Performance art

Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch Sanitation Performance: Fresh Kills Landfill, 1977-1980. The artist sitting at a table with workers of New York City Department of Sanitation.

Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll, 1975. Photo: Anthony McCall. Gelatin silver prints. East Hampton, New York. Moderna Museet. Brooklyn M. Tate. Cornell. Reina Sofia. Artist.

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 0, 1974. Studio Morra, Naples. MG Ljubljana. Guggenheim. MoMA. Tate. Artist.

Installation view from Allan Kaprow, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, Ruben Gallery, New York, 1959. Photo: Fred W. McDarrah.

Claes Oldenburg, Snapshot from the City, 1960. On photography with Patty Mucha (Pat Muschinski). Photo: Martha Holmes.

Chris Burden, Trans-fixed, 1974. Venice, California.

An outline of directions in performance with references to artists, works and writings, major venues, exhibitions and catalogues, recent events, and an associated bibliography including journals, historical studies and analyses of performance art, happening and body art, as well as thematic sections on documentation, reenactment and performance theory and studies.

Artists

This selection includes major performance, happening, body and action artists active in the 1960s and 1970s. See also Situationists, Viennese Actionists, Fluxus artists, and Moscow Conceptualists.

• Marina Abramović (1946, YU-NL-US)
• Vito Acconci (1940-2017, US)
• Laurie Anderson (1947, US)
• Eleanor Antin (1935, US)
• Anne Bean (1950, UK)
• Jerzy Bereś (1930-2012, PL)
• Joseph Beuys (1921-1986, DE)
• Włodzimierz Borowski (1930-2008, PL)
• Stuart Brisley (1933, UK)
• Chris Burden (1946-2015, US)
• Graciela Carnevale (1942, AR)
• Stephen Cripps (1952-1982, UK)
• Jim Dine (1935, US)
• Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976, SW)
• Esther Ferrer (1937, ES)
• Simone Forti (1935, IT-US)
• Guillermo Gómez-Peña (1955, MX)
• Dan Graham (1942, US)
• Ion Grigorescu (1945, RO)
• Rebecca Horn (1944, DE)
• Tehching Hsieh (1950, TW)
• Sanja Iveković (1949, YU-CR)
• Joan Jonas (1936, US)
• Michel Journiac (1935-1995, FR)
• Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990, PL)
• Allan Kaprow (1927-2006, US)
• Milan Knížák (1940, CS-CZ)
• Tetsumi Kudo (1935-1990, JP-FR)
• Yayoi Kusama (1929, JP-US)
• Jean-Jacques Lebel (1936, FR)
• Lynn Hershman Leeson (1941, US)
• Urs Lüthi (1947, CH)
• Jan Mlčoch (1953, CS-CZ)
• Meredith Monk (1942, US)
• Bruce Nauman (1941, US)
• Lorraine O'Grady (1934, US)
• Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022, US)
• Yoko Ono (1933, JP-US)
• Dennis Oppenheim (1938-2011, US)
• Gina Pane (1939-1990, FR)
• Adrian Piper (1948, US)
• Daniel Pommereulle (1937-2003, FR)
• Carolee Schneemann (1939, US)
• Stelarc (1946, CY-AU)
• Petr Štembera (1945, CS-CZ)
• Tamás Szentjóby (Tamás St.Auby, 1944, HU)
• Mierle Laderman Ukeles (1939, US)
• Wolf Vostell (1932-1998, DE)
• Zbigniew Warpechowski (1938, PL)
• Robert Whitman (1935, US)
• Hannah Wilke (1940-1993, US)

Artist's writings

See also publications of Gutai, Situationist International, Viennese Actionists and Fluxus. For publications by individual artists see bibliographies on their respective pages.

Dé-Coll/age 1, Jun 1962.

arTitudes international 3, Feb-Mar 1973.

Journals

• Dé-Coll/age: Bulletin aktueller Ideen, 7 numbers, ed. Wolf Vostell, Frankfurt: Typos, 1962-69. [1] [2] [3] (German)
• Happening News / Milkyways, 6 issues, eds. Hugo Heyrman, Panamarenko and Wout Vercammen, Antwerp, Sep 1965-Mar 1966. [4] [5] [6] [7] (English)
• Interfunktionen, ed. Friedrich Heubach, Cologne, 1968-75. (German)
• Avalanche, 13 numbers, eds. Liza Béar and Willoughby Sharp, New York, 1970-76. Attended to body and performance art, as well as other aspects of conceptual art. Primary source on European and US post-studio, post-minimalist art practices, including performance, process, land, and language art, among other forms of concept-based art. Contains articles, extensive interviews, documentation of works, and large b&w photographs. The journal also published monograph-length studies, such as those on Vito Acconci and Joseph Beuys. [8] (English)
• arTitudes, ed. François Pluchart, 1971-77. Edited by a critic who commissioned theoretical articles and news on international performance and conceptual art, with special attention to performance art in France. ArTitudes (1971-72) published 8 issues, followed by ArTitudes International (1972-77) with 17 issues, which overlapped with info-arTitudes (1975-77), with 20 issues. [9] (French)
• Avalanche Newspaper, 1974-78. Appeared in newspaper format simultaneously with the Avalanche journal, covering similar content. (English)
• Vision, 5 issues, ed. Tom Marioni, 1975-81. Focused on "idea art": California (September 1975) included performance and conceptual artists in the state; Eastern Europe (January 1976) introduced body and idea art from the region; New York City (November 1976) attended to happenings, Fluxus, and body art; and Word of Mouth (1980) offered a boxed set of three LP recordings of twelve artists’ talks, while Artists' Photographs (1981) presented boxed loose-leaf photographs by 76 artists from 16 countries. (English)

Catalogues

• 24 Stunden, Itzehoe-Voßkate: Hansen & Hansen, 1965. Catalogue of a 24-hour happening in which many early practitioners of happenings and Fluxus participated, including Joseph Beuys, Bazon Brock, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, Eckart Rahn, Tomas Schmit, and Wolf Vostell. (German)

Assemblages, Environments and Happenings, ed. Kaprow, 1966, PDF.

Performance by Artists, eds. Bronson & Gale, 1979, Log, PDF.

The Art of Performance: A Critical Anthology, eds. Battcock & Nickas, 1984, PDF; 2010, PDF.

Out from Under: Texts by Women Performance Artists, ed. Champagne, 1990, Log, PDF.

Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology, ed. Cohen-Cruz, 1998, Log, PDF.

Anthologies

• Happenings: Fluxus, Pop Art, Nouveau Realisme: Eine Dokumentation, eds. Jürgen Becker and Wolf Vostell, Rheinbeck: Rowohlt, 1965, 470 pp. Historical resource for the original interconnection among these four overlapping, once mutually enhancing, artistic movements, aesthetic concerns that have subsequently been pried apart in the history of art. (German)
• Happenings: An Illustrated Anthology, ed. & intro. Michael Kirby, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1965, 287 pp. Analyzes happenings as a new form of theater comparable to collage and "compartmented" theater. Composed of statements, scripts, and illustrations of happenings by Allan Kaprow, Red Grooms, Robert Whitman, Jim Dine, and Claes Oldenburg. (English)
• Assemblages, Environments and Happenings, ed. Allan Kaprow, New York: H.N. Abrams, 1966, 341 pp. Survey of the evolution of happenings as partially rooted in assemblage and environments, with attention to the happenings of Wolf Vostell (Germany), Jean-Jacques Lebel (France), the Gutai (Japan), Kudo (Japan), Oldenburg (United States), a.o. [10] (English)
• Aktual Schmuck, Czechoslovakia, ed. Milan Knížák, Cullompton, UK: Beau Geste, 1974. Assembled by Knížák, who was the principal theorist and leader of the Aktual group, and the publication by Beau Geste Press a much admired alternative press includes texts, photos, drawings, and ideas related to Aktual art actions, happenings, rituals, and ceremonies; profusely illustrated. (English)
• Performance by Artists, eds. A.A. Bronson and Peggy Gale, Toronto: Art Metropole, 1979, 318 pp. Begins with a section of texts by artists not often cited in anthologies, such as Chalemange Palestine, Clive Robertson, Tom Sherman, Ben d’Armagnac, and Ulricke Rosenbach, among others. "Commentaries" follow written by artists and art historians, including Bruce Barber’s pivotal essay "Indexing: Conditionalism and Its Heretical Equivalents" on how the term "performance art" came to dominate a once open and variable nomenclature defining a broad field of live art activities. Extensive bibliography. (English),(French)
• Collective Consciousness: Art Performances in the Seventies, ed. Jean Dupuy, New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1980, 245 pp. With introductory conversations between Dupuy, John Howell, Peter Frank, and Paul Miller, and an essay by Tim Maul, the anthology contains documents and statements by performance artists who performed at Dupuy’s loft space at 405 East 13th Street in New York, as well as actions that he documented in other spaces in the city. Vintage photographs of performances artists, both famous and obscure. [11] (English)
• Scenarios: Scripts to Perform, ed. Richard Kostelanetz, Brooklyn, NY: Assembling Press, 1980. This veritable treasure trove of difficult to find, primary texts provides readers immediate access to the musical and conceptual scores, poetry, plays, commentaries, drawings, and performance practices driving experimental art of the period. (English)
• Performance Anthology: Source Book for a Decade of California Performance Art, eds. Carl E. Loeffler and Darlene Tong, San Francisco: Contemporary Arts Press, 1980, xii+500 pp; 2nd ed., upd., as Performance Anthology: Source Book of California Performance Art, San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1989. The second edition begins with introductory statements by Loeffler, Tom Marioni, and Allan Kaprow, followed by Tong’s literature review and her valuable annotated chronology (beginning in 1970) of performance art in California realized by US and international artists. Also contains essays by Loeffler, Linda Frye Burnham, Judith Barry, and Moira Roth. Many b&w photographs. (English)
• The Art of Performance: A Critical Anthology, eds. Gregory Battcock and Robert Nickas, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984; repr., ed. Lucia della Paolera, New York: UbuWeb, 2010. In three sections—"Historical Introduction," "Theory and Criticism," and "The Artists"—the volume contains essays by scholars, critics, curators, and art historians, including Peter Gorsen's "The Return of Existentialism in Performance Art," Françoise Pluchart's "Risk as the Practice of Thought," and David Shapiro's "Poetry and Action: Performance in a Dark Time," as well as interviews with artists Terry Fox, Chris Burden, and Laurie Anderson, and writings by Vito Acconci and Les Levine. (English)
• Out from Under: Texts by Women Performance Artists, ed. & intro. Lenora Champagne, New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1990, xiv+185 pp. Anthology of writings exploring sex, race, religion, and autobiography, and containing texts by performance artists Holly Hughes, Laurie Anderson, Karen Finley, Laurie Carlos, Robbie McCauley, and Jessica Hagedorn, Rachel Rosenthal, Beatrice Roth, Leeny Sack, Lenora Champagne and Fiona Templeton. (English)
• "Performance Art", ch 8 in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings, eds. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, University of California Press, 1996, pp 679ff; 2nd ed., 2012, pp 798-954. Introduction. Writings by an international selection of performance artists, with an introduction to the history of performance art from the 1950s to the present. See also chapter 5, "Art and Technology", for video and multimedia performance, and chapter 9, "Language and Concepts", for conceptual performance. (English)
• The Twentieth Century Performance Reader, eds. Michael Huxley and Noel Witts, London and New York: Routledge, 1996, 422 pp; 2nd ed., 2002; 3rd ed., eds. Teresa Brayshaw and Noel Witts, 2013, 514 pp. First edition contains 50 critical, theoretical, and some canonical 20th-century texts on performance. Reviews: Chamberlain (Contemporary Theatre Rev), Grady (TDR), Makeham (Australasian Drama Studies), Taylor (TDPT). (English)
• Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology, ed. Jan Cohen-Cruz, London and New York: Routledge, 1998. Anthology on invisible theater, demonstrations and rallies, direct action, puppetry, parades and pageants, performance art, guerrilla theater, and circuses, with contributors from Eugenio Barba, Augusto Boal, Yolanda Broyles-González, Dwight Conquergood, Abbie Hoffman, Baz Kershaw, Adrian Piper, Nellie Richard, Richard Schechner, Diana Taylor, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and David Welch. (English)
• "Documents", in The Artist's Body, ed. Tracey Warr, London: Phaidon, 2000, pp 190-287; abr., rev. & upd.ed., 2012. (English)
• "Body Unbound", ch. 4 in Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art since the 1950s, eds. Laura Hoptman and Tomáš Pospiszyl, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2002, pp 196ff. [12] TOC. (English)
• in Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America, eds. Mari Carmen Ramirez and Héctor Olea, Yale University Press, 2004. Assembly of primary documents on and writings by Latin American artists and critics. (English)
• in Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents, eds. Wu Hung and Peggy Wang, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010. Primary documents and review of Chinese avant-garde art from 1976 until 2006. (English)

Re/Search 13: "Angry Women", 1991, PDF.

Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties, ed. Montano, 2000, Log, PDF.

Interviews

• Ellen H. Johnson (ed.), "Performance Art, Film, and Video", in American Artists on Art: from 1940 to 1980, ed. Ellen H. Johnson, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982, pp 225-244. Reprints of interviews with Nauman, Acconci, Burden, and Anderson. (English)
• Re/Search 13: "Angry Women", eds. Andrea Juno and V. Vale, San Francisco: Re/Search, 1991, 239 pp. Compilation of interviews with sixteen performance artists: Kathy Acker, Susie Bright, Wanda Coleman, Valie Export, Karen Finley, Diamanda Galás, bell hooks, Holly Hughes, Lydia Lunch, Kerr & Malley, Linda Montano, Avital Ronell, Sapphire, Carolee Schneemann, and Annie Sprinkle. Interviews address questions of male domination, racism, childhood sexual abuse, persecution of lesbians, reproductive rights, pornography and these artists’ effort to initiate social change through performance art. [13] (English)
  • Ikareru onnatachi, 2 vols., trans. Michio Ochi, Tokyo, 1995 & 1997, 325 pp & 303 pp. (Japanese)
  • Angry women: die weibliche Seite der Avantgarde, trans. Kirsten Borchardt and Patricia Grzonka, St. Andrä-Wördern : Hannibal, 1997, 271 pp. (German)
  • Nu nu, Tai bei shi: Shang zhou chu ban: Jia ting chuan mei cheng bang fen gong si fa xing, 2005, 319 pp. (Chinese)
• Nick Kaye, Art Into Theatre: Performance Interviews and Documents, Routledge, 1996, 280 pp. Includes interviews with John Cage, Carolee Schneemann, Barry Le Va, Dennis Oppenheim, Stuart Brisley, Joan Jonas, Linda Montano, Marina Abramovic, et al. [14] (English)
• Conversations on Art and Performance, eds. Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dasgupta, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Presents interviews on a variety of topics with various authors first published in PAJ journal: Susan Sontag ("Art and Its Audience"), Robert Jay Lifton ("Art and the Imagery of Extinction"), Edward Said ("Criticism, Culture, and Performance"), Carolee Schneemann ("Performance and the Body"), Laurie Anderson ("Acting and Nonacting"), Lee Breuer ("Interculturalism and Performance"), a.o. Review: Fortier (Modern Drama). (English)
• Linda M. Montano (ed.), Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties: Sex, Food, Money/Fame, Ritual/Death, afterw. Kristine Stiles, University of California Press, 2000, 537 pp. Illuminating, humorous, and thoughtful interviews conducted by the performance artist Linda Montano with a diverse group of artists, who opine on sex, food, money/fame, and ritual/death, including artist's biographies. (English)
• Nicholas Zurbrugg (ed.), Art, Performance, Media: 31 Interviews, University of Minnesota Press, 2004, xxii+407 pp. (English)
• Bruce Barber, Performance, [Performance] and Performers, ed. Marc James Leger, Toronto: YYZ Books, 2007, 141 pp. [15] (English)
• Bruce Barber, Performance, [Performance] and Performers, Vol. 2, Marc James Leger, Toronto: YYZ Books, 2007, 160 pp. [16] (English)
• Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Conversations across Borders: A Performance Artist Converses with Theorists, Curators, Activists, and Fellow Artists, ed. Laura Levin, London and New York: Seagull, 2011. Addressing a variety of topics, from border culture, postcolonial theatricalization, and urban hipsterism to art in the post-9/11 era, Gómez-Peña talks with such artists as Lisa Wolford Wylam, Tim Miller, Felipe Ehrenberg, Orlando Britoo Jinorio, Silvana Straw, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a.o. (English)
• Dominic Johnson, Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, xiv+303 pp. (English)

Venues

Major venues for experimental art, emphasizing live and performance art.

• Black Mountain College, fl. c1948-mid-50s.
• ICA – Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, est. 1949.
• The Kitchen, New York, est. 1971.
• Western Front, Vancouver, est. 1973.
• De Appel, Amsterdam, est. 1975.
• Franklin Furnace, New York, est. 1975. Event archive.
• Moltkerei Werkstatt, Cologne, est. 1981.
• FADO Performance Art Centre, Toronto, est. 1993.

Publications

• Martin Duberman, Black Mountain College: An Exploration in Community, New York: Dutton, 1972, 527 pp; repr., WW Norton, 1993, 578 pp; repr., Northwestern University Press, 2009, xxiii+578 pp. History of the radical experimental art school, the volume includes a series of interviews with many who were present at John Cage’s Theater Piece #1 (1952), which included participation by Charles Olson, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, a.o. These personal accounts triangulate and provide unique insight into the historic event.

• ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery, eds. Alan Moore and Marc Miller, New York: ABC No Rio with Collaborative Projects, 1985, 216 pp. Excerpts. [17] [18] [19] (English)

• L'Art en actes: Le Lieu, centre en art actuel, 1982-1997, ed. Richard Martel, Quebec City: Inter Éditeur, 1998. Chronicles performance at the artist-run space Le Lieu, with b&w photographs. (French)

• Vincent Katz (ed.), Black Mountain College: Experiment in Art, MIT Press, 2003. Katz identifies the Bauhaus as the philosophical antecedent for Black Mountain College, the experimental North Carolina art school, as well as the source for the emergence of happenings in the United States. Contains documents and personal recollections of the college, an essay on music by Martin Brody, and essays by Robert Creeley and Kevin Power on poets and the Black Mountain Review, the journal for the Black Mountain school of poetry. Contains numerous interviews with artists who attended the college; five hundred photographs.

• Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia, and Rutgers University, 1957-1972, ed. Geoffrey Hendricks, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Contains original texts and scores by Allan Kaprow, Geoffrey Hendricks, Larry Miller and Sara Seagull, Al Hansen, Carolee Schneemann, Milan Knížák, Philip Corner, Dick Higgins, Letty Lou Eisenhauer, Yoshi Wada, a.o.; and documentation of Hermann Nitsch’s first performance in the United States of his Orgies-Mysteries Theater in 1970. Scholarly essays by Hannah Higgins, Jill Johnston, Barbara Moore, Michael Aaron Rockland, Susan Ryan, and Kristine Stiles. Timeline, many illustrations, and bibliography. [20] [21] [22] (English)

• Marga van Mechelen, De Appel: performances, installaties, video, projecten 1975-83, Amsterdam: De Appel Foundation, 2006, 440 pp. [23]. Review: Konijn (De Witte Raaf 2006). (Dutch)
  • De Appel: Performances, Installations, Video, Projects, 1975-83, trans. Michael Gibbs, Amsterdam: De Appel Foundation, 2006, 440 pp. [24] (English)

• Eleanor Roberts, Third Area: A Feminist Reading of Performance at London’s ICA in the 1970s, London: Queen Mary University, 2016. PhD dissertation.

See also other publications on Black Mountain College.

Reception, art historical studies

the West

See also literature on Gutai, Situationist International, Viennese Actionism, and Fluxus.

Books

Jean-Jacques Lebel, Le happening, 1966.

1960s

• Jean-Jacques Lebel, Le happening, Paris: Denoël, 1966, 89 pp. The first practitioner of happenings in France, Lebel (an artist, poet, and activist) identified Dada as the antecedent for happenings, and launched the Festivals of Free Expression in 1964, multimedia events notorious for vivid representations of sexual liberation. (French)
  • El happening, Buenos Aires: Nueva Vision, 1967. (Spanish)
  • "On the Necessity of Violation", New Writers 4, London: Calder and Boyars, 1967; repr., abridged, The Drama Review: TDR 13:1, 1968, pp 89-105. Trans. of abridged version. (English)
• New Writers IV: Plays and Happenings, ed. John Calder, London: Calder and Boyars, 1967, 166 pp. TOC. Texts by John Calder, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Charles Marowitz, Ken Dewey, René de Obaldia, Allan Kaprow, a.o.
• Richard Kostelanetz, The Theatre of Mixed Means: An Introduction to Happenings, Kinetic Environments, and Other Mixed Means Performances, New York: Dial, 1968. Defines the new mediums of happenings, Fluxus, and experimental dance and theater as intermedia arts. Contains essays and interviews with many of artists, including John Cage, Ann Halprin, Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Carolee Schneemann, Ken Dewey, La Monte Young, Robert Whitman, and members of the USCO collective. (English)
• Jeff Nuttall, Bomb Culture: Pop, Protest, Art, London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968, 262 pp; London: Paladin, 1970, 252 pp. Chronicles the international counterculture, passing through and living in London in the 1960s, in the context of the British "Ban the Bomb" anti-nuclear movement and its destructive ethos and affect on the artists and poets who pioneered happenings and live art. (English)
• Michael Kirby, The Art of Time: Essays on the Avant-Garde, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1969. Considers time in performance, from environmental theater and "activities" to "interdimensional sculpture", as well as the influence of John Cage on artists' theater. (English)

Walter Aue (ed.), P.C.A.: Projecte, Concepte & Actionen, 1971.

Adrian Henri, Total Art: Environments, Happenings, and Performance, 1974, PDF.

RoseLee Goldberg, Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present, 1979, Log, PDF.

1970s

• Udo Kultermann, Leben und Kunst: zur Funktion der Intermedia, Tübingen: E. Wasmuth, 1970, 210 pp; new ed., 1982. Considers performance, conceptual, process, and earth art in the context of world politics, juxtaposing images of happenings and body art with political imagery like the May 1968 Paris riots, the Buddhist monk Quang Duc’s 1963 self-immolation in Saigon, the first moonwalk in 1969, Chinese Red Guard revolutionary manifestations begun in 1966, and the official Bolivian photograph of the dead Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, 1967. (German)
  • Art-events and Happenings, trans. John William Gabriel, London: Mathews Miller Durbar, 1971, 210 pp; US ed. as Art and Life, New York: Praeger, 1971, 210 pp. (English)
  • Vita e arte: la funzione degli intermedia, Milan: Görlich, 1972, 215 pp. (Italian)
• Walter Aue (ed.), P.C.A.: Projecte, Concepte & Actionen, Cologne: DuMont Schauberg, 1971, 450 pp. Documents early projects related to conceptual and performance art, including aspects of Fluxus, happenings, and body art. Many photographs. Review: Rosendorfer (Merkur). [25] (German)
• Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972; A Cross-Reference Book of Information on Some Esthetic Boundaries, New York: Praeger, 1973, xxii+272 pp. An annotated bibliography of international experimental art, covering the plethora of post-studio art that emerged between 1966 and 1972. (English)
  • Seis años, trans. Luz Rodríguez Olivares, 2004. (Spanish)
• Adrian Henri, Environments and Happenings, London: Thames and Hudson, 1974. Henri defines environments as earthworks, and destruction in art and the Art Workers Coalition as happenings. Includes chronology from 1952 to 1972, and appendices of artists' writings. (English)
• Adrian Henri, Total Art: Environments, Happenings, and Performance, New York: Praeger, 1974, 216 pp. Focuses on Black Mountain College in North Carolina, happenings, Fluxus, the Living Theater, and the Soft Machine. (English)
• Lea Vergine, Il corpo come linguaggio: la 'body-art' e storie simili, Milan: Giampaolo Prearo, 1974, 360 pp; new ed. as Body art e storie simili: il corpo come linguaggio, Milan: Skira, 2000, 292 pp. Covering some 60 major international body artists, the volume contains original documentation of happenings, actions, and body art, as well as artists' texts. The updated expanded edition includes a new generation of artists, especially those interested in altering and augmenting the body (Orlan, Stelarc, and Matthew Barney) and those involved in exploring physical pain and trauma (Ron Athey and Franko B). Extensive illustrations. (Italian)
  • Body Art and Performance: The Body as Language, Milan: Skira, 2000, 294 pp; 2nd ed., 2007, 294 pp. (English)
• Frank Popper, Art, Action and Participation, New York: New York University Press, 1975. Popper's text anticipated the increasing significance of science and technology in art actions, and how they, in turn, encouraged audience participation, the virtualization of the object, and the emphasis on mixed, multi-sensorial, spatial, and temporal art. (English)
• Jürgen Schilling, Aktionskunst. Identität von Kunst und Leben? Eine Dokumentation, Luzern: C.J. Bucher, 1978, 215 pp. (German)
  • Xing dong yi shu, trans. Mali Wu, Taibei Shi: Yuan liu chu ban shi ye gu fen you xian gong si, 1993, 363 pp. (Chinese)

• RoseLee Goldberg, Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1979, 128 pp; 2nd ed., rev. & exp., as Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, 2001, 232 pp; 3rd ed., 2011, 256 pp. Canonical survey of performance art, from proto-theatrical performances of the historical avant-garde to contemporary performance art. (English)
  • Pafōmansu: miraiha kara genzai made, trans. Nakahara Yūsuke, Tokyo: Riburopōto, 1982, 193 pp. (Japanese)
  • Performance art: desde el futurismo hasta el presente, trans. Hugo Mariani, Barcelona: Destino, 1996, 216 pp. (Spanish)
  • La performance: du futurisme à nos jours, trans. Christian-Martin Diebold, Paris: Thames & Hudson, 2001, 232 pp. (French)
  • Performans: od futurizma do danas, trans. Višnja Rogošić and Mario Kovač, Zagreb: Test!-Teatar studentima, 2003, 216 pp. (Croatian)
  • A Arte da Performance: do futurismo ao presente, trans. Jefferson Luiz Camargo, São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2006, 229 pp. (Brazilian Portuguese)
  • A Arte da Performance: do futurismo ao presente, trans. Jefferson Luiz Camargo, rev. Carla Oliveira and Rui Lopes, Lisbon: Orfeu Negro, 2007, 300 pp. (Portuguese)
  • Die Kunst der Performance. Vom Futurismus bis heute, Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2013, 256 pp. (German)
  • Iskusstvo performansa: ot futurizma do nashikh dney [Искусство перформанса: от футуризма до наших дней], trans. Anna Aslanian, Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2013, 318 pp. Trans. of 3rd ed. Review: Osminkin (Art1). (Russian)

Chantal Pontbriand (ed.), Performance: Text(e)s & documents, 1981.

