1.5 Performance
1.5.2 The origins
Performance art originates in the historical avant-garde, mainly in the Futurist movement (Goldberg, 2011). However, it was defined as such from the 1960s onwards and established as an artistic discipline in its own right in the following decade.
The first artists to lay the foundations for what Performance Art is today were the musician John Cage and the choreographer Merce Cunningham, who together staged a large number of performances, then called 'happenings' and also 'events', such as Sixteen Dances for soloist and Company of Three (1951).
Visual artists like Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Piero Manzoni and Yves Klein also breathed new life into their original artistic disciplines by showing the other side of the creative process, by using unusual or everyday objects or by using unusual creative media/materials such as the human body (Body Art).
References:
The first artists to lay the foundations for what Performance Art is today were the musician John Cage and the choreographer Merce Cunningham, who together staged a large number of performances, then called 'happenings' and also 'events', such as Sixteen Dances for soloist and Company of Three (1951).
Visual artists like Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Piero Manzoni and Yves Klein also breathed new life into their original artistic disciplines by showing the other side of the creative process, by using unusual or everyday objects or by using unusual creative media/materials such as the human body (Body Art).
References:
- Goldberg, R. (2001). La Performance ; du futurisme à nos jours , (Performance Art from Futurism to the Present, 1988): Vol. Grand format (Thames And Hudson).