Wikipedia
Performance art
:This article is about Performance art. For other uses, see Performance (disambiguation)
Performance art is art in which the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. It can happen anywhere, at any time, or for any length of time. Performance art can be any situation that involves four basic elements: time, space, the performers body and a relationship between performer and audience. It is opposed to painting or sculpture, for example, where an object constitutes the work. Performance art traditionally involves the artist and other actors, but works like Survival Research Laboratories pieces, utilizing robots and machines without people, also occur.
Although performance art could be said to include relatively mainstream activities such as theater, dance, music, and circus-related things like fire breathing, juggling, and gymnastics, these are normally instead known as the performing arts. Performance art is a term usually reserved to refer to a kind of usually avant-garde or conceptual art which grew out of the visual arts. Uniquely, Michel Lotito ("M. Mangetout") made performance out of eating unusual objects.
Oftentimes, there is exists a hierarchy between viewer and artist. With participation art, this wall is broken down and the work of art is now judged by the reaction of the viewer. In other words, the reaction is the deciding factor of the art.
History
Performance art, as the term is commonly understood, began to be identified in the 1960s with the work of artists such as Yves Klein, Vito Acconci, Hermann Nitsch, Chris Burden, Carolee Schneemann, Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell and Allan Kaprow, who coined the term happenings. But performance art was certainly anticipated, if not explicitly formulated, by Japans Gutai group of the 1950s, especially in such works as Atsuko Tanakas "Electric Dress" (1956) . In 1970 the British-based pair, Gilbert and Ge read more at » http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance+art