Since the beginning of
Dadaism
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
in the
Cabaret Voltaire,
Zurich in 1916, many artists have experimented with extreme performance art as a critique of contemporary consumer culture. Some have used bodily fluids such as blood, faeces and urine. Other times they perform self-mutilation. Simulated (artificial) blood has also been used. In the 1960s and 1970s extreme performance was elevated to a movement with the
Viennese actionists
Viennese Actionism was a short-lived art movement in the late 20th-century that spanned the 1960s into the 1970s. It is regarded as part of the independent efforts made during the 1960s to develop the issues of performance art, Fluxus, happening, ...
. In recent times there has been a resurgence in extreme performance as a response to the increasing alienation some artists feel in the face of today's technological advances.
Artists
Some contemporary artists using extreme performance include:
*
Ron Athey
Ron Athey (born December 16, 1961) is an American performance artist associated with body art and with extreme performance art. He has performed in the U.S. and internationally (especially in the UK and Europe). Athey's work explores challenging ...
*
Abel Azcona
Abel Azcona (born 1 April 1988) is a Spanish artist, specializing in performance art. His work includes installations, sculptures, and video art. He is known as the "''enfant terrible''" of Spanish contemporary art. His first works dealt with ...
*
Franko B
Franko B (born in Milan in 1960) is an Italian performance artist based in London, where he has lived since 1979. He studied fine art at Camberwell College of Arts (1986–87), Chelsea College of Art (1987–90) and the Byam Shaw School of Art ...
*
Bob Flanagan
*
Yang Zhichao
Yang Zhichao (; born 1963) is a multi-disciplinary artist who is known for his agonizingly painful performance pieces.
Biography
Yang was born in Gansu Province, China, in 1963. He graduated from the Art Department of Northwest Normal Universit ...
*
Rocío Boliver
Rocío Boliver is a Mexican performance artist who creates body art about gender, sexuality, pain and pleasure. In 1992, Boliver began her career as a performance artist reading her porno-erotic writings. Boliver has a background in video and Mex ...
*
monochrom
Monochrom (stylised as monochrom) is an international art-technology-philosophy group, publishing house and film production company. It was founded in 1993, and defines itself as "an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop att ...
, e.g.
Eignblunzn
''Eignblunzn'' (also known as Viennese Factionism: Eignblunzn or auto blood sausage) is a 2003 performance by Austrian art theory group monochrom and is considered an important work in the group's history and Austrian art history in the 2000s. The ...
,
Buried Alive (performance)
Buried Alive is an art and lecture performance series by art-tech group monochrom. The basic concept is to offer willing participants the opportunity of being buried alive in a real coffin underground for fifteen to twenty minutes. As a framework ...
See also
*
Performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
References
"Some Art's Painful by Design" ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
''.
*
External links
The 8 Top Shocking Art Performances Artiholics.
Performances
{{art-stub