1980s

• Chantal Pontbriand (ed.), Performance: Text(e)s & documents, Montreal: Parachute, 1981, 237 pp. Proceedings of the conference Multidisciplinary Aspect of Performance: Post-modernism, Montreal, 9-11 Oct 1980. Presents essays by a wide range of scholars, from Thierry de Duve, Bruce Barber, Craig Owens, and Régis Durand to Jean-Françoise Lyotard, Douglas Crimp, Regina Cornwell, Germano Celant, a.o.; and contains artist sections with performance documentation, artist biographies, and photographs. [26] (English),(French)
• Richard Schechner, The End of Humanism: Writings on Performance, New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982, 128 pp. (English)
• Moira Roth (ed.), The Amazing Decade: Women and Performance Art in America, 1970-1980: A Source Book, Los Angeles: Astro Artz, 1983, 165 pp. [27] [28]. Comprehensive analysis of the pivotal role and impact of feminist performance art during the 1970s, with an introduction by Mary Jane Jacob, a preface and essay by Moira Roth, and an extensive "Chronology: History/Women’s History/Women’s Performance Art" by Moira Roth, Janet Burdick, and Alice Dubiel. Essays by over thirty women artists follow, incorporating bibliographies on feminist literature and performance and women’s art. Includes many black-and-white documentary photographs. Exh. held 1980. Review: Linfante (Leonardo). (English)
• Lucy R. Lippard, Get the Message? A Decade of Art for Social Change, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984, 343 pp. (English)
• Louise Steinman, The Knowing Body: Elements of Contemporary Performance & Dance, Boston: Shambhala, 1986, 161 pp. (English)
• Edith Almhofer, Performance art: die Kunst zu leben, Vienna: Bohlau, 1986, 166 pp. (German)
• Stephen C. Foster (ed.), "Event" Arts & Art Events, Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1988, xv+304 pp, IA. (English)
• Henry M. Sayre, The Object of Performance: The American Avant-Garde since 1970, University of Chicago Press, 1989, xvi+308 pp. Considers feminist performance, particularly by Laurie Anderson, Eleanor Antin, and Carolee Schneemann (ch 4); dance and collaboration as a new form of Gesamtkunstwerk (ch 3); and the application of Roland Barthes’s theories to Sayre’s own concepts of the relationship between photography and live art (ch 7). Reviews: Malina (Leonardo), Leonard (LA Times). [29] (English)

C. Carr, On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century, 1993, EPUB; 2008, PDF.

Catherine Ugwu (ed.), Let's Get It On: The Politics of Black Performance, 1995.

Justin Hoffmann, Destruktionskunst, 1995.

Mariellen R. Sandford (ed.), Happenings and Other Acts, 1995, Log.

Amelia Jones, Body Art: Performing the Subject, 1998, intro. & ch 1.

1990s

• Alain-Martin Richard, Clive Robertson, Performance au/in Canada, 1970-1990, Quebec City: Intervention, 1991, 395 pp. Comprehensive history of performance art in Canada; summaries of over one thousand performances, extensive bibliography, and essays by the editors, Gathie Falk, Francine Chainé, Anna Banana, Sylvie Tourangeau, Istvan Kantor, Johanna Householder, Tanya Mars, a.o. [30] (French)/(English)
• Philip Auslander, Presence and Resistance: Postmodernism and Cultural Politics in Contemporary American Performance, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. Examines the relationship between performance art and political activism. (English)
• Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, London and New York: Routledge, 1993, xi+207 pp. Explores themes of memory, sight, and love, white men and pregnancy, and the ontology of performance. (English)
• Lynda Hart, Peggy Phelan (eds.), Acting Out: Feminist Performances, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993, vi+406 pp. Early performance studies anthology of critical texts devoted to contemporary feminist performance, queer theories of sexual difference, and the politics of performance. Essays by Elin Diamond, Jill Dolan, Lynda Hart, Janelle Reinelt, Judy C. Rosenthal, Rebecca Schneider, Raewyn Whyte, and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano. Reviews: Goodman (NTQ), Cocalis (Modern Drama). [31] (English)
• Elisabeth Jappe, Performance, Ritual, Prozeß. Handbuch der Aktionskunst in Europa, Munich: Prestel, 1993. Jappe writes on international performance art, devoting special pages with color photographs to thirty-two artists, some often neglected, like Mark Thompson (United States), János Szirtes (Hungary), and Teresa Murak (Poland). Includes a section of interviews with Marina Abramović, Stuart Brisley, Jochen Gerz, Nikolaus Lang, Boris Nieslony, and Ulrike Rosenbach. An extensive lexicon of over 170 artists’ biographies contains bibliography and black-and-white photograph of a performance by each artist. Review: Ivacs (Artpool). (German)
• C. Carr, On Edge: Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century, Wesleyan University Press, 1993; rev.ed., 2012, xxii+367 pp. [32]. A compilation of the author’s essays on various expressions of art considered socially subversive. Carr’s articles on the East Village punk club, performance art, and bohemian scenes during the 1980s in New York City includes discussion of the sources of cultural conflicts during the culture wars, the AIDS epidemic, and the homeless. (English)
• Anne Marsh, Body and Self: Performance Art in Australia, 1969-1992, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993, 261 pp, PDFs. History of performance art in chapters devoted to cross-disciplinary practices relating to conceptual, post-object, and avant-garde art, the body, ritual and shamanism, feminism and ecology, the social body, and political performance in Australia. Includes such artists as Mike Parr, Melanie Howard, Kevin Mortensen, Sue Richter, Leigh Bowery, Jim Cowley, Stelarc, a.o. [33] (English)
• Sally Banes, Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body, Duke University Press, 1993, ix+308 pp. Reviews: Guilbaut (Am Hist Rev), Carlson (Theatre J). (English)
• Richard Kostelanetz, On Innovative Performance(s): Three Decades of Recollections on Alternative Theatre, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994, vi+276 pp. Review: Hubbard (Text & Performance). (English)
• Catherine Ugwu (ed.), Let's Get It On: The Politics of Black Performance, Seattle: Bay Press, and London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1995, 224 pp. Examines performance, from slavery and carnival to contemporary art, from African, American, Afro-Caribbean, Indian, and Latino to Southeast Asian artists working in the United States and Great Britain. Essays by Coco Fusco, bell hooks, a.o.; artists Elia Arce, Chila Kumari Burman, Ronald Fraser-Monro, Reza Abdoh, a.o.; color illustrations. (English)
• Justin Hoffmann, Destruktionskunst: Der Mythos der Zerstörung in der Kunst der frühen sechziger Jahre, Munich: Silke Schreiber, 1995, 230 pp. Discussion of the use of destruction as a means in art, including Viennese Actionism; Gustav Metzger's "auto-destructive art"; Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle's sculptures and performances; happenings by Jean-Jacques Lebel and Wolf Vostell; Fluxus performance; French and Italian affiche lacerée (torn posters by Raymond Hains, Francois Dufrêne, Jacques de la Villeglé, and Mimo Rotello); poets like Jiří Kolár, the Beat poets; the German SPUR group, Kommune I, and the Dutch Provos. [34] (German)
• Mariellen R. Sandford (ed.), Happenings and Other Acts, London: Routledge, 1995, xxv+397 pp. A collection of interviews, essays, and performance texts by happening and Fluxus artists, with excerpts from writings by Carolee Schneemann, Allan Kaprow, a.o. Features a critical overview by Gunter Berghaus of European happenings. Reviews: Carlson (Theatre J), Ivacs (Artpool)(English)
• Marvin Carlson, Performance: A Critical Introduction, New York: Routledge, 1996, 247 pp. Introduction. Review: Grady (TDR). (English)
• Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body in Performance, London: Routledge, 1996, 237 pp. A study of the correlation between the use of the body in performance and institutional and social power structures, with explorations of the commodification of the female body and the social construction of fantasy, truth, and illusion, as well as detailed analyses of feminist body art in the 1960s and 1970s, like that of Carolee Schneemann, Suzanne Lacy and Shigeko Kubota, Cindy Sherman, and Sandra Bernhard. (English)
• Philip Auslander, From Acting to Performance: Essays in Modernism and Postmodernism, London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Analyzes relationships among acting, performance, politics, and the change from an earnest, engaged approach to performance art in the 1960s to an ironic, decentered self in the postmodern climate of 1980s deconstruction. (English)
• Sally Banes, Subversive Expectations: Performance Art and Paratheater in New York, 1976-85, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998, x+297 pp. Articles on the intersection of theater and performance art (Meredith Monk and Ping Chong), street theater (Bread and Puppet Theater), performance artists utilizing narrative (Karen Finley, Spalding Gray, Tim Miller), theater director Robert Wilson and comedian Whoopi Goldberg, and "paratheater." (English)
• Nicky Childs, Jeni Walwin (eds.), A Split Second of Paradise: Live Art, Installation and Performance, London: Rivers Oram, 1998, 160 pp. Review: Abrams (TDR). (English)
• The Citizen Artist: 20 Years of Art in the Public Arena: An Anthology from High Performance Magazine, 1978-1998, eds. Linda Frye Burnham and Steven Durland, Gardiner, NY: Critical Press, 1998, xxxiii+344 pp. (English)
• RoseLee Goldberg, Performance: Live Art Since the 60s, forew. Laurie Anderson, London: Thames & Hudson, 1998, 240 pp; 2004, 240 pp. Review: Gale (NTQ). (English)
  • Performances: l'art en action, trans. Christian-Martin Diebold, Paris: Thames & Hudson, 1999, 240 pp. (French)
• Amelia Jones, Body Art: Performing the Subject, London: Routledge, 1998, xiv+349 pp. Introduction & Chapter 1. Theorizes body art as the "dislocation or decentering of the Cartesian subject of modernism", and in the first chapter explores how postmodern artists using their bodies question modernist notions of subjectivity and identity. In subsequent chapters, Jones explores the "Pollockian performative", the male artistic subject in relation to the body in action, and the rhetoric of the pose. Reviews: Daly (TDR), Robinson (n.paradoxa), Jerome (Women & Performance), Ostrow (Bomb) [35] (English)
  • Body art: uprizarjanje subjekta, trans. Aleksandra Rekar, afterw. Bojana Kunst, Ljubljana: Maska/Študentska založba, 2002, 420 pp. (Slovenian)
• Kathy O'Dell, Contract with the Skin: Masochism, Performance Art, and the 1970s, University of Minnesota Press, 1998, xiv+128 pp. Explores the body art of Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, Gina Pane, Ulay/Abramović, a.o., who, she posits, exhibit aspects of masochism that symbolize a contractual relationship between the artist and society and perform a critique of social institutions and their sociopolitical repercussions. (English)
• Johannes Birringer, Media and Performance: Along the Border, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Considers interactivity in the context of immersive computer technologies, video art, and activism, feminist and queer media practices, and future cybernetic museums. Review: Gale (NTQ). (English)
• Philip Auslander, Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, London: Routledge, 1999, 179 pp; 2nd ed., 2008, xiii+208 pp. Examines the relationship between performance and media. (English)

Tracey Warr (ed.), The Artist's Body, 2000, Log.

Thomas Dreher, Performance Art nach 1945. Aktionstheater und Intermedia, 2001, Log.

Midori Yoshimoto, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, 2005, PDF.

Steve Dixon, Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation, 2007, PDF.

2000s

• Tracey Warr (ed.), The Artist's Body, London: Phaidon, 2000, 304 pp; abr., rev. & upd.ed., 2012, 203 pp. With survey by Amelia Jones. Assembles documents and images of international performance art, artists' writings, and criticism since the mid-20th century. (English)
  • Le corps de l'artiste, trans. Denis-Armand Canal, Paris: Phaidon, 2005, 204 pp. (French)
  • Kunst und Körper, trans. Uli Nickel, Berlin: Phaidon, 2005, 204 pp. (German)
  • El cuerpo del artista, trans. Carme Franch Ribes, London: Phaidon, 2006, 204 pp. (Spanish)
  • Il corpo dell'artista, London: Phaidon, 2006, 204 pp. (Italian)
• Roberta Mock (ed.), Performing Processes: Creating Live Performance, Bristol: Intellect, 2000, 128 pp. Review: Abrams (TDR). (English)
• Nick Kaye, Site Specific Art: Performance, Place and Documentation, London: Routledge, 2000, 238 pp. (English)
• Barbara Engelbach, Zwischen Body Art und Videokunst. Körper und Video in der Aktionskunst um 1970, Munich: Silke Schreiber, 2001, 204 pp. [36] (German)
• Richard Martel (ed.), Art Action 1958-1998, Québec: Intervention, 2001, 500 pp. Based on a colloquium dedicated to the memory of Dick Higgins, held in Quebec City on 20-25 October 1998. [37] (French)/(English)
• Thomas Dreher, Performance Art nach 1945: Aktionstheater und Intermedia, Munich: Fink, 2001, 543 pp. Explores a spectrum of types and definitions of performance, from action painting, Gutai, Viennese Action art, and destruction in art to body and transgressive art, and from closed-circuit video to computer and telecommunications in performance. Sections of the book also address solo, as well as collective, performance, multifunctionalism and conceptual performance, the role of the spectator, and other neglected aspects of the range of performance. Useful bibliography. (German)
• Meiling Cheng (ed.), In Other Los Angeleses: Multicentric Performance Art, University of California Press, 2002, xxxiv+407 pp. A study of multicultural, mainstream, and marginal performance art practices over four decades in Los Angeles, including chapters on "Engendering Other/Selves" by Suzanne Lacy and "A Skin Test and a Tongue Transplant" by Elia Arce. With illustrations; extensive footnotes serve as a bibliography. Reviews: Nakas (Theatre J), Chaudhuri (Theater). (English)
• Barbara Büscher, Live Electronic Arts und Intermedia: die 1960er Jahre. Über den Zusammenhang von Performance und zeitgenössischen Technologien, kybernetischen Modellen und minimalistischen Kunst-Strategien, Leipzig University, 2002, 284 pp. Habilitation. (German)
• Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, Duke University Press, 2003. In ten chapters that examine aspects of performance, beginning with "Acts of Transfer" and ending with "Hemispheric Performances," Taylor considers the repertoire of embodied memory in contrast to the written archive, arguing that performance is a form for the transfer of cultural recollection that, together with the archive, can contribute to the renewal of cultural identity in the context of the historical disruption and/or contributions of transnational contact. (English)
• Jane Blocker, What the Body Cost: Desire, History, and Performance, University of Minnesota Press, 2004. Taking her leitmotif from key works by Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, Hannah Wilke, Yves Klein, Ana Mendieta, a.o., with chapters devoted to mouths, lovers, captivating delights, and blood’s work, the author challenges claims for the revolutionary potential of performance art. Includes bibliography and illustrations. (English)
• Adrian Heathfield (ed.), Live: Art and Performance, London: Tate, 2004, 256 pp; repr., 2012. Texts related to Live Culture, an event series curated by Lois Keidan and Daniel Brine of The Live Art Development Agency in collaboration with Adrian Heathfiled at Tate Modern. Essays on performance art by Peggy Phelan, Amelia Jones, RoseLee Goldberg, Henry M. Sayre, Oleg Kulik, Ricardo Dominquez, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Ron Athey, Marina Abramović, Stelarc, and William Pope.L. Review: MacDonald (Performance Research). [38] [39] (English)
• Jens Hoffmann, Joan Jonas (eds.), Perform, London: Thames & Hudson, 2005, 208 pp. Review: MacDonald (Performance Research). (English)
• Gavin Butt (ed.), After Criticism: New Responses to Art and Performance, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, xii+215 pp. Concerns the place of performative criticism in contemporary art and in the theatrics of art since the 1950s. Divided into three sections devoted to the performativity of writing "art's histories," the role of the critic, and the reception of performance processes. Essays by Gavin Butt, Rebecca Schneider, Jane Blocker, Niru Ratnam, Jennifer Doyle, José Esteban Muñoz, Irit Rogoff, John Seth, Kate Love, Matthew Goulish, and Andrew Walby. Bibliography. Reviews: Cesare (TDR), MacDonald (Performance Research). (English)
• Thomas McEvilley, The Triumph of Anti-Art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post-Modernism, Kingston, NY: McPherson, 2005, 391 pp. McEvilley theorizes the history of conceptual/performance as "anti-art" from the long view of the evolution of aesthetics. He begins with Diogenes of Sinope, the 4th-century BCE founder of philosophical cynicism, progresses to German Romanticism, Duchampian conceptualism, and Greenbergian formalism, and ends with postmodern global art and its politics. (English)
• Hans Breder, Klaus-Peter Busse (eds.), Intermedia: Enacting the Liminal, Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2005. Anthology focusing on the transformative conjunctions inspired by intermedia in the arts, ranging from happenings, Fluxus, and performance art to video, new media, and art education. Celebrates intermedia as a multidimensional, hybrid, interconnected approach to creation and knowledge. Essays by artists, critics, and art historians, among them Mary Beth Edelson, Christiane Paul, and Ken Friedman. (English)
• Günter Berghaus, Avant-garde Performance: Live Events and Electronic Technologies, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Berghaus argues for close readings of "artistic praxis" and carefully sets up the conditions within modernism for the emergence of avant-garde performance, attending to major post–World War II developments from happenings, Fluxus, and body art to performance in the expanded context of electronics. With illustrations and bibliography. Review: Cole (Theatre J). (English)
• Midori Yoshimoto, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, Rutgers University Press, 2005. Case studies of the art of Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, and Shigeko Kubota, and their contribution to happenings and Fluxus. Reviews: Concannon (CAA), Chambers-Letson (Women & Performance), Teasley (Signs), Eglinton (Performance Paradigm). (English)
• Jayne Wark, Radical Gestures: Feminism and Performance Art in North America, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006, xv+285 pp. Concerns feminist performance from the 1970s to the 2000s in Canada and the United States, and is a revisionist view of the politics of performance. Chapters explore "Art, Politics, and Feminism in the 1960s," "The Origins of Feminist Art," "Cultural Feminism," "Autobiography and Narrative," "Roles and Transformations," and "Embodiment and Representation." With a bibliography and illustrations. Based on PhD diss. (1997). (English)
• Bonnie Marranca, American performance 1975/2005, trans. Valentina Valentini, Rome: Bulzoni, 2006, 325 pp. Selected essays. [40] (Italian)
• Petra Kuppers, The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Art, University of Minnesota Press, 2007, ix+360 pp. Considers aspects of "wound culture" (see Seltzer 1997, cited under Trauma and Performance) in the context of pain and trauma (from self-harming to AIDS), laughter in the context of technological experimentation and augmentation (from transgender to cyborg bodies), and in conditions of display (from medical museums to art exhibitions). Provides a chapter on body art, "The Collaborative Arts: Pain and Performance," and discussion of performance artists like Chris Burden, Bob Flanagan, Mona Hatoum, Orlan, Carolee Schneemann, and Stelarc. (English)
• Steve Dixon, with Barry Smith, Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation, MIT Press, 2007, xv+809 pp. Includes sections on the genealogy of digital performance and histories of modernist performance, from the futurists to performance and technology since 1960; theories and contexts of digital performance, from liveness and postmodern/posthumanism to the digital revolution and digital software; the body in virtual, digital, robotic, and cybernetic conditions; space in digital theater, virtual reality, liquid architectures, telematics, webcams, online performances of live art in cyberspace as cyberspace theater; time and memory; and interactivity. Includes extensive bibliography. Reviews: Farley (Theatre J), Lycouris (Research in Dance Education), Farman (Contemporary Theatre Rev), Smith (Culture Machine), Lavender (Theatre Research Intl). [41] (English)
• Nick Kaye, Multi-media: Video, Installation, Performance, Routledge, 2007, xxii+249 pp. Review: Lavender (Theatre Research Intl). (English)
• Johannes Birringer, Performance, Technology and Science, New York: PAJ, 2008. Offers the genesis and development of digital media and the engineering of interactive performance. (English)
• Francesca Alfano Miglietti, Identità mutanti: Dalla piega alla piaga; Esseri delle contaminazioni contemporanee, intro. Lea Vergine, afterw. Franco Berardi Bifo, Milan: B. Mondadori, 2008. Applies theories by Antonin Artaud, J. G. Ballard, and David Cronenberg to such techniques as sampling, appropriation, and remixing by body and performance artists. From Stelarc, Orlan, Franko B., and Jana Sterbak to Survival Research Laboratories, a.o. (Italian)
• Sally O'Reilly, The Body in Contemporary Art, London: Thames and Hudson, 2009, 224 pp. [42] (English)
  • Le corps dans l'art contemporain, trans. Lydie Echasseriaud, Paris: Thames & Hudson, 2010, 222 pp. (French)
  • Il corpo nell'arte contemporanea, Torino: Einaudi, 2011, xxxii+243 pp. (Italian)

Uri McMillan, Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance, 2015. Introduction.

Elise Archias, The Concrete Body: Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, 2016, PDF, EPUB.

2010s

• Nancy J. Blomberg (ed.), Action and Agency: Advancing the Dialogue on Native Performance Art, Denver, CO: Denver Art Museum, 2010, 191 pp. Proceedings of symposium held 4-5 Apr 2008 at the Denver Art Museum's second Biennial of the Americas. Presents essays by and on Native Americans’ performance art, emphasizing tribal diverences and associations. Essays by Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe-Canadian), Marcia Crosby (Tsimpshian/Haida), Lara M. Evans (Cherokee), Floyd Favel (Poundmaker Cree), Greg A. Hill (Kanyen’Kehaka Mohawk), James Luna (Luiseño/Diegueno), Tina Mjkowski (Oklahoma Kiowa), Polly Nordstrand (Hopi), and Tavia Nyong’o (Kenyan American), with Nancy J. Blomberg. (English)
• Gabriella Giannachi, Nick Kaye, Performing Presence: Between the Live and the Simulated, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011, 240 pp. Authors consider such topics as authenticity, originality, the artist’s encounter with audience, aura and authority, and the self-awareness of the artist, among other questions raised in performance studies; includes case studies on Lynn Hershmann Leeson, Gary Hill, Paul Serman, Tony Oursler, the collectives The Builders Association and Blast Theory, and virtual reality experiences in Dan Sandin’s CAVE. Review: Sherman (Theatre J). (English)
• Judith F. Rodenbeck, Radical Prototypes: Allan Kaprow and the Invention of Happenings, MIT Press, 2011, 312 pp. Rodenbeck casts happenings as a form of participatory art that simultaneously delivers a radical critique of that very participation. Review: Stob (Criticism). [43]
• Frazer Ward, No Innocent Bystanders: Performance Art and Audience, Dartmouth College Press, 2012. Review: Klein (CAA). [44] (English)
• Scott Burton, Collected Writings on Art and Performance, 1965-1975, ed. David J. Getsy, Chicago: Soberscove Press, 2012, 258 pp. (English)
• Rosemary Klich, Edward Scheer, Multimedia Performance, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 240 pp. Review: Saltz (Theatre J). (English)
• Susan Broadhurst, Josephine Machon (eds.), Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 256 pp. Reviews: Palmer (NTQ), Saltz (Theatre J), Lally (Contemporary Theatre Rev). [45] (English)
• Lois Keidan, C. J. Mitchell, Access All Areas: Live Art and Disability, London: Live Art Development Agency, 2012. Following the exhibition Access All Areas in London in 2011, this book surveys live art by disabled artists in the United Kingdom, including DASH (Disability Arts in Shropshire), sean burn, the Disabled Avant-Garde, Invalid Film Crew, Noemi Lakmaier, Simon Mckeown, Alan McLean, and Tanya Raabe, among others. Authors consider the social, cultural, and corporeal politics of disability. The volume contains artists' writings, interviews, critical commentary, and two DVDs. (English)
• Nicola Shaughnessy, Applying Performance: Live Art, Socially Engaged Theatre and Affective Practice, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, xxi+288 pp. (English)
• Peggy Phelan, Live Art in LA: Performance in Southern California, 1970-1983, New York: Routledge, 2012, 256 pp. (English)
• Deirdre Heddon, Jennie Klein (eds.), Histories and Practices of Live Art, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 248 pp. Survey of the history and practice of live art from the 1950s to the first decade of the 20th century in the United Kingdom, covering topics like institutions, time, action, site, risk, collaboration, politics, support systems, documentation, and recitation. Provides essays on happenings, Fluxus, performance, action, and land art, digital art and site-specific practices, and experimental film and video. Contributions by Jennie Klein, Beth Hoffmann, Roddy Hunter, Judit Bodor, Stephen Hodge, Cathy Turner, Dominic Johnson, and Claire MacDonald. Review: Roms (Contemporary Theatre Rev). [46] (English)
• Diana Taylor, Performance, Buenos Aires: Asunto Impresos, 2012, 176 pp. (Spanish)
  • Performance, trans. Abigail Levine, Duke University Press, 2016, 221 pp. Review: Kruger (Crit Inquiry). [47] (English)
• Jennifer Doyle, Hold It Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art, Duke University Press, 2013. Doyle describes painful life experiences, or "difficulty" in feeling, sentimentality, identity, and emotion, in the lives and work of such performance artists as Ron Athey, James Luna, Yoko Ono, David Wojnarowicz, Aliza Shvarts, a.o. Assiduously avoiding the word "trauma," she nonetheless writes about traumatic experiences that underpin these artists’ art. With b&w and color illustrations and a bibliography. (English)
• Parachute: The Anthology (1975-2000), 2: Performance & Performativity, ed. Chantal Pontbriand, Zurich: JRP/Ringier, 2013, 189 pp. TOC. (English)
• Dominic Johnson (ed.), Critical Live Art: Contemporary Histories of Performance in the UK, Routledge, 2013, xi+188 pp. Traces the emergence of British live art since the late 1970s as a variation on legacies of body art, performance art and time-based art, conditioned by factors such as sexuality, gender, disability, technology, and cultural policy. Based on a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review. Reviews: MacDonald (Theatre Research Intl), Schotzko (Contemporary Theatre Rev). [48] (English)
• Mechtild Widrich, Performative Monuments: The Rematerialisation of Public Art, Manchester University Press, 2014, 256 pp. TOC & Introduction. Examines the relationship of embodiment, memory making, and especially documentation to the meaning of monumental, performative, and audience-oriented art in post-World War II Europe. Based on author's dissertation from MIT. Review: Tumbas (CAA). [49] (English)
• Carola Dertnig, Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein (eds.), Performing the Sentence: Research and Teaching in Performative Fine Arts, Berlin: Sternberg Press, and Vienna: Academy of Fine Arts, 2014, 224 pp. Widrich's essay. [50] [51] (English)
• Annie Abrahams, Helen Varley Jamieson (eds.), CyPosium: The Book, Brescia: Link Editions, and Montpellier: La Panacée/Centre de Culture Contemporaine, 2014, 171 pp. (English)
• Teresa Calonje (ed.), Live Forever: Collecting Live Art, London: Koenig Books, 2014, 172 pp. [52] [53] [54] (English)
• Nicholas Thomas, Body Art, London: Thames and Hudson, 2014, 208 pp. [55] (English)
• Outi Remes, Laura MacCulloch, Marika Leino (eds.), Performativity in the Gallery: Staging Interactive Encounters, Peter Lang, 2014, x+247 pp.
• Uri McMillan, Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance, New York: NYU Press, 2015, 304 pp. Introduction. Tracing a dynamic genealogy of performance from the nineteenth to the present, McMillan contends that black women artists practiced a purposeful self-objectification, transforming themselves into art objects, "performing objecthood" through "avatar production". In doing so, these artists raised new ways to ponder the intersections of art, performance, and black female embodiment. Reviews: Fleming Jr. (TPQ), Cervenak (Theatre J), Mengesha (Women & Performance), Itam (Modern Drama), Grayson (CAA). [56] [57] [58] [59] (English)
• Ila Nicole Sheren, Portable Borders: Performance Art and Politics on the U.S. Frontera since 1984, University of Texas Press, 2015. [60] (English)
• Manfred Blohm, Elke Mark (eds.), Formen der Wissensgenerierung. Practices in Performance Art, Oberhausen: Athena, 2015. TOC. (German)
• Áine Phillips (ed.), Performance Art in Ireland: A History, London: Live Art Development Agency, and Bristol: Intellect, 2015, 336 pp. (English)
• Tiina Rosenberg, Don’t Be Quiet, Start a Riot! Essays on Feminism and Performance, Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2016, 264 pp. (English)
• Elise Archias, The Concrete Body: Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, Yale University Press, 2016, 278 pp. Explores the ways the use of the body as a material in the work of three prominent performance artists revised modernist aesthetics for the 1960s as part of a broader critique of everyday life within spectacle culture. [61] (English)
• In Terms of Performance, eds. Shannon Jackson and Paula Marincola, Berkeley: Arts Research Center at University of California, and Philadelphia: Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, 2016, HTML. An online anthology of keywords, each with entries from multiple authors. (English)
• Martin Patrick, Across the Art/Life Divide: Performance, Subjectivity, and Social Practice in Contemporary Art, Bristol: Intellect, 2017, 243 pp. [62]. Review: Léger. (English)
• RoseLee Goldberg, Performance Now: Live Art for the 21st Century: Live Art in the Twenty-First Century, London: Thames and Hudson, 2018, 272 pp. Review: Harbison (Frieze). (English)

