Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Performance art is now at the forefront of contemporary art world-wide and the desire for direct engagement with today's most prominent artists explains its wide appeal to the expanding audience for new art. Artists such as Mariko Mori, Paul McCarthy, Matthew Barney and Forced Entertainment can now be seen in the context of previous innovators, from the Dadaists to Laurie Anderson.



First published in 1979, now extensively updated and expanded, this pioneering book has been supplemented by the definitive account of the current technological, political and aesthetic shifts in performance art.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword (p. 7)
• 1 Futurism (p. 11)
• 2 Russian Futurism and Constructivism (p. 31)
• 3 Dada (p. 50)
• 4 Surrealism (p. 75)
• 5 Bauhaus (p. 97)
• 6 Living Art c. 1933 to the 1970s (p. 121)
• 7 The Art of Ideas and the Media Generation 1968 to 2000 (p. 152)
• Select Bibliography (p. 227)
• Index (p. 229)
• Sources of Illustrations (p. 232)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

First widely, and fittingly, recognized in the 1970s the heyday of conceptual art, which insisted on "an art of ideas over product, and on an art that could not be bought and sold" performance art has thrived in recent decades, according to RoseLee Goldberg's Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. First published more than 20 years ago, the book has been extensively updated. Goldberg (Laurie Anderson), a former curator of the Kitchen Center for Music, Video and Performance in New York City, analyzes artists as varied as the dadaists, Laurie Anderson, John Cage, Cindy Sherman, Mariko Mori, Paul McCarthy, Matthew Barney, Karen Finley, Forced Entertainment and Desperate Optimists. It's mandatory reading for scholars and practitioners, and helpful to anyone who wants to learn more about this intriguing but often bewildering art form. 186 illus. ( June 25) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved