Performance art

The terms ‘performance’ and ‘performance art’ came into wide use only in the 1970s, but performance in the visual arts is often traced back to Futurist productions and Dada cabarets of the 1910s. Liveness, bodily movement and impermanence gave artists an alternative to the fixed, lasting forms of painting and sculpture. In Japan the Gutai Art Association, founded in 1954, put the body into the work early on: at the first Gutai Art Exhibition, held in Tokyo in October 1955, Shiraga Kazuo wrestled a heap of mud and left the traces of the struggle in it, and Murakami Saburō broke through a set of large paper screens with his body; the torn screens stayed on display. In 1994, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, Dumb Type presented S/N, which faced the ways society defines and classifies a person's identity and illness. Today the term also covers film, video, photographic and installation works that convey the actions of artists, performers or the audience.

First check whether there are live performances during the run, and on which days. With video or photographs, notice where the camera stands: how close it is to the body, and whether the audience is in the frame.