• Catherine Wood, Performance in Contemporary Art, London: Tate Publishing, 2018, 256 pp. Review: Harbison (Frieze). (English)

• Faye Raquel Gleisser, Risk Work: Making Art and Guerrilla Tactics in Punitive America, 1967-1987, University of Chicago Press, 2023, 264 pp. Publisher. (English)

Happening & Fluxus: Materialien, 1970.

documenta 5, 1972, Log.

Journées interdisciplinaires sur l'art corporel et performances, 1979.

Actie, werkelijkheid en fictie in de kunst van de jaren '60 in Nederland, 1979, HTML, PDF.

Persona, 1981, Log, PDF.

Out of Actions, 1998, Log.

Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, 2013, Log, PDF.

Catalogues

See also Fluxus catalogues.

• Happening & Fluxus: Materialien, ed. Hans Sohm, Cologne: Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1970, [340] pp. Exh. curated by Hans Sohm and Harald Szeemann, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 6 Nov 1970-6 Jan 1971. Assembled from the collection of Hanns Sohm, a German dentist, whose formative archive included avant-garde art, especially of happenings and Fluxus, counterculture newspapers, samizdat publications, concrete poetry, and all variety of ephemera. The artist Wolf Vostell designed the catalogue, with chronological annotated entries from 1951 to 1970, followed by a bibliography, and informative pages devoted to every artist in the exhibition. [63] (German)

• documenta 5. Befragung der Realität – Bildwelten heute, 2 vols., Kassel: documenta & Bertelsmann, 1972. Exhibition, held 30 Jun-8 Oct 1972, featured experimental art, from minimal, conceptual, land, earth, and process art to video and performance, the latter exhibited in a section entitled "Individual Myths", including a selection of international artists: Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Gino de Dominicis, Ger Van Elk, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Gilbert and George, Rebecca Horn, Joan Jonas, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Giuseppe Penone, Klaus Rinke, Franz Erhard Walther, a.o. Earliest exhibition to acknowledge body art as a form together with other conceptual manifestations like land and process art. (German)

• François Pluchart, L'Art corporel, Paris: Stadler, 1975, [50] pp; repr. in ArTitudes international 18-20, Jan-Mar 1975, pp 49-96. List of artists. Exh. held at Galerie Stadler, 16 Jan-22 Feb 1975. Expands the discussion of body art by considering the body critique implicit in Gina Pane’s performances, at one extreme, and, at the other, the sociological art and involvement with the public in Hervé Fischer’s art and that of the Parisian Sociological Art Collective, founded in 1974 by artists Fischer and Fred Forest, and sociologist Jean-Paul Thénot, who practiced a political critique in interactive installations and actions using the media, from newspapers and television to video. (French),(English)

• Ira Licht, Bodyworks, Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1975, [20] pp. Exh. held 8 Mar-27 Apr 1975. Discusses how the presentation of the body establishes a relationship between the artist and the public, creates a distinction between the theatricality of happenings and the personal and private aspects of the body, exhibits the emergent social and political discourses of self-sovereignty, plays an important role in essentially humanitarian pursuits, and exhibits values vested in society rather than things. Includes European and American artists; illustrations. [64] (English)

• Act 1: An Exhibition of Performance and Participatory Art, Canberra: Arts Council of Australia, 1978, [60] pp. Exh. held at ANU Arts Centre, Commonwealth Gardens, and Civic Centre, Canberra, 4-12 Nov 1978. [65] (English)

• Journées interdisciplinaires sur l'art corporel et performances, ed. Jorge Glusberg, Paris: Musée national d'art and Culture Georges Pompidou, and Buenos Aires: Centro de Arte y Comunicación, 1979, [56] pp. Introductory text by Glusberg and writings by critics and artists: Juan Acha, René Berger, Florent Bex, Germano Celant, Urszula Czartoryska, Gillo Dorfles, Otto Hahn, Christos Joachimides, Abraham Moles, Jacques Monnier, Jean Pierre Van Tieghem, Lea Vergine, a.o. Welcomed inclusions of artists seldom mentioned are José Roberto Aguilar, Michael Druks, Benni Efrat, Gretta-Alegre Sarfaty, Jacques Lennep, Lea Lublin, Leopoldo Maler, Gerald Minkoff, Jean Otth, and Katsuhiro Yamaguchi. (French)

• Actie, werkelijkheid en fictie in de kunst van de jaren '60 in Nederland, ed. W.A.L. Beeren, 's-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij, 1979, 176 pp, PDF. Exh. held at Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 9 Nov 1979-6 Jan 1980. (Dutch)

• Women at Work: A Week of Women's Performance, Parkville, AU: George Paton Gallery, 1980, 39 pp. [66] (English)

• Other Realities: Installations for Performance, ed. Marti Mayo, Houston: Contemporary Arts Museum, 1981. Excerpt. Exh. held 1 Aug-27 Sep 1981. Exhibition of props used in performances by 6 artists: Joan Jonas, Tina Girouard (both designed especially for the exhibition), Vito Acconci, Eleanor Antin, Colette, and Robert Wilson. (English)

• Space, Time, Sound: Conceptual Art in the San Francisco Bay Area: The 1970s, ed. Suzanne Foley, San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1981. Exh. held 21 Dec-10 Feb 1980. Highlights artists and artist groups working in performance, conceptual, and video art, as well as creating site-specific installation and artist-initiated alternative spaces, such as 80 Langton Street (founded by Jock Reynolds), the Museum of Conceptual Art (founded by Tom Marioni), Galeria de la Raza (cofounded by Rolando Castellión), and The Floating Museum (founded by Lynn Hershman Leeson). (English)

• Persona, eds. Lynn Gumpert and Ned Rifkin, New York: New Museum, 1981, 57 pp. Exh. held at New Museum, New York, 19 Sep-12 Nov 1981. Features the work of nine artists (Eleanor Antin, Mr. Apology, Colin Campbell, Bruce Charlesworth, Colette, Redd Ekks, Lynn Hershman, James Hill, Martial Westburg) who, in making or presenting their work, assume specific alter-egos or personae (human or animal, fictitious or historical) that serve as vehicles for greater freedom of expression. Essay by the curators Lynn Gumpert and Ned Rifkin; includes artists' statements. [67] (English)

• Performance, eine andere Dimension. Gespräche mit den Künstlern, Fotos von den Performances / Performance, Another Dimension: Talks with the Artists, Photographs of the Performances, eds. Kirsten Martins and Peter P.J. Sohn, Berlin: Fröhlich & Kaufmann, 1983, 223 pp. Festivals held at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 5-20 May 1981 and 19-30 Mar 1982. (German)/(English)

• Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance, 1958-1964, ed. Barbara Haskell, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984. Incl. essays on Happenings, Fluxus, and the New American Dance. Exh. held 20 Sep-2 Dec 1984. (English)

• Art as a Verb: The Evolving Continuum: Installations, Performances and Videos by 13 Afro-American Artists, Baltimore: Maryland Institute/College of Art, 1988, [40] pp. Exh. held on 21 Nov 1988-8 Jan 1989. Essays by the curators Leslie King-Hammond and Lowery Stokes Sims; 11 of 13 artists were women; works by Charles Abramson, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, Candace Hill, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O'Grady, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Joyce Scott, Kaylynn Sullivan. Exh. review: Brenson (NYT). (English)

• Outside the Frame: Performance and the Object: A Survey History of Performance Art in the USA since 1950, eds. Robyn Brentano and Gary Sangster, intro. David S. Rubin and Marjorie Talalay, Cleveland: Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, 1994, 280 pp. Exh. held 11 Feb-1 May 1994. Essays by Robyn Brentano, Olivia Georgia; a timeline, and selected bibliography. Review: Ivacs (Artpool). (English)

• Scream Against the Sky: Japanese Art After 1945, ed. Alexandra Munroe, New York: Harry N. Abrams, and New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1994. Pioneering exhibition on post-WWII art in Japan at Yokohama Museum of Art, held 5 Feb-30 Mar 1994, before traveling to New York and San Francisco. Especially emphasizes performance with sections on the Gutai group, Hi Red Center, neo-Dada, and other performance practices, including video performance in Japan. Essays by Alexandra Munroe, Isozaki Arata, Karatani Köjin, John Clark, Bert Winther, Amano Taro, Nam June Paik, Barbara London Reiko Tomii; many illustrations, a glossary, and bibliography. (English)

• 25 Years of Performance Art in Australia: Performance Art, Performance & Events, ed. Nick Waterlow, Paddington, NSW: Ivan Dougherty Gallery, 1994, 65 pp. [68] (English)

• Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979, eds. Paul Schimmel, Russel Ferguson, and Kristine Stiles, Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, and London: Thames and Hudson, 1998, 407 pp. First international exhibition of the objects/relics of performance art (held 8 Feb-10 May 1998), with essays by Schimmel (the exhibition curator), Shinichiro Osaki, Hubert Klocker, Guy Brett, and Kristine Stiles; extensive chronology of performance art from 1943 to 1979 by Kim Cooper; hundreds of images; extensive general bibliography, and brief artists' bibliographies. Travelled to MAK Vienna, 17 Jun-6 Sep 1998; MACBA Barcelona, 16 Oct 1998-6 Jan 1999. Review: Hock (Artpool). (English)
  • Out of actions: zwischen Performance und Objekt, 1949-1979, ed. Peter Noever, trans. Alexandra Bootz and Barbara Hess, Ostfildern: Cantz, and Vienna: MAK, 1998, 366 pp. (German)
  • Campos de acción: entre el performace y el objeto, 1949-1979, 3 vols., trans. Eva Quintana Crelis, México D.F.: Alias/Fusil, 2012. (Spanish)

• Ambulations: An Exhibition of Contemporary Works Based on the Notion of Walking, ed. Gunalan Nadarajan, Singapore: Earl Lu Gallery, 2000. Exh. held 1999-2000, exploring artists’ installations and responses to the performative theme of walking. Includes an essay "On Walking" by Nadarajan in which the curator addresses conflicts and relationships posited by the artists in their selection of materials and conceptual approaches to walking. (English)

• Performing Bodies, London: Tate Modern, 2000, [10] pp. four evenings of film and video projections by artists working in performance, 2-23 Oct 2000. [69] (English)

• A Little Bit of History Repeated, ed. Jens Hoffmann, Paris: Valerio, 2001, 42 pp. Exh. held at Kunst-Werke (KW) Berlin, 16-18 Nov 2001. A number of artists from a younger generation have been invited to re-enact important performances from the 1960s and 70s. Participating artists: John Bock (DE), Tania Bruguera (CU), Trisha Donnelly (US), Ingar Drangset & Michael Elmgreen (DK/NO), Karl Holmqvist (SW), Takehito Koganezawa (JP), Elke Krystufek (AT), Laura Lima (BR), Tracey Rose (ZA), Tino Sehgal (DE). [70] (German)

• Achille Bonito Oliva (ed.), Art Tribes, Milan: Skira, 2002, 562 pp, IA. Exh. held in Galleria d'arte moderna e contemporanea, Rome, 24 Apr-24 Jun and 5 Jul-7 Oct 2001. (English)

• A Short History of Performance, Part I, London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2002, [8] pp. Exh. curated by Andrea Tarsia; held on 15-21 Apr 2002. Texts by Andrea Tarsia and Tamsin Dillon. [71] (English)

• Work Ethic, ed. Helen Molesworth, Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, and Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2003, 248 pp. Exh. held at Baltimore Museum of Art, 12 Oct 2003-4 Jan 2004; Des Moines Center for the Arts, 15 May-1 Aug 2004; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, 18 Sep 2004–2 Jan 2005. Molesworth's essay. Publisher. Review: Koenig (CAA). (English)

• A Short History of Performance, Part II: The Lecture as a Work of Art, ed. Andrew Tarsia, London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2003, 47 pp, IA. Exh. curated by Andrea Tarsia and Iwona Blazwick; held 18-23 Nov 2003. Works by The Atlas Group / Walid Raad, Joseph Beuys, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Inventory, Robert Morris, Martha Rosler, Carey Young. [72] (English)

• Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women, eds. Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder, Toronto: YYZ Books, 2004, 428 pp, IA. This pivotal survey, edited by two noted performance artists and theorists, makes a crucial contribution to the histories of Canadian women’s performance art, and contains scholarly essays by the editors, Tagny Duff, and Dot Tuer, with profiles of thirty-four artists written by leading artist/critics such as Clive Robertson, Glenn Alteen, Jessica Bradley, Pam Patterson, a.o.; includes an extensive bibliography. (English)

• RoseLee Goldberg, Performa: New Visual Art Performance, forew. Hal Foster, ed. Jennifer Liese, New York: Performa, 2005. [73] (English)

• A Short History of Performance, Part IV, ed. Andrew Tarsia, London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2006, [60] pp, IA. Exh. held 1-14 Apr 2006. Works by Isaac Julien, Artur Zmijewski, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Aernout Mik, Catherine Sullivan, Francesco Vezzoli, James Coleman, Judith Barry, Gerard Byrne, Anna Sanders Films, Barbara Kruger, Christian Jankowski, Gillian Wearing, Rebecca Horn. [74] (English)

• Everywhere and All at Once: An Anthology of Writings About Performa 07, ed. RoseLee Goldberg, forew. Francis Alys, New York: Performa, 2007. [75] (English)

• WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Cornelia Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark, Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007. TOC. Exh. held 4 Mar-16 Jul 2007; incl. 120 artists, historical documents, and some 400 illustrations; attests to the impact of feminist art in all mediums, but especially performance art, from 1965 to 1980. (English)

• Performance Art of Korea 1967-2007, eds. Kyoung-woon Kim and Kungnip Hyŏndae Misulgwan, Seoul: National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, 2007, 253 pp. Exhibition. [76] (English)/(Korean)

• Double Agent, eds. Claire Bishop and Silvia Tramontana, London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2008, 143 pp. Exh. curated by Claire Bishop and Mark Sladen; held at ICA London, 14 Feb-6 Apr 2008; Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, 26 Apr-28 Jun 2008; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 21 May-17 Aug 2008. Featured artists who use other people as a medium; works included video and live performance by Paweł Althamer/Nowolipie Group, Phil Collins, Dora García, Christoph Schlingensief, Barbara Visser, Donelle Woolford, and Artur Zmijewski. (English)

• RoseLee Goldberg, Performa 09: Back to Futurism, forew. Irving Sandler, New York: Performa, 2009, 400 pp. [77] (English)

• Re.act.feminism: preformativna umetnost 60ih in 70ih let danes / Performance Art of the 1960s and 70s today, eds. Bettina Knaup and Beatrice E. Stammer, trans. Maša Peče, Ljubljana: Muzeji in galerije mesta Ljubljane, 2009, [16] pp. Exh. held at Vžigalica Gallery, Ljubljana, 10-29 Mar 2009. (Slovenian)/(English)

• Not To Play With Dead Things, eds. Marie De Brugerolle and Éric Mangion, Villa Arson, and JRP Ringier, 2009, 176 pp. [78]

• Donna: the Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s from Sammlung Verbund of Vienna / Donna: avanguardia femminista negli anni '70: dalla Sammlung Verbund di Vienna, ed. Gabriele Schor, Milan: Electa, 2010, 255 pp. Exh. held at Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna, Rome, 19 Feb-16 May 2010; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, 3 Jun-1 Sep 2013. (English)/(Italian)
  • Woman: The Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s: Works from the Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, ed. Gabriele Schor, Brussels: Bozar, 2014, 124 pp; new ed. as The Feminist Avant-Garde: Art of the 1970s, the Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, Munich: Prestel, 2016, 559 pp. Exh. held at BOZAR Brussels, 18 Jun-31 Aug 2014; Mjellby Konstmuseum, Halmstad, 20 Sep 2014-11 Jan 2015; Hamburger Kunsthalle, 13 Mar-31 May 2015; MUMOK Vienna, 6 May-3 Sep 2017; The Photographers' Gallery London, 7 Oct 2016-29 Jan 2017; ZKM Karlsruhe, 18 Nov 2017-1 Apr 2018; Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Jun-Sep 2018; Brno House of Arts, Dec 2018-Mar 2019. [79] [80] (English)
  • Feministische Avantgarde der 1970er Jahre. Werke aus der Sammlung Verbund, Wien, ed. Gabriele Schor, Munich: Prestel, 2015, 512 pp. (German)

• Mildred L. Glimcher, Happenings: New York, 1958-1963, New York: Monacelli, 2012, 320 pp. Excerpt. Exh. held at Pace Gallery, New York, 10 Feb-17 Mar 2012. First exhibition to document the origins and historical development of happenings. Additional essays by Red Grooms and Jim Dine. Includes a selected chronology, index of performances and exhibitions, index of names, and a selected bibliography. Review: Weil (J Art History). [81] (English)

• Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, ed. Valerie Cassel Oliver, Houston: Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2013, 144 pp. Explores the history of live, interactive, and video performances since the 1960s; includes chronology from 1840 to 2012, color and black-and-white photographs, illustrations of primary documents and artists’ biographies, with critical essays by the curator Valerie Cassel Oliver, as well as Yona Backer, Naomi Beckwith, Tavia Nyong’o, Clifford Owens, and Franklin Sirmans. Among the artists included are Papo Colo, Sherman Fleming, Coco Fusco, David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, William Pope.L, Dread Scott, and Carrie Mae Weems. Exh. held at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 17 Nov 2012-16 Feb 2013; Grey Art Gallery, New York, 10 Sep-7 Dec 2013; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 14 Nov 2013-9 Mar 2014; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 24 Jul 2014-4 Jan 2015. Companion website. Reviews: Cullen (CAA), Mullin (CAA). (English)

• Kerry Brougher, Damage Control: Art and Destruction since 1950, London and New York: Prestel, 2013. Includes artists from the 1950s to the present throughout the world, working with destruction in a variety of mediums, such as Jean Tinguely, Andy Warhol, Bruce Conner, Yoko Ono, Gordon Matta-Clark, Pipilotti Rist, Yoshitomo Nara, and Laurel Nakadate, a.o. Essays by Kerry Brougher, Russell Feguson, and Dario Gamboni. Exh. held at Hirshhorn Museum, 24 Oct 2013-26 May 2014. (English)

• Moments: eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten, eds. Sigrid Gareis, Georg Schöllhammer, and Peter Weibel, Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2013, 500 pp. Exh. held at ZKM Karlsruhe, 8 Mar-29 Apr 2012. Companion website. (German)

• Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and The New Psychodrama—Manhattan, 1970-1980, eds. Jay Sanders and J. Hoberman, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013, 144 pp. Maps New York's underground performance art scene of the 1970s. Exh. held at Whitney Museum, 31 Oct 2013-2 Feb 2014. Review: Kalinsky (CAA). (English)

• Re.Act.Feminism: A Performing Archive, eds. Bettina Knaup and Beatrice Ellen Stammer, Nürnberg: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2014, 318 pp. Excerpt. Based upon the touring exhibition project Re.act Feminism #2: A Performing Archive, shown in Vitoria Gasteiz/ES, Gdańsk, Zagreb, Roskilde, Tallinn, Barcelona, Berlin, from 2011-13. [82] (English),(German)

• Venice International Performance Art Week. Hybrid Body - Poetic Body, eds. VestAndPage (Andrea Pagnes and Verena Stenke) Venice: VestAndPage Press, 2014, 128 pp. Exh. held at Palazzo Bembo, Venice, 8-15 Dec 2012. Essays by Bojana Kunst, Dana Altman, Andrea Pagnes, Francesco Kiais, Gabriela Alonso, Richard Martel, Daniela Beltrani. [83] [84] (English)

• RoseLee Goldberg, Performa 11: Staging Ideas, ed. Jennifer Piejko, New York: Performa, 2014. [85] (English)

• Beuys Brock Vostell. Aktion Demonstration Partizipation 1949-1983, Karlsruhe: ZKM, and Hatje Cantz, 2014. (German)

• En mas': Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean, eds. Claire Tancons and Krista Thompson, New York: Independent Curators International, and New Orleans: Contemporary Arts Center, 2015, 200 pp. TOC. Exh. held at Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, 7 Mar-7 Jun 2015. Co-organized as a traveling exhibition by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. Presents 9 newly commissioned artist projects by John Beadle, Charles Campbell, Christophe Chassol, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Marlon Griffith, Hew Locke, Ebony G. Patterson, Lorraine O'Grady and Cauleen Smith. Includes a timeline of diasporic pan-Caribbean carnivals. [86]. Review: Cohn (CAA). (English)

• RoseLee Goldberg, Performa 13: Surrealism / The Voice / Citizenship, ed. Kathleen Madden, New York: Performa, and Gregory R. Miller, 2016. [87] (English)

• More Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women, eds. Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder, Toronto: YYZ Books, and Montreal: Artexte, 2016, 419 pp. [88] (English)

• Venice International Performance Art Week, II. Ritual Body - Political Body, eds. VestAndPage (Andrea Pagnes and Verena Stenke) Venice: VestAndPage Press, 2016, 208 pp. Exh. held at Palazzo Mora, Venice, 13-20 Dec 2014. Essays and texts by Tania Bruguera, Arantxa Echarte, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Andrea Pagnes, Enrico Pastore, Oleksii Polegkyi and Ilija Šoškić. [89] (English)

• Venice International Performance Art Week, III. Fragile Body - Material Body, eds. VestAndPage (Andrea Pagnes and Verena Stenke) Venice: VestAndPage Press, 2017. Exh. held at Palazzo Mora, Venice, 10-17 Dec 2016. [90] (English)

