and the relationship between the body and technology.

Orlan’s goal in this series was not to make herself perfect or more beautiful. Rather, she sought to adopt the features of women in famous artworks, aiming to use her own body as a canvas to explore the male gaze and female beauty. Her surgeries were performances in themselves. During each surgery, she was fully conscious, listening to poetry and music, in costume, and surrounded by dancers and cameras. In the end, Orlan was given the chin of Botticelli’s Venus, the nose of Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Psyche, the lips of François Boucher’s Europa, the eyes of Diana, and the forehead of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

American performance artist Ron Athey emerged as a prominent figure in the Los Angeles performance art scene of the 1980s and 90s. His work is often centered on HIV awareness, masculinity, and trauma. He regularly utilizes body art and physicality in his work, incorporating elements of BDSM and queer culture. Audience members regularly faint during his performances due to their acts of self-mutilation and bloodshed.

With a goal to transcend bodily pain and question masculinity, Athey’s 2007 piece Self Obliteration features the artist sitting in a glass box wearing nothing but a long blonde wig. Needles were hidden underneath the wig, digging into his scalp. As he brushed the wig, his scalp would bleed so much that it spurted onto the surrounding glass walls, pushing the boundaries of artistic expression. 

Wafaa Bilal is an Iraqi-American artist and professor best known for his piece Domestic Tension, in which he lived in a gallery for a month and was shot with paintballs by users watching from a webcam. His work frequently explores themes of war, surveillance, and the impact of technology on society, drawing upon his personal experience living in Iraq. 

The Third I is a provocative performance art piece in which Bilal had a titanium plate implanted in the back of his head. A camera captures an image every minute for 24 hours a day and automatically posts it online at www.3rdi.me . The website also showed Bilal’s location 24 hours a day via GPS. Bilal’s goal with the piece was to capture the mundane while unknowingly challenging personal privacy and ownership. However, he was required to cover the camera while on his university campus due to privacy concerns. In February 2011, Bilal had the camera removed due to constant pain. 

Through their exploration of societal norms and personal boundaries, the five provocative works of performance art discussed—from Carolee Schneemann's *Meat Joy* to Wafaa Bilal's *The Third I*—demonstrate the genre's power to elicit deep reactions and contribute to the discourse on art's role in society. By blurring the lines between art and life, these artists underscore performance art's vital role in challenging our perceptions and shaping the cultural landscape.

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