Chapter 9 - Performance Studies

Summary

Performance art is a transdisciplinary art form that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. In various parts of the world there is a rise in artistic movements that sought to broaden the notion of art: happenings in the United States, the Fluxus movement, Viennese actionism, the Japanese Gutai, the situationists in France, the ephemeral panic in Mexico, the Brazilian constructivist movement, virtual poetry, and other neo-avant-garde movements. The case of Latin America is particularly important, as performance became a vehicle through which to face a repressive social order that developed in the second half of the century. The boom of performance art that can be seen in Latin America, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, acts as a catalyst for a questioning the role of the artist in society and a challenge to artistic institutions, as well as a defiant political act. In addition, Latin American artists turned to performance as a means through which to deal with the artistic constraints and hierarchical structures of classical theater. Thus, performance became an art of transition, a way of changing the social discourse by changing the way of producing art.