Journals, magazines, periodicals

• Leonardo: The Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology, eds. Frank Malina (1968-81) and Roger Malina (since 1981), since 1968. The peer-reviewed journal on art at the intersection of science and technology, with writings by artists, art historians, and critics working on contemporary media and, together with MIT Press, also publishes Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Leonardo Music Journal, Leonardo Reviews, and Leonardo Book Series. (English)
• La Mamelle Magazine/Art Com, ed. Carl Loeffler, San Francisco, 1975-95. Started out focusing on San Francisco Bay Area performance, conceptual, video, and multimedia and electronic art, but quickly expanding to cover international performance art. Renamed Art Com in 1980. (English)
  • Give Them the Picture: An Anthology of La Mamelle and ART COM, 1975-1984, eds. Liz Glass, Susannah Magers, and Julian Myers, San Francisco: Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice/CCA & CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 2011, 202 pp. (English)
• PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, ed. Bonnie Marranca, MIT Press, since 1976. Triannual. Covers performance art, installation, theater, dance, some aspects of photography, film, and video in interviews and scholarly essays; also includes various forms of artists' writings, from scripts to notations. Originally titled Performing Arts Journal (1976-97). [91] [92] (English)
• High Performance, ed. Linda Frye Burnham (1978-85) and Steven Durland (1986-97), Los Angeles: Astro Artz/18th Street Arts Center, 1978-97. Quarterly. Started out covering exclusively performance art and gradually grew to include video, sound, and public art, including scholarly articles, interviews, special thematic issues, artists' writings, and photographs. [93] (English)
• Performance, eds. Rob La Frenais, Gray Watson and Chrissie Iles, 1979-92. Published articles, interviews, and artists’ writings on performance art (especially in the UK), artist profiles, video, film, and book reviews and essays on a wide range of innovative and eccentric topics, as well as social and political themes. (English)
• Performance Art / LIVE, 7 numbers, eds. Bonnie Marranca and John Howell, New York: Performing Arts Journal, 1979-82. Zine focusing on the performance scene of downtown NYC; by third issue it was retitled LIVE. (English)
• P-Form: A Journal of Interdisciplinary and Performance Art, Chicago: Randolph Street Gallery, 1986-99. Chronicled performance and conceptually related practices, especially in Chicago, in interviews, artist's profiles, and essays, and eventually expanded to cover international performance. [94] (English)
• RealTime, eds. Keith Gallasch and Virginia Baxter, since 1994. Focuses on performance and live art, experimental theater, dance, music, and sound art, as well as photography, film, video, interactive media, and what the journal calls "hybrid arts". (English)
• Performance Research, eds. Ric Allsopp, Richard Gough and Claire MacDonald, since 1996. Devoted to cross-disciplinary research, criticism, writings, conversations, and polemics on contemporary performance art. (English)
• TkH (Walking Theory): Journal for Performing Arts Theory, eds. Bojana Cvejić, Ana Vujanović, Bojana Kunst, et al., Belgrade, since 2001. (Serbian)/(English)
• emisférica, New York: Hemispheric Institute, since 2004. Biannual. Focuses on performance and politics in the Americas. (English),(Spanish),(Brazilian Portuguese)
• MAP: Media Archive and Performance, eds. Barbara Büscher and Franz Anton Cramer, since 2010. (German),(English)
• Performa Magazine, online, New York: Performa, since Sep 2011. (English)
• Performatus, eds. Paulo A. da Mata and Tales Frey, since 2012. (Portuguese)
• Talker, ed. Giles Bailey, London, since 2016. An interview zine about performance. [95]

Journal issues

• The Tulane Drama Review 10:2, Winter 1965. [96] (English)
• Arts in Society 5(1): "Happenings and Intermedia", ed. Edward Kamarck, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Extension, 1968, 207 pp. (English)
• Art-Rite 10: "Performance", ed. John Howell, New York: Art-Rite, Fall 1975, [44] pp. [97] (English)
• Heresies 17: "Acting Up! Women in Theater and Performance", 1984. (English)
• Drama Review 29(1): "East Village Performance", Spring 1985. (English)
• Parallelogramme 12(2): "Performance", ed. Tanja Mars, Toronto: Association of National Non-Profit Artists Centres, 1986, 104 pp. [98] (English)/(French)
• Kunstforum International 96: "Performance und Performance Art", 1988. (German)
• Discourse 14(2): "Performance Issue(s): Happening, Body, Spectacle, Virtual Reality", Spring 1992. [99] (English)
• Art Journal 56(4): "Performance Art: (Some) Theory and (Selected) Practice at the End of This Century", ed. Martha Wilson, 1997. [100] (English)
• Kunst + Unterricht 273: "Performance", ed. Marie-Luise Lange, 2003, 50 pp. [101] (German)
• Frakcija 55: "Curating Performing Arts", eds. Florian Malzacher, Tea Tupajić and Petra Zanki, Zagreb: Centre for Drama Art, Summer 2010, 120 pp. [102] [103] (English)
• Contemporary Theatre Review 22(1): "Live Art in the UK", ed. Dominic Johnson, 2012. [104] (English)
• Das Superpaper 26: "Re:Performance", eds. SuperKaleidoscope (Kim Fasher and Sarah Mosca), Mar 2013, PDF. (English)
• Living Collections Catalogue 1: "On Performativity", Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2014. (English)

Selected essays, dissertations

• Jill Johnston, "'Happenings' on the New York Scene", Encore 9, Sep-Oct 1962, pp 8-13; repr. in The Encore Reader, ed. Horowitz, London: Milne and Hale, 1965. (English)
• Susan Sontag, "An Art of Radical Juxtaposition", Second Coming 1:6, New York, Jan 1965, pp 20-24; repr. as "Happenings: An Art of Radical Juxtaposition", in Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966, pp 263-274, PDF. (English)
• Darko Suvin, "Reflections on Happenings", The Drama Review 14:3, 1970, 125-144; repr. in Happenings and Other Acts, ed. Mariellen R. Sandford, New York: Routledge, 1995, pp 241-262.
• Willoughby Sharp, "Body Works", Avalanche 1, New York, Fall 1970, pp 14-17. Theorizes the new medium of the body as sculptural material deployed for corporeal visual expression, and considers various ways in which artists have used the body, from "The Body as Tool" (Barry LeVa), "The Body as Place" (Vito Acconci and Dennis Oppenheim), and "The Body as Backdrop" (Bruce Nauman and William Wegman) to "The Body as Object," and "The Body in Normal Circumstances." (English)
  • "'Body Works': Um levantamento pré-crítico e não definitivo de trabalhos recentes usando o corpo humano ou partes dele", trans. Lu Peixoto, Performatus 5:18, jul 2017. (Portuguese)
• Cindy Nemser, "Subject-Object: Body Art", Arts 46:1, Sep-Oct 1971, pp 38-42. In a phenomenological examination of the works of such artists as Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, and Dennis Oppenheim, Nemser redefines the dichotomy between presentation and representation of the body, suggesting that body art exists at a critical disjuncture "alternating between states of intense body sensation and extreme cerebral detachment, attempting to give us a message about the frightening and dangerous aspects of our own society". (English)
• Jack Burnham, "Objects and Ritual: Towards a Working Ontology of Art", Arts Magazine 47:4, Dec 1972-Jan 1973, pp 28-32; repr. in Burnham, The Great Western Salt Works: Essays on the Meaning of Post-Formalist Art, New York: G. Braziller, 1974. (English)
• Jack Burnham, "Contemporary Ritual: A Search for Meaning in Post-Historical Terms", Arts Magazine 47:7, Mar 1973, pp 38-41; repr. in Burnham, The Great Western Salt Works: Essays on the Meaning of Post-Formalist Art, New York: G. Braziller, 1974. (English)
• Lucy R. Lippard, "The Pains and Pleasures of Rebirth: Women's Body Art", Art in America 69:3, May-Jun 1976, pp 73-81. Considers how women artists introduced a realistic, frank presentation of sex, pregnancy, and childbirth into the vocabularies of art. (English)
• Moira Roth, "Towards a History of California Performance", 2 parts, Arts Magazine 52:6, Feb 1978, pp 94-103; Arts Magazine 52:10, Jun 1978, pp 10-23. (English)
• Günter Berghaus, "Happenings in Europe in the '60s: Trends, Events, and Leading Figures", TDR - The Drama Review 37:4, Winter 1993, pp 157-168. (English)
• Josephine Withers, "Feminist Performance Art: Performing, Discovering, Transforming Ourselves", in The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact, ed. Norma Brode and Mary D. Garrard, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994. (English)
• Kristine Stiles, "Performance", in Critical Terms for Art History, 2nd ed., eds. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp 75-97. (English)
• Hal Foster, et al., "1961: Oldenburg and Happenings", in Art Since 1900, eds. Hal Foster, et al., London: Thames & Hudson, 2004, pp 450-455. (English)
• Hal Foster, et al., "1974: American Performance Art", in Art Since 1900, eds. Hal Foster, et al., London: Thames & Hudson, 2004, pp 565-570. (English)
• Hal Foster, et al., "1994: Abject Art", in Art Since 1900, eds. Hal Foster, et al., London: Thames & Hudson, 2004, pp 646-649. (English)
• Peggy Phelan, "The Returns of Touch: Feminist Performances, 1960-80", in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, eds. Cornelia Butler and Lisa Gabrielle Mark, Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007, pp 346-361. (English)
• Claire Bishop, "Outsourcing Authenticity? Delegated Performance in Contemporary Art", in Double Agent, eds. Claire Bishop and Silvia Tramontana, London: ICA, 2008, pp 110-125; rev. as "Delegated Performance: Outsourcing Authenticity", October 140, MIT Press, Spring 2012, pp 91-112; rev. as ch 8 in Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London: Verso, 2012, pp 219-239, n349-354. [105] (English)
• Annemarie Kok, Interaction: Performance Art and International Contacts in the Netherlands in the 1970s, Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2009, 116 pp. Master's thesis. (English)
• Amelia Jones, "Unpredictable Temporalities: The Body and Performance in (Art) History", in Performing Archives/Archives of Performance, eds. Rune Gade and Gunhild Borggreen, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013, pp 53-72. (English)
• Eva Ehninger , "What’s Happening? Allan Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg Argue about Art and Life", Getty Research Journal 6, 2014, pp 195-202. (English)
• Isabella Maidment, Provisional Realities: Live Art 1951-2015, London: University College London, 2016. PhD dissertation. (English)

Encyclopedic entries

Happening: en Oxford DA, Tate, Wikipedia. it Treccani. cr Šuvaković. hu Artportal

Performance art: en Britannica, Grove, Guggenheim, Oxford DA, Oxford Bib, Tate, Wikipedia. es CVAA. fr Pompidou. it Treccani. cr Šuvaković. hu Artportal. sl Pojmovnik.

Film documentaries

• 72-82, dir. William Raban, 2015, 63 min. A history of art and performance at Acme Gallery, London. [106]

Bibliography, chronology

• John G. Hanhardt, "Selected Happenings/Performances and Reviews" [1958-1964], in Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance, 1958-1964, ed. Barbara Haskell, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984, pp 145-148.

• John Gray (ed.), Action Art: A Bibliography of Artists' Performance from Futurism to Fluxus and Beyond, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993, xiv+343 pp. An inclusive bibliography on performance art from 1909 to the mid-1970s; covers futurism, Dada, cubism, Russian performance, the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, Gutai, happenings, Fluxus, Viennese Actionism, destruction in art, and the Dutch Provos.

• Moira Roth, "A History of Performance", Art Journal 56:4, 1997, pp 73-83. Syllabus.

• Kristine Stiles, "Performance Art", Oxford Bibliographies, 2014. Subscription access.

Andrey Kovalev, Rossiyskiy aktsionizm, 1990-2000, 2007, Log, PDF; EN: PDF.

Медиаудар. Mediaimpact, 2012, Log, PDF.

Soviet Union, Russia

See also literature on Moscow Conceptualists.

Books

• Kollektivnye deystviya (Коллективные действия), Poezdki za gorod [Поездки за город], Moscow: Ad Marginem, 1998, 848 pp. In the mid-1970s Collective Actions started organizing its famous out-of-town performances ("trips to the countryside"), which were all meticulously documented by the group. The publication includes documentation of five such trips. (Russian)
• Andrey Kovalev, Rossiyskiy aktsionizm, 1990-2000 [Российский акционизм. 1990-2000], Moscow, 2007, 416 pp. Special issue of WAM (World Art Музей), 28-29. A survey of 450 performances, actions and happenings held in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and elsewhere. Descriptions and photo documentation are accompanied by press coverage and testimonies of participants and witnesses. (Russian)
  • "Gestures of an Era, or the Era of Gestures", Artchronika, Spring-Summer 2008, pp 108-117. Excerpts. (English)
• MediaUdar: aktivistskoe iskusstvo segodnya [МедиаУдар: активистское искусство сегодня], ed. Ilya Falkovski (Илья Фальковский), Moscow: CommonPlace, 2014, 227 pp. Anthology of texts produced in the framework of MediaUdar festival. (Russian)
• MediaUdar: aktivistskoe iskusstvo segodnya [МедиаУдар: активистское искусство сегодня II], eds. Tatiana Volkova (Татьяна Волкова), Yevgenia Zubchenko (Евгения Зубченко) and Pavel Mitenko (Павел Митенко), Moscow, 2016, 623 pp. Anthology of texts produced in the framework of MediaUdar festival. (Russian)

Catalogues

• Медиаудар. Mediaimpact, Moscow: MediaImpact, and Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2012, 359 pp. Catalogue of the international festival of activist art MediaUdar, held in autumn 2011 in Moscow. Includes descriptions of 68 recent works; texts by Tatiana Volkova, Arseny Sergeev, Oksana Sarkisyan, Anton Nikolayev, Pablo Hermann, Kostis Stafylakis, Oleg Genisaretskiy, and Peter Weibel; and interviews with Mike Bonnano, Nina Felshin, and Andrew Boyd. (English)/(Russian)
• Performans v Rossii, 1910-2010: kartografiya istorii [Перформанс в России, 1910-2010: картография истории], ed. Alexandra Obukhova, Moscow: Artguide Editions OOO / Art Gid, 2014, 279 pp. Catalogue for exh. held at Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, 17 Oct-5 Dec 2014. [107] [108] (Russian)

Journal issues

• Dekorativnoye Iskusstvo (Декоративное Искусство) 5: "Performans: iskusstvo deystviya" [Перформанс: искусство действия], Moscow: Trilistnik, 1991, 136 pp. The special issue features the first Russian translation of an excerpt from RoseLee Goldberg's Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present, as well as contributions by Viktor Tupitsyn, Ekaterina Bobrinskaya, Joseph Backstein and Soviet underground artists like Rimma and Valeriy Gerlovin, TOTART, Andrei Monastyrsky, Komar and Melamid, German Vinogradov, and Toadstool group, a.o. (Russian)

Book chapters, essays

• Margarita Masterkova (Маргарита Мастеркова), "Moskovskie performansy" [Московские перформансы], A-Ya [А-Я] 4, Paris, 1982, pp 5-11. The earliest study of Russian postwar performance art, focusing on groups like Collective Actions, Gnezdo, and the duo of Rimma and Valery Gerlovin. (Russian)
• Sabine Hänsgen, "Aktion und Textkultur: Zur Performance in der zeitgenössischen russischen Kunst", in Kulturauffassungen in der literarischen Welt Rußlands: Kontinuitäten und Wandlungen im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Christa Ebert, Berlin, 1995, pp 237-255. (German)
• Yevgenia Kikodze (Евгения Кикодзе), "Novyy russkiy performans i mifologiya 'iskusstvo=zhizn'" [Новый русский перформанс и мифология 'искусство=жизнь'], Komod 8, Yekaterinburg, Winter-Spring 1999, pp 65-69. (Russian)
• Amy Bryzgel, "Afrika and the Russian Dog: Performing Post-Soviet Identity in Russia", in Bryzgel, Performing the East: Performance Art in Russia, Latvia and Poland since 1980, London and New York: IB Tauris, 2013, pp 34-99. (English)
• Ingrid Nelson, "Artist for a New Age: Dissident Russian Performance Art and the Work of Petr Pavlenskii", Russian Literature 96-98, Feb-May 2018, pp 277-295. [109]
• Iva Glisic, Biljana Puric, "Art as a Living Archive: Post-1989 Performance Art in Serbia and Russia", Third Text 33:2, 2019, pp 213-234. (English)

Dissertations

• Yulia Gnirenko (Юлия Гниренко), "Performans kak yavleniye sovremennogo otechestvennogo iskusstva" [Перформанс как явление современного отечественного искусства], 1999. (Russian)

Bibliography

• Overview of publications on Russian performance, Garage Museum, Moscow.

Body and the East: from the 1960s to the Present, ed. Badovinac, 1999.

Klara Kemp-Welch, Antipolitics in Central European Art, 2014.

Amy Bryzgel, Performance Art in Eastern Europe since 1960, 2017. Introduction.

East-Central Europe

Books

• Aktuelle Kunst in Osteuropa, ed. Klaus Groh, Cologne: DuMont-Schauberg, 1972, 222 pp. One of first books to cover performance, conceptual, and mail art in Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Soviet Union. Short introduction by the author followed by b&w photographs, artists’ statements, and a bibliography. (German)

• Gender Check: A Reader. Art and Theory in Eastern Europe, eds. Bojana Pejić, ERSTE Foundation, and Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Vienna, Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2010, 416 pp. An extensive collection of texts that explicitly analyze visual arts created before and after 1989 in the 'other' Europe in terms of gender and feminist theories. Texts by Anna Alchuk, Branislava Andjelkovic, Edit András, Zdenka Badovinac, Ágnes Berecz, Lyudmila Bredikhina, Branislav Dimitrijevic, Hildtrud Ebert, Ewa Franus, Jana Geržová, Nataša Ilić, Eva Khachatryan, Katrin Kivimaa, Izabela Kowalczyk, Vjollca Krasniqi, Laima Kreivyte, Dejan Kršic, Paweł Leszkowicz, Suzana Milevska, Danica Minic, Olivia Niţiş, Aleksis Osmanis, Martina Pachmanová, Bojana Pejić, Piotr Piotrowski, Zora Rusinová, Angeli Sachs, Lydia Sklevicky, Vera Sokolová, Inga Šteimane, Maria Vassileva, Mirek Vodrážka. TOC. Project website. Publisher. [110]

• Removed From the Crowd: Unexpected Encounters 1, eds. Ivana Bago and Antonia Majača with Vesna Vuković, Zagreb: BLOK & DeLVe, 2011, 312 pp. Considers comparative, transnational, conceptual and performance art in Latvia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Chile, Peru, Poland, and Romania. Among other essays, presents Bago and Majača on Yugoslavian experimental art of the 1960s and 1970s; Alina Serban on the Romania performance artist Geta Brătescu; Vesna Vuković on Croatian artists Sanja Iveković and Tomislav Gotovac; Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez on the Slovenian group IRWIN; and Lucian Gomoll and Lissette Olivares on Chilean conceptual and performance. (English)

• Amy Bryzgel, Performing the East: Performance Art in Russia, Latvia and Poland since 1980, London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013, 303 pp. Contains three chapters: one on post-Soviet Russian identity focusing on Sergei Bugaev (aka Afrika) and Oleg Kulik; a second on Starix (2000–2004), the fake media star invented by the artist Gints Gabrāns, and The Bronze Man (1987–1992), a homeless man moving from Riga to Bremen and Helsinki, constructed by Miervaldis Polis; and a third chapter on gender performances by the Polish artists Zbigniew Libera and Katarzyna Kozyra. Video talk. Publisher. Reviews: Jeschke (Slovo), Cseh-Varga (Oxford Art J). (English)

• Klara Kemp-Welch, Antipolitics in Central European Art: Reticence as Dissidence under Post-Totalitarian Rule, 1956-1989, I.B. Tauris, 2014, xx+336 pp. Presents new readings of the work of Tadeusz Kantor, Július Koller, Tamas Szentjóby, Endre Tót, Jiří Kovanda and Jerzy Bereś. Publisher. Reviews: Gurshtein (ARTMargins), Bryzgel (CritCom), Cseh-Varga (Oxford Art J), Alisauskas (Critique d'art), Aulich (LSE blogs). (English)

• Amy Bryzgel, Performance Art in Eastern Europe since 1960, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017, xvii+366 pp. Introduction. Presents a history and development of performance art in the former communist countries of Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe since the 1960s, covering 21 countries and 250+ artists. Companion website. Publisher. Reviews: Foerschner (H-Net), Maydanchik (SEER), Blaylock (CAA), Spieker (Slavic R), Jovićević (Modern Drama). Bryzgel 2020. [111] (English)

• Katalin Cseh-Varga, Adam Czirak (eds.), Performance Art in the Second Public Sphere. Event-Based Art in Late Socialist Europe, London: Routledge, 2018, xii+263 pp. (English)

• Klara Kemp-Welch, Networking the Bloc: Experimental Art in Eastern Europe 1965-1981, MIT Press, 2018, xi+468 pp. (English)

• Adam Czirak (ed.), Aktionskunst jenseits des Eisernen Vorhangs. Künstlerische Kritik in Zeiten politischer Repression, Bielefeld: transcript, 2019, 242 pp. [112] (German)

• Maja Fowkes, Reuben Fowkes, Central and Eastern European art since 1950, London: Thames & Hudson, Mar 2020, 232 pp. Introduction. Publisher. Reviews: Nae (ArtMargins), Rousseva (CAA), Schultz (Art Monthly), Placáková (Artportal.hu), Placáková (Artalk.cz, CZ). (English)

• Corinna Kühn, Medialisierte Körper. Performances und Aktionen der Neoavantgarden Ostmitteleuropas in den 1970er Jahren, Vienna: Böhlau, 2020, 324 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Renz (ArtMargins), Drobe (Art East Central). (German)

• Doing Performance Art History. Perspectives of Actors and Observers, eds. Sandra Frimmel, Tomáš Glanc, Sabine Hänsgen, Katalin Krasznahorkai, Nastasia Louveau, Dorota Sajewska, and Sylvia Sasse, Apparatus, Oct 2020. (English)

Catalogues

• Body and the East: from the 1960s to the Present, ed. Zdenka Badovinac, MIT Press, 1999, 192 pp. Exh. held at Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, 7 Jul-27 Sep 1998. Chronicles art, especially that of performance and body artists, in central and eastern Europe, with short artist biographies of 80 artists. Essays by Joseph Backstein, Bojana Pejić, Iara Boubnova, Jurij Krpan, Ileana Pintilie, Kristine Stiles, Branka Stipančić, László Beke, Igor Zabel, a.o. [113] (English)/(Slovenian)

• Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe, ed. Bojana Pejić and Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Vienna, Cologne: Walther Koenig, 2009, 392 pp. Texts by Edit András, Keti Chukhrov, Branislav Dimitrijević, Katrin Kivimaa, Izabela Kowalczyk, Suzana Milevska, Martina Pachmanová, Bojana Pejić, Piotr Piotrowski, Zora Rusinová, Hedwig Saxenhuber, Georg Schöllhammer. Project website. Publisher. Exh. held at mumok, Vienna, 13 Nov 2009-14 Feb 2010; Zachęta, 19 Mar-13 Jun 2010. List of works. Review: Krüger (Ostblick). Symposium. [114] (English)
  • Gender Check. Rollenbilder in der Kunst Osteuropas, Vienna: mumok, 2009, 162 pp. TOC. [115] (German)

• Spoločné posedenie. Paralelné chronológie zhôd okolností vo východnej Európe / Sitting Together: Parallel Chronologies of Coincidences in Eastern Europe, eds. Petra Feriancová and Zsuzsa László, Bratislava: tranzit.sk, and Budapest: tranzit.hu, 2017, 25 pp. (Slovak)/(Hungarian)

• Art Riot: Post-Soviet Actionism, ed. Andrey Kovalev, intro. Marat Guelman, Boris Groys, and Andrey Kovalev, ABCdesign Studio, 2017, 255 pp, HTML. Exh. curated by Marat Guelman; held at Saatchi Gallery, London, 16 Nov-31 Dec 2017. Excerpt. [116] (English)
  • Art Riot: Postsovetskiy aktsionizm [Art Riot: Постсоветский акционизм], n.d. (Russian)

• Left Performance Histories: Recollecting Artistic Practices in Eastern Europe, eds. Judit Bodor, Adam Czirak, Astrid Hackel, Beäta Hock, Andrej Mircev, and Angelika Richter, Berlin: neue Gesellschaft für bildene Kunst (nGbK), 2018, 205 pp. Text by Kata Benedek, Judit Bodor, David Crowley, Adam Czirak, Constanze Fritzsch, Astrid Hackel, Beata Hock, Jürgen Hohmuth, Roddy Hunter, Bojana Matejić, Andrej Mirčev, Angelika Richter, Elske Rosenfeld, Heike Roms, Branka Stipančić. TOC, Introduction. Publisher. Project website. Review: Bryzgel (CAA). (German)/(English)

• Artists & Agents. Performancekunst und Geheimdienste, eds. Kata Krasznahorkai and Sylvia Sasse, Leipzig: Spector, 2019, 686 pp. [117] (German)

• Artists & Agents: Performance Art and Secret Services, eds. Inke Arns, Kata Krasznahorkai, Sylvia Sasse, and HMKV, Dortmund: Kettler, 2019, 224 pp. Review: Bátorová (ArtMargins). (German)/(English)

• Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s, ed. Pavel S. Pyś, Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 2023, 408 pp. Introduction. TOC. Publisher. Exh. held at Walker Art Center, 11 Nov 2023-10 Mar 2024; Phoenix Art Museum, 17 Apr−15 Sep 2024; Vancouver Art Gallery, 2 Nov 2024−23 Mar 2025. Opening panel discussion (105m). Curator's talk (42m). Exh. reviews: Farago (NYT), Snodgrass (Artforum), Blaylock (ARTMargins), Plagens (WSJ), Wetzler (Apollo), Greenberger (Art in America), Duray (Observer), ArtRevue.cz. [118] [119] (English)

Journal issues

• Centropa 14(1): "Performance Art in Central and Eastern Europe", eds. Amy Bryzgel and Pavlína Morganová, Jan 2014. [120] (English)

• Revista Arta 14-15: "Performance in Eastern Europe", ed. Ileana Pintilie, Bucharest: Romanian Artists’ Union, 2015, 98 pp. (Romanian)/(English)

• post: "Fluxus Threads in Eastern Europe", eds. Magdalena Moskalewicz and Christian Rattemeyer, New York: Museum of Modern Art, Jul 2015. [121] [122] (English)

Book chapters, essays

• "Body Unbound", ch 4 in Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art Since the 1950s, eds. Laura Hoptman and Tomáš Pospiszyl, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2002, pp 197-255. (English)

• Piotr Piotrowski, "The Critique of Painting: Towards the Neo-avant-garde" & "Mapping the Neo-avant-garde, c. 1970" & "The Politics of Identity: Male and Female Body Art", chs 6, 7 & 9 in Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-garde in Eastern Europe, 1945-1989, trans. Anna Brzyski, London: Reaktion Books, 2009, pp 178-237, 241-314 & 341-387, n454-458, n458-466 & n469-471. (English)

• Claire Bishop, "The Social Under Socialism", ch 5 in Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London: Verso, 2012, pp 129ff. (English)

• Amy Bryzgel, "Continuity and Change: Performance Art in Eastern Europe since the 1960s", Idea 45, Cluj, Nov 2014. [123] (English)
  • "Continuitate și schimbare: arta performance în Europa de Est începînd cu anii 1960", trans. Alexandru Polgár, Idea 45, Cluj, Nov 2014. (Romanian)

• Amy Bryzgel, "Полът и неговите изпълнения в Източна Европа" / "Performing Gender in Eastern Europe", in София Куиър Форум 2014 / Sofia Queer Forum 2014, ed. Stefka Tsaneva, Sofia, 2014, pp 14-25 & 26-35. (Bulgarian)/(English)

• Amy Bryzgel, "Performance Art in East-Central Europe: 1960s to the Post-Communist Era", PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 42:3, Sep 2020, pp 95-105. [124] (English)

• Kathleen Reinhardt, "Persons and Objects Are to Be Removed from the Balcony: Artists Performing in Public and Private Spaces of Control during the Cold War", in Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s, ed. Pavel S. Pyś, Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 2023. Exhibition. (English)

• Sven Spieker, "Taking It to the Street: Eastern European Art Demonstrations (Milan Knížák, Jiří Kovanda, Endre Tót, Mladen Miljanović, Ciprian Homorodean)", in Spieker, Art and Demonstration: A Revolutionary Recasting of Knowledge, MIT Press, Feb 2024. [125] (English)

Interviews

• Andrea Bátorová, "Interview with Katalin Cseh and Adam Czirak About the Second Public Sphere in the former Eastern Bloc", ArtMargins, 23 Oct 2014. (English)

Umění akce, 1991, Log, PDF.

Akce slovo pohyb prostor, 1999.

Pavlína Morganová, Czech Action Art, 2015.

Czech Republic

Anthologies

• České akční umění: Filmy a videa, 1956–1989. Soubor filmů a videí z let 1956–1989, eds. Pavlína Morganová, Terezie Nekvindová and Sláva Sobotovičová, Prague: VVP AVU, 2015, 3h14m. DVD anthology. [126]

Books

• Igor Zhoř, Radek Horáček, Vladimír Havlík, Akční tvorba, Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého, 1991, 84 pp. Summary. University textbook. (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, Akční umění, Olomouc: Votobia, 1999; 2nd ed., exp., Olomouc: J. Vacl, 2009. (Czech)
• Barbora Klímová, Replaced, afterw. Tomáš Pospiszyl, Brno: self-published, 2006, 77 pp. Collection of new interviews with performance artists of the 1970s and 80s. (Czech)/(English)
• Dokumentace umění, eds. Jan Krtička and Jan Prošek, Ústí nad Labem: Univerzita J. E. Purkyně, 2013, 133 pp. Proceedings from the conference held on 5 Dec 2012. With texts by Hana Buddeus, Vladimír Havlík, Jiří Kovanda, Jan Mlčoch, Tomáš Pospiszyl, Tomáš Ruller, and Miloš Šejn. (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, Procházka akční Prahou. Akce, performance, happeningy 1949–1989, Prague: VVP AVU (Dokumenty), 2014. [127] (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, Czech Action Art: Happenings, Actions, Events, Land Art, Body Art and Performance Art Behind the Iron Curtain, trans. Daniel Morgan, Prague: Karolinum, 2015, 288 pp. [128]. Reviews: Tomic (CritCom 2014), Kemp-Welch (Umění/Art). (English)
• Vladimír Havlík (ed.), Akce a reakce: performativní aspekty v současném umění a umělecké výchově, Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2015, 225 pp. (Czech)
• Alena Rybníčková, Radek Chlup, Martin Pehal, Evelyne Koubková, Happening: mezi záměrem a hrou, Prague: Akademie múzických umění v Praze, 2015, 209 pp. (Czech)
• Hana Buddeus, Zobrazení bez reprodukce? Fotografie a performance v českém umění sedmdesátých let 20. století, Prague: UMPRUM, 2017. Based on PhD dissertation. [129] [130] (Czech)
• Alice Koubová, Eliška Kubartová (eds.), Terény performance, Prague: NAMU, 2021, 524 pp. Publisher. Review: Morganová (ArteActa). (Czech)

Catalogues

• Projects / Performances: Czechoslovakia / Poland, ed. & intro. Charlotta Kotik, Buffalo, NY: Hallwalls, 1977, 16 pp. With works by Vladimír Ambroz, Jaroslav Anděl, Milan Dobeš, Dalibor Chatrný, Karel Miler, Jan Mlčoch, Adriena Šimotová, Petr Štembera, Jiří Valoch, a.o. [131] (English)
• Umění akce, ed. Vlasta Čiháková-Noshiro, Prague, 1991, 28+141 pp. Catalogue for a retrospective of performance and action art in Czechoslovakia, held at Mánes, Prague, 9 Jul-11 Aug 1991; Museum of Art, Žilina, 16 Aug-29 Sep 1991. With texts by Věra Jirousová, Jiří Valoch, Ivona Raimanová, Radislav Matuštík, and Vlasta Čiháková-Noshiro. (Czech)
• Factum I: Mezinarodní festival akčního umění / The International Festival of Action Art, ed. Jiří Zemánek, Prague: Národní galerie, 1993, 33 pp. Catalogue for the exhibition held 9 Sep 1992. (Czech)/(English)
• Umění zastaveného času / Art When Time Stood Still: akce, koncepty, události. Česká výtvarná scéna 1969-1985, Prague: České muzeum výtvarných umění, 1996, 118 pp. (Czech),(English)
• Akce, slovo, pohyb, prostor. Experimenty v umění šedesátých let, ed. Vít Havránek, Prague: Galerie hl. města Prahy, 1999, 508 pp. TOC. Catalogue. [132] (Czech)
  • Vít Havránek, "Action Word Movement Space: Czech experimental art of the 1960s", trans. Kathleen Hayes, Central European Review, 2000. Trans. of introduction. (English)
• Umění akce: rané projevy akčního umění ve východních Čechách, Rychnov nad Kněžnou: Orlická galerie, 2019, [4] pp. Booklet. [133] (Czech)
• Haptická ozvena. Príroda, telo, politika v umení bývalej Juhoslávie a Československa, ed. Daniel Grúň, Bratislava: Galéria mesta Bratislavy, 2024. Exhibition. (Slovak)

Journal issues

• Sešity pro mladou literaturu 4(33): "Happening", Sep 1969. (Czech)

Book chapters, essays

• Jaroslav Kořán, "Happening včera a dnes", Sešity pro mladou literaturu 1:4, 1966, pp 3-7. (Czech)
• Jindřich Chalupecký, "Úzkou cestou", Výtvarné umění 16:5, 1966, pp 365-370. (Czech)
• Jindřich Chalupecký, "Experimentální umění. Happeningy, events, de-koláže", Výtvarná práce 14:9, 12 May 1966, pp 1-7. (Czech)
• Milan Knizak, "Happenings in Prague", Studio International, Oct 1966, pp 210-211. [134] (English)
• Miloš Horanský, "Happening a jevištní prostor", Acta scaenographica 7:6, 1966-1967, pp 108-113. (Czech)
• Pierre Restany, "Prague: Sisyphe sans Kafka serait Promethee", Domus 450, May 1967, pp 50-54. (French)
• Vladimír Burda, "Fluxus-happening-event", Divadlo 1, 1967, pp 39-44. (Czech)
• Jindřich Chalupecký, "Art, Insanity and Crime", Arts in Society 5(1): "Happenings and Intermedia", ed. Edward Kamarck, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Extension, 1968, pp 104-108. [135] (English)
• Vladimír Burda, "Happening ve smyčce", Výtvarná práce 16:15, 16 Aug 1968, pp 1, 3, 10. (Czech)
• Vladimír Burda, "Exil & utopie. Osudy pražského happeningu II", Výtvarná práce 16:18, 25 Oct 1968, pp 10-11. (Czech)
• Vladimír Burda, "Les happenings", Opus International 9, Paris, Dec 1968, pp 51-56. (French)
• Jindřich Chalupecký, "Happening a spol.", Sešity pro literaturu a diskusy 4:33, Sep 1969, pp 13-16; repr. in Chalupecký, Cestou necestou, 1999, pp 93-108. (Czech)
• Eugen Brikcius, "Chvála happeningu", Sešity pro literaturu a diskusy 4:33, Sep 1969, pp 25-26. (Czech)
• Petr Štembera, "Events, Happenings and Land-Art in Czechoslovakia: A Short Information", Revista del Arte 7, Mayaguez: Universidad de Puerto Rico, Dec 1970, pp 35-39; repr., shortened, in Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, New York: Praeger, 1973, pp 169-170; repr. in Vision 2, Oakland, CA: Crown Point Press, Jan 1976, pp 42-43. (English)
  • "Events, Happenings, Land-Art, etc., in Czechoslovakia", in Lucy R. Lippard, Seis años, Akal, 2004, pp 246-248. (Spanish)
• Jindřich Chalupecký, "Letter from Prague", Studio International, Jun 1971, pp 253, 255-257. (English)
• Ivan Jirous, "Current Expressions in Contemporary Czech Art", Artscanada 160/161, Oct/Nov 1971, pp 62-65. (English)
• Petr Rezek, "Setkání s akčními umělci", in Performance, [1977] (samizdat), pp 4-15; repr. in Rezek, Tělo, věc a skutečnost v současném umění, Prague: Jazzpetit, 1982, pp 95-102; repr. in Výtvarné umění 3 (1991), pp 78-80; repr. in České umění 1938-1989, eds. Jiří Ševčík, et al., Prague: Academia, 2001, pp 355-359; repr. in Rezek, Tělo, věc a skutečnost v umění šedesátých a sedmdesátých let, 2nd ed., Prague: Galerie Ztichlá klika, 2010, pp 116-124. (Czech)
  • "Encounters with Action Artists", trans. Eric Dluhosch, in Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art Since the 1950s, eds. Laura Hoptman and Tomáš Pospiszyl, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2002, pp 220-225. (English)
• František Šmejkal, "Návraty k přírodě", in Sborník památce Alberta Kutala, Prague, 1984 (samizdat), pp 20-31; repr. in Výběr zajímavostí z domova i ciziny, Brno, 1987 (samizdat); repr. in Výtvarná kultura 14:3, 1990, pp 15-21. Written 1981. (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, "České akční umění šedesátých let v dobovém tisku", in Akce, slovo, pohyb, prostor. Experimenty v umění šedesátých let, ed. Vít Havránek, Prague: Galerie hl. města Prahy, 1999, pp 54-61. (Czech)
• Marie Klimešová, "České výtvarné umění druhé poloviny 20. století: alternativa a underground, umění a společnost", in Alternativní kultura. Příběh české společnosti 1945–1989, ed. Josef Alan, Prague: Lidové noviny, 2001, pp 376-419. [136] (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, "Umenie akcie 1965-1989", Profil 3, 2001, pp 6-15. [137] (Czech)
• Jiří Valoch, "Umění akce, hnutí Aktual, happening", in Dějiny českého výtvarného umění VI/1, eds. Rostislav Švácha and Marie Platovská, Prague: Academia, 2007. (Czech)
• Tomáš Pospiszyl, "Look Who’s Watching: Photographic Documentation of Happenings and Performances in Czechoslovakia", in 1968-1989: Political Upheaval and Artistic Change, eds. Claire Bishop and Marta Dziewańska, Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art, 2009, pp 74-87. Proceedings from the 2008 conference. (English)
• Josef Ledvina, "České umění kolem roku 1980 jako pole kulturní produkce", Sešit 9, Prague: VVP AVU, 2010, pp 30-65. (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, "Místa činu, akční umění 60. a 70. let", in Místa počinu: historie výstavních prostorů u nás, ed. Ondřej Horák, Prague: Komunikační prostor Školská 28, 2010, pp 53-62. (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, "Problematika pojmů v českém akčním umění", Opuscula Historiae Artium 60 (2011), pp 30-41. (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, "Možnosti interpretace akčního umění", in Wittlichovi. Sborník žáků k 80. narozeninám Petra Wittlicha, ed. Marie Rakušanová, Prague: Karolinum, 2012, pp 227-249. (Czech)
• Pavlína Morganová, "Action! Czech Performance Art in the 1960s and 1970s", trans. John Comer, Centropa 14:1, Jan 2014. (English)
• Tomáš Pospiszyl, "Politika intimity: Československá performance sedmdesátých let a její remaky", in Pospiszyl, Asociativní dějepis umění: poválečné umění napříč generacemi a médii, Prague: tranzit.cz, 2014. (Czech)
• Hana Buddeus, "Fotografické podmínky happeningu", Sešit 16, Prague: VVP AVU, 2014, pp 18-36. (Czech)

Dissertations

• Pavlína Morganová, České akční umění 60.-90. let. Historie a problematika dobové reflexe a interpretace, Prague: Univerzita Karlova, 2006. PhD dissertation. (Czech)
• Marek Hlaváč, Oheň v českém akčním umění, Prague: Univerzita Karlova, 2010, 75 pp. Master's thesis. (Czech)
• Hana Laipoldová, Podoby a funkce fotografie v konceptuální a performační praxi českého umění 60. až 80. let, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2013. Master's thesis. (Czech)

Umenie akcie / Action Art 1965-1989, 2001, PDF.

Ján Kralovič, Teritórium ulica, 2015.

Slovakia

Books

• Andrea Bátorová, Aktionskunst in der Slowakei in den 1960er Jahren. Aktionen von Alex Mlynárčik, Lit Verlag, 2009, 408 pp. TOC. Based on author's 2007 dissertation. (German)
  • Andrea Euringer-Bátorová, Akčné umenie na Slovensku v 60. rokoch 20. storočia. Akcie Alexa Mlynárčika, Bratislava: Slovart, and Bratislava: Vysoká škola výtvarných umení, 2012, 326 pp. Publisher. (Slovak)
  • The Art of Contestation: Performative Practices in the 1960s and 1970s in Slovakia, Bratislava: Comenius University, 2019, 216 pp. Review: Bryzgel (ArtMargins). (English)

• Zuzana Bartošová, Napriek totalite. Neoficiálna slovenská výtvarná scéna sedemdesiatych a osemdesiatych rokov 20. storočia, Bratislava: Kalligram, 2011, 360 pp. Commentary: Hrabušický & Macek (Profil). (Slovak)

• Ján Kralovič, Teritórium ulica. Umenie akcie v mestskom priestore v rokoch 1965-1989 na Slovensku, Bratislava: Slovart (Teória), and Bratislava: Vysoká škola výtvarných umení, 2014, 283+[48] pp. Based on author's 2012 dissertation. Publisher. [138] (Slovak)

• Ján Kralovič, Majstrovstvo za dverami: Majstrovstvá Bratislavy v posune artefaktu (1979-1986) v kontexte bytových výstav 70. a 80. rokov 20. storočia, Bratislava: Slovart (Dejiny), and Bratislava: Vysoká škola výtvarných umení, 2017, 327 pp. Publisher. Publisher. [139] (Slovak)

Catalogues

• 3SD, ed. Ján Budaj, Bratislava, [1981]; 2nd ed., 1988 (samizdat); repr., abbr., in "Samizdatové programové, teoretické a historické texty (výber)", ed. Radislav Matuštík, in Umenie akcie 1965-1989, ed. Zora Rusinová, Bratislava: Slovenská národná galéria, 2001, pp 267-277. (Slovak)
  • "Three Sunny Days", trans. Zuzana Flaskova, ed. Sven Spieker, post, New York: MoMA, 2018. Trans. of Foreword. [140] (English)
• Transart Communication catalogues, Nové Zámky, 1988ff. (Slovak),(Hungarian)
• Umenie akcie / Action Art 1965-1989, ed. Zora Rusinová, Bratislava: Slovenská Národná Galéria, 2001, 318 pp. With texts by Zora Rusinová, Gábor Hushegyi, Radislav Matuštík, Tomáš Štrauss, and Ivo Janoušek. (Slovak)
• 1. otvorený ateliér, 1970-2020, ed. Daniela Čarná, Bratislava: Galéria 19, 2020, 87 pp. [141] [142] [143] (Slovak)
• Haptická ozvena. Príroda, telo, politika v umení bývalej Juhoslávie a Československa, ed. Daniel Grúň, Bratislava: Galéria mesta Bratislavy, 2024. Exhibition. (Slovak)

Journal issues

• Profil 3(3): "Performance Art", ed. Michal Murin, Bratislava, Mar 1993, pp 1-15. With texts by RoseLee Goldberg, Michal Murin, Radislav Matuštík; interviews with Vladimir Kordos and Flatz. (Slovak)

Book chapters, essays

• Tomáš Štrauss, "K otázke premeny 'umenia-diela' na 'umenie-čin'", Výtvarný život, 12:4, 1967, pp 146-151; repr., abbr., in Slovenské výtvarné umenie 1949-1989 z pohľadu dobovej literatúry, ed. Jana Geržová, Bratislava: Vysoká škola výtvarných umení, 2006, pp 168-173. (Slovak)
• Tomáš Štrauss, Umenie dnes: pokus o kritickú esej, Bratislava: Vydavateľstvo politickej literatúry, 1968, pp 93-108. (Slovak)
• Klaus Groh (ed.), Aktuelle Kunst in Osteuropa, Cologne: DuMont-Schauberg, 1972. Features documentation from selected artists. (German)
• Tomáš Štrauss, "Tri modelové situácie súčasných umeleckých hier", in Štraus, Slovenský variant moderny, 1979 (samizdat); 2nd ed., Bratislava: Pallas, 1992. (Slovak)
  • Thomas Strauss, "Three Slovak Models for Contemporary Art Actions", Cross Currents 3, 1984, pp 405-413. [144] (English)
• Tomáš Štrauss, "Umenie kontestácie a kontestácia umenia", in Štraus, Slovenský variant moderny, 1979 (samizdat); repr., Výtvarný život 35:6, 1990, pp 17-26; repr. in Štraus, Slovenský variant moderny, 2nd ed., Bratislava: Pallas, 1992. (Slovak)
• Geneviève Bénamou, L'Art aujourd'hui en Tchécoslovaquie, Goussainville: Benamou, 1979. Includes essays on Mlynárčik, Želibská, Sikora, Tóth, a.o. TOC. (French)
• Radislav Matuštík, ...predtým. Prekročenie hraníc, 1964-1971, 1983 (samizdat); repr., Žilina: PGU, 1994. Written 1972-1983. [145] (Slovak)
• Róbert Cyprich, "Ex alio loco", 1983 (samizdat); repr. in Radislav Matuštík, Terén: alternatívne akčné zoskupenie 1982-1987, Bratislava: Sorosovo centrum súčasného umenia, 2000, pp 136-150. (Slovak)
  • "Ex alio loco", trans. John Minahane, in Hot Art, Cold War: Southern and Eastern European Writing on American Art 1945-1990, eds. Claudia Hopkins and Iain Boyd Whyte, Routledge, 2020. Trans. of excerpt. [146] (English)
• Tamara Archlebová, "Príspevok k problematike konceptuálneho umenia na Slovensku", in Súčasné výtvarné umenie, ed. Dagmar Srnenská, Bratislava, 1989, pp 98-132. (Slovak)
• Mária Kovalčíková (ed.), "Skepsa kontra optimizmus", Výtvarný život 35:7, 1990, pp 1-10; cont., Výtvarný život 35:8, 1990, pp 1-12. (Slovak)
• Jana Geržová, "Umenie akcie", Profil 1:13-14, 1991, pp 2-4. (Slovak)
• Michal Murin, "Performance?", Profil 1:17-18, Bratislava, 1991. (Slovak)
• Michal Murin, "San Francisco Performance Art", Profil 1:22, Bratislava, 1991. (Slovak)
• Radislav Matuštík, "Vývoj na Slovensku", in Umění akce, ed. Vlasta Čiháková-Noshiro, Prague: Mánes, 1991, pp 12-15. Shortened reprint from a samizdat publication in Terén edition, autumn 1983. (Slovak)
• Vlasta Čiháková-Noshiro, "Umění akce – umění žít", in Umění akce, ed. Vlasta Čiháková-Noshiro, Prague: Mánes, 1991, pp 16-28. (Czech)
• Radislav Matuštík, "Performance?", Profil 3(3): "Performance Art", ed. Michal Murin, Bratislava, Mar 1993, pp 5-7. (Slovak)
• Michal Murin, "Performance?", Profil 3(3): "Performance Art", ed. Michal Murin, Bratislava, Mar 1993, p 13. (Slovak)
• Michal Murin, "Performance", Profil 3(3): "Performance Art", ed. Michal Murin, Bratislava, Mar 1993. (Slovak)
• Tomáš Štrauss, Tri otázniky: od päťdesiatych k osemdesiatym rokom, Bratislava: Pallas, 1993. (Slovak)
• Radislav Matuštík, "Návraty I-IV", Výtvarný život, 1994-1995. Series of articles. (Slovak)
• Thomas Strauss, Zwischen Ost- und Westkunst. Von der Avantgarde zur Postmoderne. Essays (1970-1995), Munich: Scaneg, 1995, 336 pp. (German)
• Ivan Jančár, "Happening a performance", in Šesťdesiate roky v slovenskom výtvarnom umení, ed. Zora Rusinová, Bratislava: Slovenská národná galéria, 1995, pp 232-252. (Slovak)
• Zora Rusinová, "V mene syntézy umenia a života", in Šesťdesiate roky v slovenskom výtvarnom umení, ed. Rusinová, Bratislava: Slovenská národná galéria, 1995, pp 166-202. (Slovak)
• Etienne Cornevin, "Základné pojmy k legende o umení dada v Bratislave", in Očami X: desať autorov o súčasnom slovenskom výtvarnom umení, ed. Zuzana Bartošová, Bratislava: Orman, and Európsky kultúrny klub na Slovensku, 1996, pp 147-180. (Slovak)
• Ladislav Snopko, "Situacionizmus na Slovensku: kapitola z dejín apelatívneho umenia", in Očami X: desať autorov o súčasnom slovenskom výtvarnom umení, ed. Zuzana Bartošová, Bratislava: Orman, and Európsky kultúrny klub na Slovensku, 1996, pp 201-220. (Slovak)
• "Rozhovor Zuzany Bartošovej s Pierrom Restanym", in Očami X: desať autorov o súčasnom slovenskom výtvarnom umení, ed. Zuzana Bartošová, Bratislava: Orman, and Európsky kultúrny klub na Slovensku, 1996, pp 183-200. (Slovak)
• Eugénia Sikorová, "Umenie na okraji: poznámky k situácii slovenského výtvarného umenia v r. 1970-1990", in Prítomnosť minulosti, minulosť prítomnosti, eds. Jolana Kusá and Peter Zajac, Bratislava: Nadácia Milana Šimečku, 1996, pp 96-125. (Slovak)
• Tomáš Štrauss, Provokácie: kritické rozhľady od Dunaja a Rýna, Bratislava: H & H (Hajko a Hajková), 1996. (Slovak)
• Rachel Rosenbach (Michal Murin), "Performance na Slovensku a v Čechách", Ateliér 1:9, 1997, p 9. (Slovak)
• Michal Murin, "Performance na Slovensku v 90. rokoch", in A.K.T., Brno: Dům umění, 1999. (Slovak)
• Tomáš Štrauss, Utajená korešpondencia 1980-1998, Bratislava: Kalligram, 1999, 184 pp. [147] (Slovak)
• Zuzana Bartošová, "Askéza privilegovaných: niekoľko poznámok k formovaniu neoficiálnej výtvarnej scény obdobia normalizácie na prelome 60. a 70. rokov", in Umenie Slovenska: jeho historické funkcie, Bratislava: SAV, 1999, pp 121-133. (Slovak)
• Ivan Jančár, "Akčné umenie", in Slovník svetového a slovenského výtvarného umenia druhej polovice 20. storočia, ed. Jana Geržová, Bratislava: Profil, 1999. (Slovak)
• Ivan Jančár, "Event", in Slovník svetového a slovenského výtvarného umenia druhej polovice 20. storočia, ed. Jana Geržová, Bratislava: Profil, 1999. (Slovak)
• Ivan Jančár, "Happening", in Slovník svetového a slovenského výtvarného umenia druhej polovice 20. storočia, ed. Jana Geržová, Bratislava: Profil, 1999. (Slovak)
• Ivan Jančár, "Performancia", in Slovník svetového a slovenského výtvarného umenia druhej polovice 20. storočia, ed. Jana Geržová, Bratislava: Profil, 1999. (Slovak)
• Radislav Matuštík, "Umenie akcie", in Zora Rusinová et al., Dejiny slovenského výtvarného umenia – 20. storočie, Bratislava: Slovenská národná galéria, 2000, pp 163-169. (Slovak)
• Radislav Matuštík, "Dva náčrty vývinu akcie", in Matuštík, Terén: alternatívne akčné zoskupenie 1982-1987, Bratislava: Sorosovo centrum súčasného umenia, 2000, pp 221-236. (Slovak)
• Eugénia Sikorová, "Nástup jednej generácie", in Otvorený ateliér, eds. Marián Mudroch and Dezider Tóth, Bratislava: SCCA Slovensko, 2000, pp 10-30. (Slovak)
• Michal Murin, "Performance Art in Slovakia in the 90s (From the Position of the Art-Form, through its Reflection to the (Co-Existence of Solitary Worlds)", Slaps Banks Plots 4, 2000. (English)
• Michal Murin, "L´art de performance en Slovaquie - A partir d´une forme artistique et de sa réflexion vers la coexistence de mondes solitaires / Performance Art in Slovakia - From the Art-Form, and its Reflection Towards the Co-Existence of Solitary Worlds", in Art Action 1958-1998, ed. Richard Martel, Québec: Intervention, 2001, pp 454-457. (French)/(English)
• Pavlína Morganová, "Umenie akcie 1965-1989", Profil 3, 2001, pp 6-15. Exh. review. [148] (Czech)
• Gábor Hushegyi, "Actinart - medzinárodné sympózium", Profil 3, 2001, pp 40-47. (Slovak)
• Lucia Gregorová-Stachová, "Akčné umenie", Dart 3:1-2, 2001, 45-51. (Slovak)
• Eva Kapsová, "Aktuálnosť umenia akcie", Dart 1:3-4, 2001, 54-58. (Slovak)
• Zuzana Bartošová, "Slovenská neoficiálna výtvarná scéna 70. a 80. rokov z aspektu literatúry a terminológie", in Cesty a príbehy moderného umenia 2, ed. Ľuba Belohradská, Bratislava: Združenie historikov moderného umenia, 2002, pp 24-57. (Slovak)
• Mária Orišková, Dvojhlasné dejiny umenia, Bratislava: Petrus, 2002. (Slovak)
• Zora Rusinová, "Umenie akcie", in Slovenské vizuálne umenie 1970-1985, ed. Aurel Hrabušický, Bratislava: Slovenská národná galéria, 2002, pp 189-208. (Slovak)
• Zuzana Bartošová, "Neoficiálna výtvarná scéna na Slovensku: Medzi Chartou '77 a nežnou revolúciou", in Ladislav Snopko, Zuzana Bartošová, Dotyky a spojenia. 9. december 1985 - 17. november 1989, Bratislava: Orman, and GMB, 2002, pp 15-38. (Slovak)
• Katarína Rusnáková, História a teória mediálneho umenia na Slovensku, Bratislava: VŠVU, 2006. (Slovak)
• Andrea Bátorová, "Alternative Trends in Slovakia during the 1960s and Parallels to Fluxus", in Fluxus East: Fluxus Networks in Central Eastern Europe, Berlin: Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, 2007. Catalogue text. (English)
• Lucia Gregorová-Stachová, "Umelci, ich telá a performance", in Osemdesiate: Postmoderna v slovenskom výtvarnom umení, 1985-1992, ed. Beata Jablonská, Bratislava: Slovenská národná galéria, 2009, pp 201-213. (Slovak)
• Ján Kralovič, "Prechádzka ako situačná a komunikačná umelecká aktivita", in Ani spolu, ani bez sebe... Intermedialita v dějináh umění, eds. Filip Komárek and Michal Konečný, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2010, pp 31-36; upd. as "Prechádzka ako komunitná a umelecká aktivita. Prechádzka ako možnosť stretávania sa a umeleckej komunikácie v okruhu bratislavskej neoficiálnej scény 70. rokov", in BAC: Bratislava Conceptualism / Bratislavský konceptualizmus, ed. Richard Gregor, Bratislava: Kunsthalle Bratislava, and Liptovský Mikuláš: Liptovská galéria Petra Michala Bohúňa, 2022. (Slovak)
  • "The Stroll as a Community and Artistic Activity: Strolls as a form of meeting and artistic communication in Bratislava’s unofficial scene in the 1970s", in BAC: Bratislava Conceptualism / Bratislavský konceptualizmus, ed. Richard Gregor, Bratislava: Kunsthalle Bratislava, and Liptovský Mikuláš: Liptovská galéria Petra Michala Bohúňa, 2022. (English)
• Július Gajdoš, Od inscenace k instalaci, od herectví k performanci, Prague: Akademie múzických umění, and Kant, 2010. Publisher. (Czech)
• Jana Oravcová, Ekonómie tela v umelecko-historických a teoretických diskurzoch, Bratislava: Slovart / VŠVU, 2011. (Slovak)
• Ján Kralovič, "Nutnosť intenzívneho prežívania (Poznámky k akčnému umeniu v mestskom priestore na Slovensku v 70. rokoch 20. storočia)", in Umenie na Slovensku v historických a kultúrnych súvislostiach 2010, eds. Bernadeta Kubová and Ivan Godič, Trnava: Milan Uličný - BEN, 2011, pp 215-226. (Slovak)
• Zora Rusinová, "Solidarity Born of Despair: Action Art in Slovakia during the Totalitarian Regime, 1970-1989", Centropa 14:1, Jan 2014. [149] (English)
• Ján Kralovič, "Prekročiť prah privátneho: vybrané umelecké akcie v mestskom priestore v 90. rokoch 20. storočia na Slovensku", in Zborník prednášok o súčasnom výtvarnom umení II.: so zameraním na politické a angažované umenie, Nitra: Nitrianska galéria, 2015, pp 12-37. (Slovak)
• Eva Fillová, "Divadlo a teatralita v kontexte (slovenského) vizuálneho umenia", Slovenské divadlo 63:3, 2015, pp 208-220. (Slovak)
• Dáša Čiripová, "Play as Art of Survival", trans. Lucia Faltin, The Slovak Theatre 66:3, 2018, pp 296-310. (English)
• Vladimír Beskid, "Druhý dych východu: neoficiálna scéna východného Slovenska 70.-80. rokov 20. storočia", in Po moderne: Metropola východu, 1945-1989, eds. Peter Tajkov and Dorota Kenderová, Košice: Východoslovenská galéria, 2019, pp 115-134. (Slovak)

Interviews

• Andrea Bátorová, "Zopakovať jedinečné. Rozhovor so Zorou Rusinovou", Profil 3, 2001, pp 16-29. [150] (Slovak)
• Andrea Bátorová, "Považujete akčné umenie za revolučné? Rozhovor s Luciou Gregorovou-Stachovou", Profil 3, 2001, pp 30-39. [151] (Slovak)
• Milan Stolárik, "Akčné umenie aperformance na Slovensku. Rozhovor s Michalom Murinom", ???. (Slovak)

Booklets

• DigiVAF(ex), Festival Performaction 2010, 2010. (Slovak)

Dissertations

• Zuzana Jakalová, Happening a podíl diváka na struktuře kolektivní akce (na příkladě slovenské umělecké scény od 60. do 90. let), Praha: Karlova univerzita, 2010. Bachelor thesis. (Czech)
• Omar Mirza, Aktionskunst in der Slowakei (1965-1989), Vienna, 2008. Master's thesis. (German)
• Ján Kralovič, Stopa na dlažbe: Umenie akcie v mestskom priestore vrokoch 1965-2000 na Slovensku, Trnava: Trnavská univerzita, 2012. PhD dissertation. (Slovak)

See also publications on individual artists and events, i.e.: Alex Mlynárčik, Július Koller, Ľubomír Ďurček, Róbert Cyprich, Ján Budaj, Transmusic Comp., Michal Murin, József R. Juhász, Transart Communication, Studio erté, SNEH.

Hungary

Books

• Júlia Klaniczay, Edit Sasvári (eds.), Törvénytelen avantgárd: Galántai György balatonboglári kápolnaműterme 1970-1973, Budapest: Artpool–Balassi, 2003, 459 pp. The first comprehensive publication on performance and conceptual art events between 1970 and 1973 at the Balatonboglár Chapel in Hungary, founded by the artist György Galántai, the sort of activities that would be banned from 1974 until 1990 in Hungary. Chronicles the abandoned chapel as a unique site for experimental art in Hungary during state socialism, and includes an extensive chronology, previously unpublished archival documents, photographs and texts, interviews, and a bibliography. [152] (Hungarian)
• Az ebéd / The Lunch (in memoriam Batu kán): Happening Budapest H 1966, eds. Zsuzsa László and Tamás St.Turba, trans. Csaba Polonyi, Budapest: tranzit.hu, 2011, 56 pp. Makes available the so far unpublished documents of the first happening in Hungary, conducted in 1966. [153] [154] [155] (Hungarian)/(English)
• Katalin Cseh-Varga, The Hungarian Avant-Garde and Socialism: The Art of the Second Public Sphere, Bloomsbury, 2022, 264 pp, EPUB. Publisher. (English)

Catalogues

• Pécsi Műhely: Místo činu: maďarské akční umění ze sbírek Balázse Szluky a Muzea umění Olomouc / Scene of the Action: Hungarian Performing Art from Collections of Balázs Szluka and Olomouc Museum of Art / Helyszínelés: Magyar akcióművészet Szluka Balázs és az Olomouc Művészeti Múzeum gyűjteményeiből, eds. Štěpánka Bieleszová and Ladislav Daněk, Olomouc: Muzeum moderního umění, 2019, 111 pp. Publisher. (Czech)/(English)/(Hungarian)
• Evasion Techniques: Subversive strategy and cocking a snook at authority in the Hungarian Avant-garde in the 1960s and '70s, eds. Giuseppe Garrera, József Készman, Viktória Popovics and Sebastiano Triulzi, Rome: Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 2020. Exhibition. Works. (English)
  • Tecniche d'evasione, Rome: Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 2020. (Italian)

Essays, dissertations

• Bea Hock, "What was Aided, Rejected, Tolerated in Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s", 2001. (English)
• Maja Fowkes, "Off the Record: Performative Practices in the Hungarian Neo Avant-Garde and Their Resonance in Contemporary Art", Centropa 14:1, Jan 2014, pp 57-71. (English)
• Katalin Cseh, "Chained Bodies and Monuments of Hierarchy in Hungarian Performance Art", Art and Design Review 2 (2014), pp 73-77. (English)
• Katalin Cseh-Varga, Rebellische (Spiel)Räume und Underground Netzwerke. Die zweite Öffentlichkeit der ungarischen Avantgarde, Munich: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 2016, 285 pp. PhD dissertation. (German)

Tadeusz Pawłowski, Happening, 1988.

Poland

Anthologies

• Performance – wybór tekstów, eds. Grzegorz Dziamski, Gajewski Henryk and Jan. St. Wojciechowski, Warsaw: Miodzieżowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1984, 202+31 pp. (Polish)

Books

• Alicja Kępińska, Nowa sztuka. Sztuka polska w latach 1945-1978, Warsaw: Auriga, 1981. (Polish)
• Tadeusz Pawłowski, Happening, Warsaw, 1988. (Polish)
• Sabine Folie (ed.), The Impossible Theater: Performativity in the Works of / Das unmögliche Theater: Performativität im Werk von Pawel Althamer, Tadeusz Kantor, Katarzyna Kozyra, Robert Kusmirowski and Artur Zmijewski, Nürnberg: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2005, 152 pp. Essays by Sabine Folie, Jaroslaw Suchan and Hanna Wroblewska. [156] (English)/(German)
• Jan Przyłuski, Sztuka akcji. Dziesięć zdarzeń w Polsce, Słupsk: Bałtycka Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej, 2007, 82 pp. [157] (Polish)
• Agnieszka Sosnowska, Performans oporu, Warsaw: Fundacja Nowej Kultury Bęc Zmiana, Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, and Instytut Kultury Polskiej Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2018, 226 pp. Excerpt. Publisher. (Polish)

Catalogues

• Projects / Performances: Czechoslovakia / Poland, ed. & intro. Charlotta Kotik, Buffalo, NY: Hallwalls, 1977, 16 pp. With works by Anna Bolcewicz, Zofia Kulik, Tomasz Sikorski, Krzystof Zarebski, a.o. [158] (English)

Magazine issues

• Biuro 12: "Performans i niepoczytalność", Wrocław: BWA, 2016. (Polish)

Book chapters, essays

• Stefan Morawski, "Happening. Rodowód – charakter – funkcje", Dialog 9 (1971), pp 109-131, & 10 (1971), pp 117-136. (Polish)
• Grzegorz Dziamski, "Performance Art", Dialog: miesięcznik Związku Literatów Polskich 27:7 (1982), pp 79-95. (Polish)
• Grzegorz Dziamski, "Pologne", Inter 43, pp 50-76. (French)/(English)
• Grzegorz Dziamski, "Happening, performance", in Od awangardy do postmodernizmu. Encyklopedia kultury polskiej XX wieku, ed. Dziamski, Warsaw, 1996, pp 349-368. (Polish)
• Józef Bury, "Contexte d’apparition des pratiques artistiques de type performance en Pologne", Æsthetica-Nova 6, Paris, 1996, pp 40-70. (French)
• Amy Bryzgel, "Filming Young Girls and Older Men: Performing Gender in Poland", in Bryzgel, Performing the East: Performance Art in Russia, Latvia and Poland since 1980, London and New York: IB Tauris, 2013, pp 157-220. (English)
• Amy Bryzgel, "Games Played by Different Rules: Performance Art in Poland, 1970-2000", Centropa 14:1, Jan 2014, pp 8-22. (English)
• "Historia polskiego performance", Wikipedia PL.

Dissertations

• Aleksandra Drozdowska, Studien zur polnischen Performancekunst mit Schwerpunkt auf die 70er und 80er Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts, Vienna: Universität Wien, 2013, 104 pp. Master's thesis. (German)
• Jacek Karaszewski, Transgresja w sztuce performansu, Warsaw, 2013. Master's thesis. (Polish)

East Germany

• Angelika Richter, Das Gesetz der Szene: Genderkritik, Performance Art und zweite Öffentlichkeit in der späten DDR, Bielefeld: transcript, 2019, 408 pp. [159] [160] [161]

The New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, 1966-1978, 1978, Log, PDF (en), PDF (sc).

Yugoslavia

• Nova umjetnička praksa, 1966-1978, ed. Marijan Susovski, Zagreb: Galerija suvremene umjetnosti, 1978, 106+[66] pp. Catalogue. (Serbo-Croatian)
  • The New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, 1966-1978, ed. Marijan Susovski, Zagreb: Gallery of Contemporary Art, 1978, 80+[61] pp. (English)
• Bálint Szombathy, "Action Art in Yugoslavia and its Successor States between 1969 and 1999" / "L ́art action en Yougoslavie et dans les États qui lui ont succédé de 1969 a 1999", in Art Action 1958-1998, ed. Richard Martel, Québec: Inter, 2001, pp 478-487. (English)/(French)

• Branislav Jakovljević, "Handworks: Yugoslav Gestural Culture and Performance Art", in 1968-1989: Political Upheaval and Artistic Change, eds. Claire Bishop and Marta Dziewańska, Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art, 2009, pp 30-50. Proceedings from the 2008 conference. (English)

• Političke prakse (post) jugoslovenske umetnosti: retrospektiva 01, eds. Jelena Vesić and Zorana Dojić, Belgrade: Prelom kolektiv, 2010, 287 pp. Catalogue. [162] (Serbo-Croatian)
  • Political Practices of (Post-) Yugoslav Art: Retrospective 01, Belgrade: Prelom kolektiv, 2010, 279 pp. (English)

• Balcan Contemporary 7: "Performance Art", eds. Zvonimir Dobrović and André von Ah, Ljubljana: Maska, 2012, 25 pp. (English)

• Branislav Jakovljević, Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-91, University of Michigan Press, 2016, xii+369 pp. Explores aspects and relations between artistic and economic performances in Yugoslavia, such as self-management, socialist aestheticism, conceptual art, theoretical Marxism, performance art and political performances.

• Bojana Videkanic, Nonaligned Modernism: Socialist Postcolonial Aesthetics in Yugoslavia, 1945-1985, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2019, 304 pp. Based on PhD dissertation (2013). Interview. (English)

• Marko Ilić, "“Made in Yugoslavia”: Struggles with Self-Management in the New Art Practice, 1965-71", ARTMargins 8:1, Feb 2019, pp 6-30. [163] (English)

• Marko Ilić, A Slow Burning Fire: The Rise of the New Art Practice in Yugoslavia, Cambridge: MIT Press, Feb 2021, 384 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Rounthwaite (ArtMargins), Jurich (Afterimage), Wetzler (Art in America), Smith (CAA), Drosos (Critique d'art). (English)

• Katja Praznik, Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism, University of Toronto Press, 2021, 217 pp. Publisher. Reviews: Kulić (Critique d'art), Webster (Cult Soc). [164] (English)
  • Delo umetnosti. Nevidno delo in zapuščina jugoslovanskega socializma, Ljubljana: Maska, 2023. Publisher. (Slovenian)

• Jasmina Tumbas, "I am Jugoslovenka!": Feminist Performance Politics During and After Yugoslav Socialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022, 344 pp. Publisher. (English)

• Haptická ozvena. Príroda, telo, politika v umení bývalej Juhoslávie a Československa, ed. Daniel Grúň, Bratislava: Galéria mesta Bratislavy, 2024. Catalogue. Exhibition. (Slovak)

Croatia

• Ivana Mance, "Performance Art Practices in Croatia from the Late 1960s through the late 1980s: An Essay in Genealogy", Centropa 14:1, Jan 2014. [165] (English)
• Suzana Marjanić, Kronotop hrvatskoga performansa: od Travelera do danas, 3 vols., Zagreb : Udruga Bijeli val: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku: Školska knjiga, 2014, 2008 pp. TOC. [166] (Croatian)

Serbia

• kuda.org (eds.), The Continuous Art Class: The Novi Sad Neo-Avant-Garde of the 1960s and 1970s, trans. Orfeas Skutelis and Nikolina Knežević, Frankfurt am Main: Revolver, 2005. (Serbian)/(English)

• kuda.org (eds.), Omitted History, trans. Nebojša Pajić, Frankfurt am Main: Revolver, 2006, 134 pp. (Serbian)/(English)

• Ana Vujanović, "Performans umetnost: preko neoavangarde ka konceptualnoj umetnosti" [Performance Art: Via Neo-avant-garde to Conceptual Art], in Istorija umetnosti u Srbiji XX vek, 1, ed. Miško Šuvaković, Belgrade: Orion art, 2010, pp 463‒480. [167] (Serbian)

• Iva Glisić, Biljana Purić, "Art as a Living Archive: Post-1989 Performance Art in Serbia and Russia", Third Text 33:2, 2019, pp 213-234.

Romania

Books

• Ileana Pintilie, Actionismul in Romania în timpul comunismului, Cluj: Idea, 1999. (Romanian)
  • Actionism in Romania During the Communist Era, trans. Silviu Pepelea, Cluj: Idea Design & Print, 2002, 165 pp. (English)
• Cristian Nae (ed.), Cadre (in)vizibile. Retorici și practici expoziționale în România în perioada 1965-1989 / (In)visible Frames. Rhetoric and Exhibition Practices in Romania During the Period 1965-1989, Cluj: Idea Design & Print, and Bucharest: Unarte, 2016, 351 pp. Publisher. (Romanian)/(English)

Essays

• Ileana Pintilie, "Performance Art In Romania. Between gesture and ritual", in Crossroads in Central-Europe. Ideas, Themes, Methods and Problems of Contemporary Art and Art Criticism, ed. Katalin Keserü, Budapest: Egregia, 1996, p 147. (English)
• Ileana Pintilie, "The Dilemmas of Artistic Transition in Post-Communism. Performance art in Romania at the Beginning of the '90s", in Zone 3 Catalogues, Timişoara, 2000; repr. in Periferic 4, Iaşi, 2000.
• Ileana Pintilie, "Actionism in Romania in the 6th and 7th Decades", Balkon 2, Cluj, 2000. (English)
• Ileana Pintilie, "Actionism in Romania in the 8th Decade", Balkon 3, Cluj, 2000. (English)
• Ileana Pintilie, "Performance art in Romania in the '90s (Rumunska umetnost performanse devedesetih)", Artcontext, Apr 2001; repr. in Vrsac 1.
• Ileana Pintilie, "Action Art in Romania Before and After 1989", Centropa 14:1, Jan 2014. (English)

Estonia

• Raivo Kelomees, "RÜHM T on Toompea Hill", Kultuurileht, 25 Oct 1996, [168]
• "Fluxus East in Estonia. Eha Komissarov interviewed by Eero Epner", Estonian Art 1, 2009. (English)
• Petra Stegman, "Happenings and action art in Estonia", Estonian Art 1, 2009. (English)

Latvia

• Amy Bryzgel, "The Bronze Man and the Homeless Man: Performing Appearance in Latvia", in Bryzgel, Performing the East: Performance Art in Russia, Latvia and Poland since 1980, London and New York: IB Tauris, 2013, pp 100-156. (English)

• Laine Kristberga, Līna Birzaka-Priekule, "From Micro-politics to Macro-politics: Performance Art in the Late Socialist Period in Latvia", Studies on Art and Architecture 3-4, Tallinn: Estonian Society of Art Historians and Curators, 2023, pp 168-192. [169] (English)

Coco Fusco (ed.), Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, 2000, Log.

Arte ≠ vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas, 1960-2000, 2008. Chronology.

Latin America

Books

• Jorge Glusberg, El arte de la performance, Buenos Aires: Arte Gaglianone, 1986. The book attends to international performance art, and particularly argues for the power of the subjectivity of the body, especially as independent from mass media, and the role of performance in the specific context and revolutionary situation of Latin America. (Spanish)
• Laura Buccellato (ed.), Arte de Acción, 1960-1990, Buenos Aires: Museo de Arte Moderno, 1999. Considers the evolution of action art in Argentina from the 1950s to the 1990s, including b&w photographs and a bibliography. (English)
• Coco Fusco (ed.), Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, London: Routledge, 2000, 307 pp. Divided into three sections, the anthology attends to "Heterotopic, Homoerotic, Hyper-Exotic Cabarets"; "Ritualizing the Body Politic"; and "Stepping toward an Oppositional Public Sphere." Introductory essay by Coco Fusco, with contributions by Silvia Pellarolo, Nao Bustamante, Evelyn Velez-Aguayo, José Esteban Muñoz, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Charles Merewether, Tania Bruguera, Nelly Richard, Felipe Ehrenberg, Ricardo Dominguez, a.o. (English)
• Antonio Prieto Stambaugh, Pánico, performance y política: cuatro décadas de acción no-objetual en México, 2001. [170] (Spanish)
• Diana Taylor, Roselyn Costantino (eds.), Holy Terrors: Latin American Women Perform, Duke University Press, 2003, 464 pp. Scholarly essays by the editors, with contributions by Antonio Prieto Stambaugh, Teresa Marrero, Marlèno Ramírez-Cancio, Vivian Martínez Tabares, and José Muñoz; contains artists’ writings, and discussion of and by such performance artists Denise Stoklos (Brazil), Astrid Hadad, Jesusa Rodríguez, Katia Tirado, and Ema Villanueva (Mexico), as well as playwrights and dramaturges; with illustrations and bibliography. [171] (English)
• Josefina Alcázar, Fernando Fuentes (eds.), Performance y arte-acción en América Latina, Mexico City: Sin Nombre, 2005, 194 pp. Traces the legacy of performance to the writings of such important figures as Manuel Maples Arce, Sánchez Fogarty, Mathias Goeritz, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, and especially to the performances and conceptual art of Felipe Ehrenberg. Other essays reflect on the art of the No-Grupo, founded in 1970 by Alfredo Núñez, Melquiades Herrera, Maris Bustamante and Rubén Valencia, and women’s performances like those of Katia Tirado, Gina y Marcela, Lorena Wolffer, Lorena Orozco, a.o. (Spanish)
• Emilio Tarragona, Accionismo en el Perú, 1965-2000, Lima: ICPNA, 2005. (Spanish)
• Francisco González Castro, Leonora López, Brian Smith, Performance art en Chile, Santiago de Chile: Metales Pesados, 2016, 277 pp. [172] [173] (Spanish)
• Diana Taylor, ¡Presente! The Politics of Presence, Durham: Duke University Press, 2020, xii+329 pp. (English)

Catalogues

• Arte ≠ vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas, 1960-2000, New York: El Museo Del Barrio, 2008, 370 pp. TOC, Chronology. Chronology of actions by artists of the Americas, with essays by Deborah Cullen on performance in New York, California, and Puerto Rico; Ana Longoni on Argentina; Claudia Calirman on Brazil; Gabriela Rangel on Venezuela; Maris Bustamantem on Mexico; Sharon Lerner Rizo-Patrón on Peru; Robert Neustadt on Chile; Elvis Fuentes on Cuba; Sayuri Guzmán on the Dominican Republic; María Iovino on Columbia; and Virginia Pérez-Ratton on Central America. Includes color and b&w illustrations, a bibliography, and an artist index of nearly 300 artists. Exh. held on 18 Jan-31 May 2008. (Spanish)/(English)

Book chapters, essays, dissertations

• Laura G. Gutiérrez, Performing Identities: Chicana and Mexicana Performance Art in the 90s, Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2000, v+284 pp. PhD dissertation. (English)

Baipishu, eds. Ai Weiwei and Zeng Xiaojun, 1995.

Thomas J. Berghuis, Performance Art in China, 2006.

Asia

Books

• Ai Weiwei, Zeng Xiaojun (eds.), Baipishu (䘥䙖㚠; White Cover Book), Beijing: Red Flag Books, 1995. Covers underground and contemporary Chinese art and performance. [174] (Chinese)
• Ai Weiwei, Zeng Xiaojun (eds.), Huipishu (Grey Cover Book), Beijing: Red Flag Books, 1997. Covers underground and contemporary Chinese art and performance. [175] (Chinese)
• Action in China: Performance Art from 1980s to 1990s / 中國行動：八十年代到九十年代的行為藝術, ed. Pulin Wen, Beijing: Beijing Windhorse Mass Medium, 2009, 45 pp. [176] (English)/(Chinese)
• I Hyeok-pal, Hanguk-ui peopomeonseu ateu: kwanggi-ui momjiseuto yeonghon-il sareuda / Korea Performance Art, 1967-2005, Seoul: Dabinchi Gineuteu, 2005, 318 pp. (Korean)
• Thomas J. Berghuis, Performance Art in China, Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2006, 310 pp. The first major survey of Chinese performance art in English, beginning with the Stars Group’s unauthorized exhibition in 1979. The author recounts the history of performance art and Chinese artists’ interest in corporeal expression in the 1980s, practices that burgeoned in the 1990s. Berghuis posits that performance art in China is a response to the state’s intercession in artistic subjectivity. Includes a chronology, index, and glossary of places and terms, illustrations, and archival documents. Reviews: Japser (Freeze), Lincot (China Perspectives), Geczy (Eyeline). [177] (English)
• Laura Noszlopy, Matthew Isaac Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Southeast Asian Performance: Transnational Perspectives, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010. Seven essays on performance art in Southeast Asia, from cross-cultural collaborations and transnational aesthetics to feminism and diaspora; the volume also includes a valuable bibliography for global scholarship and author biographies. (English)

• KuroDaraiJee (Raiji Kuroda, 黒田雷児), 肉体のアナーキズム：1960年代・日本美術におけるパフォーマンスの地下水脈, Tokyo: grambooks, 2010, 767 pp. Publisher. [178] (Japanese)
  • Anarchy of the Body: Undercurrents of Performance Art in 1960s Japan, Leuven University Press, 2023. (English)

• Meiling Cheng, Beijing Xingwei: Contemporary Chinese Time-Based Art, London, New York, and Kolkata: Seagull, 2013. Cheng explores over two decades of challenging Chinese performance actions and installations. Contains analysis such controversial events such as Zhu Yu’s Eating People (2000), Zhang Huan’s endurance bodyworks, and Ma Liuming’s photographs as a transgendered male/female with the pseudonym Fen-Maliuming. Chapter 1 begins with Ai Weiwei’s Fairtale (2007) and ends with an appendix recounting his 2011 incarceration and release. Extensive bibliography, glossary, and 137 mostly color illustrations. (English)

• Peter Eckersall, Performativity and Event in 1960s Japan: City, Body, Memory, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, viii+183 pp. (English)

Journal issues

• Performance Paradigm 2: Japan After the 1960s: The Ends of the Avant-Garde", eds. Peter Eckersall and Edward Scheer, Sydney: Performance Paradigm, Mar 2006. (English)

Book chapters, essays, dissertations

• Qian Zhijian, "Performing Bodies: Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming, and Performance Art in China", Art Journal 58:2, Summer 1999, pp 60-81. An extended interview with three early performance artists. (English)
• Karin Grace Oen, Admonition and the Academy: Installation, Video, and Performance Art in Reform Era China, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012, 214 pp. Ph.D. dissertation. (English)
• KuroDalaiJee, "Performance Collectives in 1960s Japan: With a Focus on the 'Ritual School'", positions: asia critique 21:2, Spring 2013, pp 417-447. Essay on gishiki-ha, artists’ performance collectives politically active in anti-institutional, anarchic, and underground activities in Tokyo and Kyoto in the late 1960s, comprising Zero Jigen, Kokuin, and Expo ’70 Destruction Joint-Struggle Group (EDG). [179] (English)

Catalogues

• Political Acts: Pioneers of Performance Art in Southeast Asia, ed. Steven Tonkin, Melbourne: Victorian Arts Centre Fund, 2017, 32 pp. Presents a selection of artists' films, photographs and installations. (English)

Global

• James M. Harding, John Rouse (eds.), Not the Other Avant-Garde: The Transnational Foundations of Avant-Garde Performance, University of Michigan Press, 2006, 312 pp. (English)

• How We Teach Performance Art: University Courses and Workshop Syllabus, ed. Valentin Torrens, Parker, CO: Outskirts Press, 2014, 338 pp. 42 different approaches to transmit the generative source of creativity in live action by internationally experienced practitioners, teachers and theorists of performance art from 21 countries. (English)
  • Enseñando Performance. Programas de cursos y talleres, ed. Valentin Torrens, Parker, CO: Outskirts Press, 2014, 366 pp. [180] (Spanish)

• Performance Works, ed. Joanna Zielińska, Warsaw: Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, and Milan: Mousse Publishing, 2019, 272 pp. Publisher. (English)
  • Performans, Warsaw: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Zamek Ujazdowski, 2020, 272 pp. Publisher. (Polish)

Performance documentation

Books

• Hans Namuth, Pollock Painting, ed. Barbara Rose, New York: Agrinde, 1980. Namuth's memoir includes consideration of the act of photographing Pollock at work on paintings. Namuth’s photographs first appeared in Portfolio and Art News in 1951, and his film of Pollock painting on glass was first screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on 14 June 1951. With essays on photography and action painting by Paul Falkenberg, Barbara Rose and Francis V. O’Connor, a.o. Illustrations. (English)
• Wu Hung, Christopher Phillips, Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, University of Chicago Press, 2004. Extensive review of the use of photography and video by Chinese artists, whom the curators divide into four categories related to their explorations: "History and Memory," "People and Place," "Performing the Self," and "Reimaging the Body." Includes lavish color photographs, many artist interviews, biographies, and statements, and essays by Wu and Phillips. (English)
• Emergency Index: An Annual Document of Performance Practice, 2011-2017, 7 vols., eds. Yelena Gluzman, Matvei Yankelevich, a.o., Brooklyn, NY: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012-2018. (English)
• Gunhild Borggreen, Rune Gade (eds.), Performing Archives/Archives of Performance, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2013, 480 pp. Authors raise the possibility of interaction and intervention, overlapping and vying with recorded history, the archive, and foibles of memory. Contributions by Julie Louise Bacon, Catherine Bagnall, Gunhild Borggreen, Paul Clarke, Mathias Danbolt, Tracy C. Davis, Rivka Syd Eisner, Rachel Fensham, Rune Gade, Malene Vest Hansen, Barnaby King, Marco Pustianaz, Heike Roms, Mette Sandbye, Laura Luise Schultz, Morten Søndergaard, Margeritha Sprio, Sarah Whatley, Martha Wilson, and Louise Wolthers, among others. Review: Pellegrini (Modern Drama), Helyer (Kelvingrove Rev). (English)
• Jan Krtička, Jan Prošek (eds.), Dokumentace umění, Ústí nad Labem: Univerzita J. E. Purkyně, 2013, 133 pp. Proceedings from the conference held on 5 Dec 2012. Texts by Hana Buddeus, Vladimír Havlík, Jiří Kovanda, Jan Mlčoch, Tomáš Pospiszyl, Tomáš Ruller, and Miloš Šejn. (Czech)
• Anne Marsh, Performance Ritual Document, MS&E Australia, 2014, 271 pp. [181] [182] (English)
• Toni Sant (ed.), Documenting Performance: The Context and Processes of Digital Curation and Archiving, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017, 392 pp. [183]. Review: Yang (TDR). (English)
• Barbara Büscher, Franz Anton Cramer (eds.), Fluid Access: Archiving Performance-Based Arts, Hildesheim: Olms, 2017, 325 pp. TOC. Publisher. Editors. (English)
• Gabriella Giannachi, Jonah Westerman (eds.), Histories of Performance Documentation: Museum, Artistic and Scholarly Practices, Routledge, 2017, 208 pp. A collection of interviews with curators, conservators and scholars. [184] [185] (English)
• Burcu Dogramaci, Fotografie der Performance. Live Art im Zeitalter ihrer Reproduzierbarkeit, Fink, 2018. Publisher. (German)
• Joanna Zielińska (ed.), Performing Collections, L'Internationale Online, Sep 2022, 330 pp, EPUB. The issue of how to collect performance is at the heart of this publication, organized in three parts: essays on the subject, case studies and a glossary. Publisher. (English)

Catalogues

• Oosteuropese Conceptuele Fotografie, ed. Gerrit Jan de Rook, Eindhoven: Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven, 1977. A rare catalogue of central and eastern European body actions, conceptual art, and some land art, many of which were specifically created to result in a photograph. Includes photographic documentation of each of the thirty artists’ works, some accompanied by an artist’s text. Introductory essays by Gerrit Jan de Rook, Frank Gribling, Karel Schampers, Lázsló Beke, Ion Grigorescu, and Jiri Valoch. (Dutch)
• Rrose Is a Rrose Is a Rrose: Gender Performance in Photography, ed. Jennifer Blessing, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1997. Catalogue with many full-page color illustrations, and scholarly essays by Blessing, Carole-Anne Tyler, Sarah Wilson, Nancy Spector, Jack (aka Judith) Halberstam, and Lyle Ashton Harris on topics from 1970s body art and homoeroticism to queer performance and gender policing; with artist’s biographies by Tracey Bashkoff, Susan Cross, Vivien Greene, and J. Fiona Ragheb. (English)
• Art, Lies and Videotape: Exposing Performance, ed. Adrian George, Liverpool: Tate Liverpool, and London: Tate, 2003, 91 pp. Exh. held at Tate Liverpool, 15 Nov 2003-25 Jan 2004. First major exhibition by Tate Liverpool devoted to documents of performance and performativity in video and photography. Scholarly essays by RoseLee Goldberg, Tracy Warr, Jean-Paul Martinon, Aaron Williamson, Alice Maude-Roxby, and Andrew Quick consider the unreliability, and sometimes fictive content, of photographs and videos, artistic authority and control, and conscious and unconscious mechanisms that determine the reception of the work, among other topics. (English)
• Live Art on Camera: Performance and Photography, ed. Alice Maude-Roxby, Southampton: John Hansard Gallery, 2007. Takes up the relatively unacknowledged centrality of professional photographers, filmmakers, and videographers in communicating the visual and conceptual elements of an otherwise ephemeral performance, from techniques of framing, lighting, and printing that, in themselves, determine understanding to the public reception of an action. Essays by Maude-Roxby, Kathy O’Dell, and Barbara Clausen. (English)
• After the Act: The (Re)presentation of Performance Art, eds. Philip Auslander, Barbara Clausen, and Babette Mangolte, Vienna: MOMUK/Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, 2007. Among other subjects, the authors examine how the impact of surviving documents and relics from live events remain indices of what occurred; how viewer reception eclipses the veracity or falsity of the document in the market for images; and how the document, the performance artist, and the viewer triangulate. (English)
• Jennifer Blessing, Nat Trotman, Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2010. (English)
• Performing for the Camera, eds. Simon Baker and Fiontán Moran, London: Tate Publishing, 2016, 240 pp. Exh. held at Tate Modern, London, 18 Feb-12 Jun 2016. Examines how the photograph has both documented and developed understanding of performance since the invention of the photographic medium. Essay by Jonah Westerman. Review: Muñoz-Alonso (Artnet). [186]

Exhibitions without catalogue

• Evidence of Movement: Documenting Performance Art, exhibition, Getty Research Institute Gallery, Getty Center, Los Angeles, 10 Jul-7 Oct 2007. Review: Bedford (CAA).
• Actions & Intent: Documentations In Performance, New York Art Residency & Studios (NARS) Foundation, New York, 7-28 Feb 2015. Curated by Peter Gynd.

Journal issues

• Ciel variable 86: "Documents de performance", ed. Anne Bénichou, Autumn 2010, pp 6-59. Special section. (French)
• RTRSRCH 2(2): "<Notation>", eds. Scott deLahunta and Bertha Bermúdez, Amsterdam: Amsterdam School of the Arts, 2010, 44 pp. Special issue on the documentation, analysis, reconstruction and preservation of contemporary performance. (English)
• Revista de historia da arte 4: "Performing Documentation in the Conservation of Contemporary Art", eds. Lúcia Almeida Matos, Rita Macedo, and Gunnar Heydenreich, Lisbon: Instituto de História da Arte/Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2013, 196 pp. Proceedings from a 2013 conference held in Lisbon, 20-21 Jun 2013. Texts by Teresa Azevedo, Alessandra Barbuto, Liliana Coutinho, Annet Dekker, Gabriella Giannachi, Rebecca Gordon, Hélia Marçal, Claudia Marchese, Irene Müller, Andreia Nogueira, Julia Noordegraaf, Cristina Oliveira, Joanna Philips, Rita Salis, Sanneke Stigter, Renée van de Vall, Vivian van Saaze, and Glenn Wharton. (English)
• Maska 30(172-174): "Documents & Performance", Jul 2015. [187] (Slovenian)/(English)

Book chapters, essays, theses

• Lynn Zelevansky, "Is There Life After Performance", Flash Art 105, Dec 1981-Jan 1982, pp 33-42. Discusses the paradox of documenting 'live' art, documentation which becomes 'art', and technical difficulties in documenting performance. (English)
• Kathy O'Dell, "Displacing the Haptic: Performance Art, the Photographic Documents, and the 1970s", Performance Research 2:1, Spring 1997, pp 73-81. Explores the epistemological challenges of understanding performance art through photographic documentation, the limitations of which lead to privileging of the visual over haptic experience.
• Amelia Jones, "'Presence' in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation", Art Journal 56:4, Winter 1997, pp 11-18.
• Sophia Lycouris, "The Documentation of Practice: Framing Trace", Working Papers in Art and Design 1, 2000. (English)
• Anne M. Wagner, "Performance, Video, and the Rhetoric of Presence", October 91, Winter 2000, pp 59-80. (English)
• Carrie Lambert, "Documentary Dialectics: Performance Lost and Found", Visual Resources 16:3, Summer 2000, pp 275-285. (English)
• Gavin Butt, "Happenings in History, or, The Epistemology of the Memoir", Oxford Art Journal' 24:2, 2001, pp 113-126. (English)
• Fiona Wilkie, "Documenting Live and Mediated Performance – the Blast Theory Case Study", in A Guide to Good Practice in Collaborative Working Methods and New Media Tools Creation, eds. Lizbeth Goodman and Katherine Milton, London: Kings College, 2004. (English)
• Christina Manzella, Alex Watkins, "Performance Anxiety: Performance Art in 21st Century Catalogs and Archives", Art Documentation 30:1, Spring 2011, pp 28-32. (English)
• Philip Auslander, "The Performativity of Performance Documentation", PAJ 84, 2006, pp 1-10; repr. in Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History, eds. Amelia Jones and Adrian Heathfield, Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 2012, pp 47-58. (English)
• Amélie Giguère, Art contemporain et documentation: la muséalisation d'un corpus de pièces éphémères de type performance, Avignon: Université d'Avignon, 2012, 495 pp. PDF. PhD dissertation. (French)
• Mechtild Widrich, "The Informative Public of Performance. A Study of Viennese Actionism", TDR. The Drama Review 57:1, Feb 2013, pp 137-151. (English)
• Philip Auslander, "Surrogate Performances: Performance Documentation and the New York Avant-garde, ca. 1964-74", Living Collections Catalogue 1: "On Performativity", ed. Elizabeth Carpenter, Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2014. (English)
• Tony Curran, "Picturing Performance Art: An exploration into the logic of performance documentation", Fusion Journal 7, Charles Sturt University, Dec 2015. (English)
• Acatia Finbow, The Value of Performance Documentation in the Contemporary Art Museum: A Case Study of Tate, Exeter: University of Exeter, 2017, 304 pp. PhD thesis. Abstract. (English)
• Hélia Pereira Marçal, From intangibility to materiality and back again: preserving Portuguese performance artworks from the 1970s, Lisbon: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2018, xviii+231 pp. PhD thesis. (English)

Syllabi

• Coco Fusco, For the Record: Making and Documenting Performance Art, U Florida, Fall 2016.

Performance reenactment

Books

• Anke Bangma, Steve Rushton, Florian Wüst (eds.), Experience, Memory, Re-enactment, Rotterdam: Piet Zwart Institute, 2005. Essays that take performative reenactments as the platform for investigating and theorizing the psychological conditions of memory, the verity and distortions that occur in remembering and reproducing past experience, and how inherited cultural conventions are changed through their reproduction. Essays by the editors and Clarissa Baldwin, Matthew Buckingham, Rod Dickinson, Omer Fast, Mathilde ter Heijne, Janneke Lam, Deimantas Narkevicius, Paul Nulty, Igor Sevcuk, Mildred Valkonet, Jan Verwoert, Krzysztof Wegiel, and Efrat Zehavi. (English)
• Amelia Jones, Adrian Heathfield (eds.), Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History, Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 2012, 652 pp. Contains essays by the editors and scholars on the historical antecedents and archive of performance art, and theories of authenticity in conflict with or supportive of reprised performances. Volume presents a section of documents containing artists original writings; Jones’s "Timeline of Ideas," on the global discourse on performance art from the 1950s to 2012; and discussions with artists conducted by the editors a.o.; good illustrations. Review: Camp (TDR). (English)
• Rebecca Schneider, Performing Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment, Routledge, 2011, 272 pp. With chapters on reenactment of pain, the "faux fathers," the continuity of performance art, and consideration of the work of Elizabeth LeCompte (of the Woster Group) and Jerzy Grotowski's "Poor Theater," Schneider describes the development of a "poor poor theater." Extensive bibliography. Review: Nielsen (emisférica). (English)
• Anne Bénichou (ed.), Recréer / scripter – Mémoires et transmissions des œuvres performatives et chorégraphiques contemporaines, Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2015, 544 pp. Texts by Clarisse Bardiot, Anne Bénichou, Yves Bergeron , Marc Boivin, Elsa Bourdot, Ginelle Chagnon, Mario Côté, Les Deux Gullivers (Flutura Preka & Besnik Haxhillari), Amélie Giguère, Amelia Jones, Isabelle Launay, Catherine Lavoie-Marcus, André Lepecki, Babette Mangolte, Sylvie Mokhtari, Jacques Perron, Isabelle Poirier, Céline Roux, Theresa Rowat, Michèle Rust, Jessica Santone, Noémie Solomon, Ming Tiampo. [188] (French)
• Cristina Baldacci, Clio Nicastro, Arianna Sforzini (eds.), Over and Over and Over Again: Reenactment Strategies in Contemporary Arts and Theory, Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022, 313 pp. (English)

Catalogues

• A Little Bit of History Repeated, ed. Jens Hoffmann, Paris: Valerio, 2001, 42 pp. Exh. held at Kunst-Werke (KW) Berlin, 16-18 Nov 2001. A number of artists from a younger generation have been invited to re-enact important performances from the 1960s and 70s. Participating artists: John Bock (DE), Tania Bruguera (CU), Trisha Donnelly (US), Ingar Drangset & Michael Elmgreen (DK/NO), Karl Holmqvist (SW), Takehito Koganezawa (JP), Elke Krystufek (AT), Laura Lima (BR), Tracey Rose (ZA), Tino Sehgal (DE). [189] (German)
• Life, Once More: Forms Of Reenactment In Contemporary Art, ed. Sven Lütticken, Rotterdam: Witte de With, 2005, 213 pp. Exh. held at Witte de With, Rotterdam, 27 Jan-27 Mar 2005. Contains essays on and documentation of performances by Mike Bidlo, Bik van der Pol, Rod Dickinson, Omer Fast, Andrea Fraser, Robert Longo, Eran Schaerf, Catherine Sullivan and Barbara Visser, and scripts and writings by the artists. (English)
• Again for Tomorrow, London: Royal College of Art, 2006, 175 pp. Exh. curated by graduating students of the MA Curating Contemporary Art; held 17 Mar-9 Apr 2006. Works using the methods of evocation, re-enactment, nostalgic recollection, re-examination, and prediction by Martin Boyce (UK), Ulla von Brandenburg (DE), Gorka Eizagirre (ES), Christoph Keller (DE), Joachim Koester (DK), Chris Kubick and Anne Walsh (US), Matts Leiderstam (SW), David Maljkovic (CR), Missingbooks (NL), Alex Morrison (CA), Adrian Paci (AL/IT), Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija (FR/TH) Lia Perjovschi (RO), Mai-Thu Perret (CH), Trama (AR). [190] [191] (English)
• History Will Repeat Itself: Strategien des Reenactment in der zeitgenössischen (Medien-) Kunst und Performance / Strategies of Re-enactment in Contemporary (Media) Art and Performance, ed. Inke Arns, Frankfurt am Main: Revolver, 2007, 191 pp. Exh. held at HMKV, Dortmund, 9 Jun-23 Sep 2007; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 18 Nov 2007-13 Jan 2008. (German)/(English)
• Reconstitutions, ed. John Zeppetelli, Montréal: Fondation pour l'art contemporain, 2008, 30 pp. Catalogue for exh. Re-enactments, at DHC/ART Foundation, Montreal, 22 Feb-25 May 2008. Works by Nancy Davenport, Stan Douglas, Harun Farocki, Ann Lislegaard, Paul Pfeiffer, Kerry Tribe. [192] (French)/(English)
• RE:akt! Reconstruction, Re-enactment, Re-reporting, eds. Antonio Caronia, Janez Janša, and Domenico Quaranta, Brescia: Link Editions, and Ljubljana: Aksioma, 2014, 140 pp. (English)

Journal issues

• Marges 17: "Remake, reprise, répétition", Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 2013, 152 pp. (French)

Book chapters, essays, interviews

• Jörg Heiserr, "Do It Again: In Conversation with Marina Abramović", Frieze 94, Oct 2005, pp 176-183. Discussion with Abramović about her intent to preserve performances that had influenced her, and the many details she attended to in obtaining permission and studying the five body actions of the other artists that she reprised in 7 Easy Pieces (9–15 November 2005), including those of Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Valie Export, Bruce Nauman, Gina Pane (as well as one of her own earlier works). Comments in the conversation by the artist Monica Bonvicini draws the interview into other contexts including theater, installation, and Bonvicini’s own art work. (English)
• Robert Blackstone, "Once More with Feeling: Reenactment in Contemporary Art and Culture", Art Journal 66:1, Spring 2007, pp 28-40. Blackstone explores the politics of the "heritage industry" and the reconstruction of memory in the performative representation of historical events like Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave (2001), the reenactment of the British miners’ violent strike of 1984–1985; Rod Dickinson’s redux of events in United States history; and Marina Abramović's 7 Easy Pieces (2005). (English)
• Jessica Santone, "Marina Abramović's Seven Easy Pieces: Critical Documentation Strategies for Preserving Art's History", Leonardo 41:2, Apr 2008, pp 147-152. (English)
• Robert C. Morgan, "Thoughts on Re-performance, Experience, and Archivism", PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 32:3, Sep 2010, pp 1-15. Juxtaposes the desire to affirm and sustain the significance of original, unique performance events with what he describes as the distraction of re-performance, which draws critical and aesthetic attention away from larger institutional concerns and alternative histories of performance art. (English)
• Helen Barrett, "Reinterpreting Re-performance", RELAY Zine, 21 May 2011. A meditation on the origins of the taboo of reenactment by Allan Kaprow in his theories of the happening, Barrett argues that these ideas were already overturned in Fluxus performances, which were intentionally often repeated, albeit by different artists or the same artist in different configurations, contexts, and locales. The essay then turns to contemporary examples of re-performance. (English)
• Branislav Jakovijević (ed.), "On Performing Forensics: The Political Economy of Renactments", Art Journal 70:3, Fall 2011, pp 50-54. The artists of Grupa Spomenik—Damir Arsenijevic, Svebor Midzic, Darinka Pop-Mitic, Branimir Stojanovic, and Milica Tomic—consider their work to function as a public monument to the 1990s Yugoslavian wars. Jakovijević focuses on the group’s artwork Mathemes of Re-association (2008–present), which restages aspects of the Srebrenican massacre of more than eight thousand Bosnian Muslims. Jakovijević’s essay appears in the special issue of the Art Journal on performative reenactments with contributions by Ron Athey, Amelia Jones, Sophia Yadong Hao, William Pope.L, a.o. (English)
• Mechtild Widrich, "Is the “Re” in Re-enactment the “Re” in Re-performance?", in Performing the Sentence: Research and Teaching in Performative Fine Arts, eds. Carola Dertnig and Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2014. (English)
• Jessica Santone, "Documentation as Group Activity: Performing the Fluxus Network", Visual Resources 32:3-4, 2016, pp 263-281. (English)
• Martha Barratt, "Autobiography, Time, and Documentation in the Performances and Auto-Archives of Carolee Schneemann", Visual Resources 32:3-4, 2016, pp 282-305. [193] (English)

Performance theory, Performance studies

Books

• Richard Schechner, Essays on Performance Theory, 1970-1976, New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1977; new ed., rev. & exp., as Performance Theory, London: Routledge, 1988, xv+304 pp; new ed., new pref., 2003, xix+407 pp. (English)
• Andrew Parker, Eve Kosofsky Segwick (eds.) Performativity and Performance, London and New York: Routledge, 1995. The editors assembled texts concerned with performativity of interrelated populations of the Atlantic world (Joseph Roach), the performativity of African-American literature (Sandra L. Richards), catharsis in 20th-century performance (Elin Dimond), the performativity of trauma awakenings (Cathy Caruth), and injurious speech (Judith Buter), among other topics. Bibliography. (English)
• Peggy Phelan, Jill Lane (eds.), The Ends of Performance, New York University Press, 1998, 372 pp. Collection of articles and papers from the event Performance Studies: The Future of the Field, Northwestern University, 1995. Phelan and Lane ground performance studies in the post-theatrical, post-anthropological age. Together with other leading scholars, such as Della Pollock, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Joseph Roach, Richard Schechner, Diana Taylor, and Robert Sember, the editors write on artists like David Wojnarowicz, Orlan, and Amanda Denise Kemp, taking into consideration topics ranging from AIDS and death to virtual technology, medical discourses, race, and citizenship. (English)
• Amelia Jones, Andrew Stephenson (eds.), Performing the Body, Performing the Text, London: Routledge, 1999. Eighteen essays and an introduction by the editors. Essays range from performing modernity (Donald Preziosi), the performativity of homosexual camp (Gavin Butt), performing race (Jennifer Devere Brody), and the body politics of feminist performance (Jonathan Katz) to the performativity of marginality (Meiling Cheng) and lesbian aesthetics (B. J. Wray). Some black and white illustrations and notes as a bibliographical resource. (English)
• Charles R. Garoian, Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. A pivotal early text on performativity, integrating theory and practice on the aesthetic and ethical role and ability of performance art (in politics and pedagogy) to revive memory and enliven history through analysis of cultural assumptions about, and constructs of, identity and personal agency. Bibliography. (English)
• Geraldine Harris, Staging Femininities: Performance and Performativity, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999. Compares British and North American women’s performance art, theories, and practices, taking into account the similarities and differences among theatrical performance, performance art, and performativity, and drawing on a wide range of theorists, from Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray to Antonin Artaud, Jean Baudrillard, Bertolt Brecht, Michel de Certeau, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Lacan, a.o. (English)
• Anthony Howell, The Analysis of Performance Art: A Guide to its Theory and Practice, Routledge, 1999, 276 pp. [194] (English)
• Sue-Ellen Case, Philip Brett, Susan Leigh Foster (eds.), Decomposition: Post-disciplinary Performance, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Published following the 1997 Unnatural Acts conference at the University of California at Riverside. Essays cross the disciplines of music, art history, dance, and English with contributions by the editors and Amelia Jones, Deborah Wong, George Lipsitz, Ronald Radano, Philip Brett, Kristine C. Kuramitsu, Jeffrey Tobin, Timothy D. Taylor, Catherine Lord, B. J. Wray, and Elizabeth Wood. (English)
• Jon McKenzie, Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance, London: Routledge, 2001, x+306 pp. Reviews: Sabatini (Theatre J), Sayre (Modernism/modernity), Kershaw (NTQ). (English)
  • Izvedi ili snosi posljedice: od discipline do izvedbe, trans. Vlatka Valentić, Zagreb: Centre for Dramatic Arts, 2006. (Croatian)
  • Performuj albo... Od dyscypliny do performansu, trans. Tomasz Kubikowski, Krakow: Universitas, 2011, xix+416 pp. (Polish)
• Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, London: Routledge, 2002, x+288 pp; 3rd ed., with Sara Brady, 2013, 359 pp. Companion website. Reviews: Dolan (Modern Drama), Harding (Theatre J), Kershaw (NTQ), Miller (J Dance Education). (English)
• David Davies, Art as Performance, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. (English)
  • trans. Fong Jun, Nanjing: Jiangsu Meishu Chubanshe, 2008. (Chinese)
• Erika Fischer-Lichte, Ästhetik des Performativen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004, 376 pp. Theorizes the appearance of performance as being an event comparable to, and as significant as, the emergence of art objects. Chapters include essays on performativity and performance, bodily co-presence, performance as event, and the role of performance in the revivification of life. [195] (German)
  • The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics, trans. Saskya Iris Jain, New York and London: Routledge, 2008, vii+232 pp. (English)
  • Estetika performativnega, trans. Jaša Drnovšek, intro. Lado Kralj, Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2008, 375 pp. (Slovenian)
  • Estetyka performatywności, trans. Mateusz Borowski and Małgorzata Sugiera, Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2008, 353 pp. (Polish)
  • Pafōmansu no bigaku, Tokyo: Ronsōsha, 2009, 351 pp. (Japanese)
  • Estética de lo performativo, trans. Diana González Martín and David Martínez Perucha, intro. Óscar Cornago, Madrid: Abada, 2011, 427 pp. (Spanish)
  • Estetika performativity, trans. Markéta Polochová, Mníšek pod Brdy: Na Konári, 2011, 336 pp. (Czech)
  • Xing wei biao yan mei xue: guan yu yan chu de li lun, trans. Kuangfu Yu, Shanghai: Hua dong shi fan da xue chu ban she, 2012, 309 pp. (Chinese)
  • Performatyvumo estetika, trans. Austėja Merkevičiūtė, Vilnius: Menų Spaustuve, 2013, 344 pp. (Lithuanian)
  • Estetica del performativo: una teoria del teatro e dell'arte, trans. Tancredi Gusman, Rome: Carocci, 2014, 376 pp. (Italian)
• Shannon Jackson, Professing Performance: Theatre in the Academy from Philology to Performativity, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Undertakes an analysis of the history of theater as it relates to the evolution of performance studies, with chapters devoted to disciplinary genealogies, institutions, cultures, practices, and histories of performance and performativity. (English)
• Christian Janecke (ed.), Performance und Bild. Performance als Bild, Hamburg: PHILO & PhiloFineArts, 2004. [196] (German)
• Dorothea von Hantelmann, How to Do Things with Art: zur Bedeutsamkeit der Performativität von Kunst, Zürich and Berlin: Diaphanes, 2007, 223 pp. [197] (German)
  • How To Do Things with Art: The Meaning of Art's Performativity, ed. Karen Marta, forew. Hans Ulrich Obrist, Zurich: JRP|Ringier, and Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2010, 199 pp. [198] [199] (English)
• Jon McKenzie, Heike Roms, C.J.W.L. Wee (eds.), Contesting Performance: Global Sites of Research, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Essayists think through themes related to global performance research: the "turn" to performativity in the British Academy (Heike Roms); performance studies and the "Americanization" of the American University (Shannon Jackson); performance as an interdisciplinary field (Gay McAuley); and performance and postcoloniality (Khalid Amine). Contains scholarly essays on performance in the Americas and South East Asia, and in Australia, Croatia, Germany, Israel, Japan, Morocco, Singapore, Slovenia, and South Africa.
• David Davies, Philosophy of the Performing Arts, Oxford: Blackwell, 2011. (English)
• Shannon Jackson, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics, New York: Routledge, 2011, x+299 pp. Examines performativity in community activism. Reviews: Klein (CAA), Harvie (Contemporary Theatre Rev). (English)
• Diana Taylor, Marcela Fuentes (eds.), Estudios avanzados de performance, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011. Excerpt. [200] (Spanish)
• Gabriella Giannachi, Nick Kaye, Michael Shanks (eds.), Archaeologies of Presence: Art, Performance, and the Persistence of Being, New York: Routledge, 2012. Reviews: Sack (J Dramatic Theory and Criticism), Sherman (Theatre J). (English)
• Karen O’Rourke, Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers, MIT Press, 2013. Surveys artists’ generative ideas for the systematic performativity of everyday encounters. Drawing on theories and events from Alfred Jarry’s pataphysics and Lettrist’s drift to Stalkers traversing the periphery of Rome, and from artists tracing Mexican and Moroccan border and immigration routes to microscopic landscapes, intifada checkpoints, and GPS technology. Illustrations and bibliography. (English)
• Bojana Kunst, Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism, Winchester: Zero Books, 2015, 230 pp. (English)
• Bojana Cvejić, Ana Vujanović, Public Sphere by Performance, Berlin: b_books, 2015. (English)
• André Lepecki, Marta Dziewańska (eds.), Points of Convergence: Alternative Views on Performance, Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 2017, 240 pp. [201] (English)

Selected essays

• Dwight Conquergood, "Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research", TDR/The Drama Review 46:2, Summer 2002, pp 145-156. (English)

Research projects, resources

• Fluxus & Happening, ed. Co Seegers.
• Black Kit Performer's Archive / Schwarze Lade, Cologne. Founded in 1981 as an archive for international performance art.
• Re.Act.Feminism: A Performing Archive, an archive and exhibition project on feminism and performance art. Curated by Beatrice E. Stammer and Bettina Knaup. The core archive contains more than 250 videos, photographs and other documentation of gender-oriented, feminist and queer performance art, from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
• Collecting the Performative: A research network examining emerging practice for collecting and conserving performance-based art, Tate London, Apr 2012-Jan 2014. Project leader: Pip Laurenson. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Recordings of talks. [202]
• Performance at Tate: Collecting, Archiving and Sharing Performance and the Performative, Oct 2014-Sep 2016. A major initiative aiming to research and document the role performance – in all its forms – has played in the history of modern and contemporary art at Tate since the 1960s. It looked at the museum’s practices of collecting, displaying, documenting and sharing performance and explored how performance practices have reframed conventional understanding of an art collection. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the twoyear project was a collaboration between the Centre for Intermedia at the Department of English at the University of Exeter and Tate. It was led by Professor Gabriella Giannachi, Catherine Wood (Senior Curator, International Art (Performance) and Jennifer Mundy (Head of Collection Research). PDF publication.
• Performing the East, a resource on performance art in Eastern Europe since 1960, operated by Amy Bryzgel.
• Performance Art in Eastern Europe (1950-1990), a research project coordinated by Sylvia Sasse, U Zurich; collaborators: Sylvia Sasse, Sabine Hänsgen, Tomáš Glanc, Kata Krasznahorkai. Funded by ERC. [203]
• Performing Arts in the Second Public Sphere, initiated by Katalin Cseh, Ludwig-Maximilians-U, and Adam Czirak, Free U Berlin. Funded by Erste.
• Action Art Beyond the Iron Curtain, a research project convened by Adam Czirak, Free U Berlin. Funded by the German Research Society (DFG).
• Glimpses of Before 1970s Performance Art in the UK. A study room guide compiled and edited by Helena Goldwater and produced by the Live Art Development Agency (LADA). The guide includes framing texts by Helena Goldwater and Dominic Johnson, as well as artists’ information and images, including links to online content and hard copy materials available in LADA’s Study Room, a free, open access research facility specialising in Live Art and Performance. Part of a larger series of research activities on Performance and Politics in the 1970s organised by Dominic Johnson and Nicholas Ridout of the the Department of Drama at Queen Mary, University of London (2015-16). PDF publication.
• Performance Perspectives, an archive of video interviews exploring performance art in Australia.
• The Performance Club, a platform for art criticism, ed. Claudia La Rocco.
• SiteWorks: San Francisco Performance 1969-85, a site-specific curation of archival remains of past ephemeral art and performance in the present city of San Francisco, ed. Nick Kaye.
• Between Evidence and Representation: History of Performance Art Documentation from 1970 to 1977. Conducted by Tancredi Gusman as principal investigator at the Institute of Theatre Studies of the Freie Universität in Berlin, and supervised by Erika Fischer-Lichte. Funded by EU-Horizon 2020.
• Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge, Institute Materiality in Arts and Culture, Bern University of the Arts, Oct 2020-Sep 2024. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Project lead: Hanna B. Hölling. Colloquium to be held 2021.

Works

Works in museum collections.

Artist	Born	Title	Year	Coll.	Acq.	Coll. no.	Coll. URL	Medium	Dept / Type / Tags	Image
Roman Ondák	SK	Good Feelings in Good Times	2003	Tate	2005	T11940	[204] [205]	Performance, people	Time-based media	[206]
Tino Sehgal	UK	This is Propaganda	2002	Tate	2005	T12057	[207]	Performance, 1 person	Time-based media
David Lamelas	AR	Time	1970	Tate	2006	T12208	[208] [209]	Performance, people and photograph	Time-based media
Pawel Althamer	PL	Film	2000	Tate	2007	T12404	[210]	Performance, film, drawings, storyboards and photographs	Time-based media
Jennifer Allora, Guillermo Calzadilla	US, CU	Balance of Power	2007	Tate	2009	T12962	[211]	Performance, 3 people	Time-based media	[212]
Tania Bruguera	CU	Tatlin's Whisper #5	2008	Tate	2009	T12989	[213] [214]	Performance, 2 people and 2 horses	Time-based media	[215]
Amalia Pica	AR	Strangers	2008	Tate	2014		[216]		Time-based media	[217]
Erwin Wurm	AT	Organisation of Love	1997-2005	Tate	2017	T15257	[218]	Performance, 2 people, plastic bottles, sand, broom head and plinth with diagram instructions	Time-based media
Erwin Wurm	AT	Double Bucket	1997-2005	Tate	2017	T15258	[219]	Performance, person, plastic buckets and plinth with diagram instructions	Time-based media
Roger Hiorns	UK	Untitled	2005-2010	Tate	2018	T15108	[220]	Performance, person, bench and fire	Time-based media
Tony Conrad	US	Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain	1972	Tate	2019	L04307	[221] [222]	Performance, musical instruments and film, 16mm, 4 projections, black and white, and sound (stereo)	Time-based media
Tino Sehgal	UK	Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things	2000	Stedelijk	2005
Tino Sehgal	UK	This Variation	2012	Stedelijk	2017
Tino Sehgal	UK	This is Exchange	2002	Van Abbe	2006	2853	[223]	Performance
Tino Sehgal	UK	Kiss	2003	MoMA	2008	592.2008	[224]	Constructed situation	Media and Performance
Jennifer Allora, Guillermo Calzadilla	US, CU	Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on Ode to Joy for a Prepared Piano, No.1	2008	MoMA	2009	369.2009	[225]	Performance, prepared Bechstein Piano	Media and Performance	[226]
Roman Ondák	SK	Measuring the Universe	2007	MoMA	2009	375.2009	[227]	Performance	Media and Performance	[228]
Michelangelo Pistoletto	IT	Seventeen Less One	2008	MoMA	2009	1668.2009	[229]	Performance with seventeen mirrors in gilded frames	Media and Performance	[230]
Andrés Jaque	ES	Ikea Disobedients	2011	MoMA	2012	156.2012	[231]	Performance with Ikea objects	Architecture and Design	[232]
Guy de Cointet	FR	GSBHNFOUT	1971	MoMA	2012	611.2012	[233]	Performance, artist book	Media and Performance
Guy de Cointet	FR	The brilliant artist Huzo Lumnst presents her new work: CIZEGOH TUR ND JMB [aka Huzo Lumnst]	1973	MoMA	2012	612.2012	[234]	Performance, twelve silkscreen prints on paper	Media and Performance
Guy de Cointet	FR	At Sunrise a Cry Was Hear...or The Halved Painting	1974	MoMA	2012	613.2012	[235]	Performance, acrylic on Masonite	Media and Performance
Guy de Cointet	FR	Sophie Rummel	1974-75	MoMA	2012	615.2012	[236]	Performance, artist notebook with 127 sheets	Media and Performance
Guy de Cointet	FR	Two Drawings	1977	MoMA	2012	617.2012	[237]	Performance, prop	Media and Performance
Guy de Cointet	FR	Going to the Market	1978	MoMA	2012	618.2012	[238]	Performance, prop	Media and Performance
Guy de Cointet	FR	A New Life	1981	MoMA	2012	620.2012	[239]	Performance, 26 props	Media and Performance
Pietro Roccasalva	IT	The Seven Sleepers	2013	MoMA	2014	218.2014	[240]	Installation and performance	Media and Performance	[241]
Kevin Beasley	US	I Want My Spot Back	2011-2012	MoMA	2014	1108.2014	[242]	Performance with 39 processed a cappella tracks (28 min.), sealed letter	Media and Performance	[243]
Alex Schweder, Ward Shelley	US	Counterweight Roommate	2011	MoMA	2015	103.2015	[244]	Installation and performance	Architecture and Design
Tania Bruguera	CU	Untitled (Havana, 2000)	2000	MoMA	2015	303.2015	[245]	Sugar cane bagasse, video (b&w, silent, 4:37 min.), and live performance	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Censor	1961	MoMA	2015	1761.2015.1	[246]	Performance with metal pan, screws, audio	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Censor	1960-1961	MoMA	2015	1761.2015.1-2	[247]	Performance and drawing	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	From Instructions	1961	MoMA	2015	1764.2015	[248]	Performance with rope and hardware	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Hangers	1961-2010	MoMA	2015	1765.2015.1-3	[249]	Performance and drawings	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Huddle	1961	MoMA	2015	1766.2015.1	[250]	Performance	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Huddle	1961-1974	MoMA	2015	1766.2015.1-3	[251]	Performance, video, and handwritten draft	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Platforms	1961	MoMA	2015	1767.2015	[252]	Performance with two plywood boxes, sound	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Roller Boxes	1961	MoMA	2015	1768.2015	[253]	Performance with three plywood boxes on wheels and rope	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	See Saw	1961-2011	MoMA	2015	1769.2015.1-3	[254]	Performance, drawing, and notebook	Media and Performance
Simone Forti	US	Slant Board	1961	MoMA	2015	1770.2015	[255]	Performance with plywood and rope	Media and Performance
Jennifer Allora, Guillermo Calzadilla	US, CU	Fault Lines	2013	MoMA	2016	1348.2016	[256]	Ten metamorphic and igneous rocks, live performance by two boy soprano singers	Media and Performance	[257]
David Lamelas	AR	Time	1970	MoMA	2017	674.2017	[258]	Performance and gelatin silver print	Media and Performance
Pope.L	US	Dressing Up for Civil Rights	2019	MoMA	2019	92.2019	[259]	Performance	Media and Performance
Tino Sehgal	UK	This is New	2003	Serralves	2008		[260]	Concept and interpretation	Performance
Tino Sehgal	UK	This is About	2003	Serralves	2008		[261]	Concept and interpretation	Performance
André Guedes	PT	Outro Fumador	2004	Serralves	2011		[262]	Vinyl signage, portable ashtray, actor / actress	Performance	[263]
Alexandra Bachzetsis	CH	Gold	2004	Serralves	2017		[264]	Performance, 30 mins, 1 performer	Performance	[265]
Tino Sehgal	UK	This Objective of That Object	2004	Walker	2008	2008.46	[266]	constructed situation
Ralph Lemon	US	Scaffold Room	2014	Walker	2015	2015.63	[267]	mixed media	Multimedia	[268]
Jason Moran	US	STAGED: Slugs' Saloon	2018	Walker	2018	2018.14	[269]	mixed media, sound	Multimedia	[270]
Maria Hassabi	CY	STAGING: solo	2017	Walker	2018	2018.25.1-.10	[271]	STAGING: solo: oil paint on floor, performer, outfit designed by Victoria Bartlett STAGING: solo-archival: oil paint of floor, video (color, sound) outfit designed by Victoria Bartlett STAGING: 5min: oil paint on floor, dancer's manual	Action / Performance	[272]
Tino Sehgal	UK	This Progress	2006	Guggenheim	2010	2010.7	[273]	Constructed situation
Tania Bruguera	CU	Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana Version)	2009	Guggenheim	2014	2014.11	[274]	Color video, with sound, 40 min., 33 sec., stage, podium, loudspeaker, video camera, and microphones, with occasional performance	Film/Video, Installation	[275]
Roman Ondák	SK	Swap	2011	Guggenheim	2014
Amalia Pica	AR	A ∩ B ∩ C	2013	Guggenheim	2014	2014.45	[276]	Acrylic and occasional performance	Installation	[277]
Kevin Beasley	US	Strange Fruit (Pair 2)	2015	Guggenheim	2014	2014.74	[278]	Nike Air Jordan 1 shoes, resin, polyurethane foam, tube socks, shoelaces, rope, speakers, hypercardioid and contact microphones, amplifiers, patch cables, and effects processors, with unannounced performance		[279]
Gerard & Kelly	US	Timelining	2014	Guggenheim	2014	2014.75	[280]	Performance		[281]
Wang Jianwei	CN	Spiral Ramp Library	2014-2015	Guggenheim	2014	2014.104	[282]	Two-part performance		[283]
Amie Siegel	US	Winter	2013	Guggenheim	2015	2015.44		Color video, transferred from 16 mm film, with sound, 33 min. and performance with objects		[284]
Amalia Pica	AR	Asamble	2015	Guggenheim	2015	2015.58	[285]	Performance		[286]
Naama Tsabar	IL	Work on Felt (Variation 4)	2015	Guggenheim	2016	2016.4	[287]	Performance; industrial felt, carbon fiber, epoxy, guitar tuner, piano string, and contact microphone		[288]
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa	GT	A Brief History of Architecture in Guatemala	2010	Guggenheim	2016	2016.30.1	[289]	Performance and three foam-board costumes		[290]
Pia Camil	MX	For Sale	2010	Guggenheim	2017	2017.3	[291]	Polyester blend fabric, inkjet print, and occasional performance		[292]
Amalia Pica	AR	Now Speak!	2011	MFA Boston	2013	2013.1829	[293]	Cast concrete, live performance	Sculpture	[294]
Tino Sehgal	UK	This You	2006	Beyeler	2015	TIS 001	[295]	Constructed outdoor situation
Pierre Huyghe	FR	Name Announcer	2011	Cleveland Museum of Art	2017	2017.191	[296]	A person at the entrance of a space	Time-based Media	[297]
Tino Sehgal	UK	This You	2006	Hirschhorn	2018	2018.020	[298] [299]	Constructed situation, NA

Recent events

Festivals, exhibitions

See also group exhibition catalogues above.

• Performa biennial, New York, since 2005. Editions: #1: 3-21 Nov 2005, 20+ venues; #2: 27 Oct-20 Nov 2007, 60+ venues; #3: 1-22 Nov 2009, 100+ artists, 80+ venues, theme: Italian Futurism; #4: 1-21 Nov 2011, 140+ artists, theme: Russian Constructivism; #5: 2013, theme: Surrealism; #6: 2015, theme: Renaissance; #7, 1-19 Nov 2017, theme: Circulations. Founding dir. RoseLee Goldberg.
• Marina Abramović, Seven Easy Pieces, performance series, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 9-15 Nov 2005. Abramović reenacted five other artists' performances from the 1960s and 1970s and included two of her own works--one old and one new. [300]
• The Living Currency/La Monnaie Vivante: After Pierre Klossowski exhibition, Micadanses Paris, 2006; Stuk Theatre, Leuven, 2007; Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, 2008; Dramatic Theatre, Warsaw, 28-30 Apr 2010; Berlin Biennale, 17-19 Jun 2010; CAC Bretigny, 2015. Staged by Pierre Bal-Blanc.
• Performance Art of Korea 1967-2007, exhibition, National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, Seoul, 2007.
• American Realness, a festival of dance, performance and discourse, Abrons Arts Center and other venues, New York, since 2010.
• Tania Bruguera, On the Political Imaginary exhibition, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase NY, 28 Jan-11 Apr 2010. Bruguera's first retrospective. Review: Genocchio (NYT).
• Marina Abramović, The Artist Is Present, exhibition, MoMA, New York, 14 March-31 May 2010. Retrospective.
• Clifford Owens, Anthology exhibition, MoMA PS1, New York, 13 Nov 2011-7 May 2012. The show featured performances scores—written or graphical instructions for actions—that Owens solicited from a multigenerational group of African-American artists. Twenty-six major artists have contributed scores, nearly all of whom composed new works specifically for Owens and his project. Catalogue excerpt. Review: Young (emisferica). Commentary: Young (TDR).
• MediaUdar / MediaImpact, an international festival of activist art, Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, since 2011. [301]
• Personal (Hi-)stories, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 15 Aug-21 Sep 2014. Photo and video documentation of artistic actions, performances, and films realized in the public realm in the East-Central Europe from the 1960s-80s.
• Performance Process, Centre Culture Suisse, Paris, 18 Sep-13 Dec 2015.
• Embodiment Abstracted: The Influence of Yvonne Rainer exhibition, Gallery 400, University of Illinois, Chicago, 13 Jan-4 Mar 2017. Featured 7 artists' performance and video work from the early 2000s. Curated by Elise Archias.
• Action!, Kunsthaus Zurich, 23 Jun-30 Jul 2017.
• Performance Process: 60 Years of Performance Art in Switzerland, exhibition series, Kaserne Basel/Kunsthalle Basel/Museum Tinguely, Basel, 20 Sep 2017-18 Feb 2018. [302]
• Poetry & Performance: The Eastern European Perspective, Podroom Gallery, Belgrade, 8 Mar 2017-29 Mar 2018; Shedhalle, Zürich, 16 Sep 2017-28 Oct 2018, Exh. guide; New Synagogue, Žilina, 22 Dec 2017-10 Mar 2018; Motorenhalle, Dresden, 12 Apr-7 Jul 2019, Exh. guide; MWW Wroclaw, 27 Mar-13 Jul 2020, Exh. guide; Oblastní galerie Liberec, 17 Dec 2020-2 May 2021, Photos; Kassák Muzeum, Budapest, 24 Jun-17 Oct 2021; Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture, Dnipro, 25 Nov 2021-12 Feb 2022, Catalogue. Curated by Tomáš Glanc, Sabine Hänsgen, et al.
• Artists & Agents – Performance Art and Secret Services, HMKV, Dortmund, 26 Oct 2019-19 Apr 2020. Curated by Inke Arns, Kata Krasznahorkai and Sylvia Sasse. Interview. [303]

Symposia, conferences

• The Manifold (After)lives of Performance conference, STUK Leuven & Frascati Amsterdam, 13-15 Nov 2009; Part II, 12-13 Nov 2010. Produced by De Appel (Amsterdam) and STUK Kunstencentrum (Leuven). Reports: Hölling (Part 1), Hölling (Part 2).
• Performance as the Paradigm for the Arts symposium and research seminar, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, 22 Feb 2013. Curated by Marta Dziewanska and Magda Lipska in collaboration with André Lepecki. Video lectures.
• Performance and Politics in the 1970s symposium, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 30 May 2015. Video talks.
• Collecting and Conserving Performance Art symposium, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, 9-11 Jun 2016. Organised by The German Association of Conservator-Restorers (VDR). Video documentation.
• Conservation Piece(s): Conference on the preservation of performative media: Theoretical impulses and practical examples on the preservation of digital art, HEK Basel, 27 Jun 2016. Organised by Sabine Himmelsbach and Agathe Jarczyk.
• Repetition/s: Performance and Philosophy in Ljubljana conference, University of Ljubljana – Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana, 21-24 Sep 2016.
• Doing Performance Art History: A Congress of Actors and Observers, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, 3-5 Nov 2016.
• P/Re/Enact! Performing in Between Times conference, ICI Berlin, 27-28 Oct 2017.
• Art is Dead Long Live Live Art: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Performance, London, 20-21 Apr 2018.
• Re-Constructing Performance Art: Processes and Practices of Historicisation, Documentation, and Representation (1960s-1970s), Freie Universität Berlin, 30 Nov-1 Dec 2018.
• Networking the Histories of Performance Art: Memories, Pedagogies, Digital Translations, symposium, Zurich University of the Arts, 6 Dec 2018.
• Performance Art: Who Cares? Actors in the Documentation and Reactivation of Performance Art, symposium, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, 22 Mar 2019.
• Embodied Histories – Entangled Communities. Southeast Asian and Western Approaches to Narratives and Performance Art conference, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 13-14 Jun 2019.

See also

• Gutai, Situationist International, Viennese Actionism, Fluxus, John Cage
• Dance, Expanded cinema, Video art

Note

This page was first published on 23 July 2017.

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