It’s hard to pin down a particular point in time when performance art appeared as the medium we know it as today, but most art scholars and historians have agreed to place its birth somewhere around the early 1900s, within the Dadaist cabarets of Europe. Specifically, the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland, was a hotbed for avant-garde and socially disruptive expression.

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Who were the Dadaists? -

Dadaism was founded in Zurich in the 1910s by a group of disillusioned artists and thinkers displaced by World War I, who had all fled to neutral Switzerland, led by German actor Hugo Ball (pictured). The Dadaists channeled their anger towards what they declared is horrid and unjust into art and performance pieces that were chaotic and nonsensical. The Dadaists’ primary goal wasn’t to make meaningful art, but simply to defy the established conventions of art and society. As their mantra goes, “Dada is anti-Dada!”

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Oskar Schlemmer -

In 1921, Oskar Schlemmer, a leading figure of the German Bauhaus art school and movement, developed the ‘Triadisches Ballett,’ or 'Triadic Ballet.' This avant-garde dance piece was instrumental in bringing Bauhaus international attention, and toured extensively to garner support and funding for the German art school.

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Oskar Schlemmer -

As its name suggests, the piece is deeply concerned with geometry, and the ideas of humans as dancers as shapes, breaking the performers down to their most fundamental pieces, from people to objects to forms, and took particular interest in the foundation of ‘three.’ The piece was performed in three acts, with three dancers, 12 choreographies, and 18 costumes. Unfortunately, the original choreography written by Schlemmer has been lost, but the costumes still survive.

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Theching Hseih -

Born in Taiwan in 1950, Theching Hseih would go on to become one of the most famous and well respected performances artists in America, and act as the inspiration for modern greats such as Marina Abramović. He is best known for his endurance pieces, the ‘One Year Performances.’

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Theching Hseih -

In each of his six year-long pieces, Hseih would subject himself to an astoundingly restrictive rule by which he had to live for the duration of the performance. In ‘The Outdoor Piece,’ Hsieh forbade himself from entering any indoor space of any kind, and lived on the streets of New York without entering so much as a market or a bathroom between 1981 and 1982. Other performances saw Hsieh kept in a small wooden cage for a year, or attached to another artist by an 8-foot (2.4 meter) length of rope.

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Yoko Ono - Yoko Ono has made a name for herself over the decades as an accomplished, multidisciplinary artist. Ono has worked with paints, sculpture, multimedia, and was also an early figure in the field of performance art in Japan during the 1960s.

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Yoko Ono -

In 1964, Ono presented ‘Cut Piece’ for the first time. This was a landmark for Japanese performance artists, and would inspire many more artists to come. The piece consisted of Ono kneeling in front of her audience, and instructing members to come on stage and cut off articles of her clothing until she declared the piece finished. ‘Cut Piece’ expresses the human need for trust while also challenging the gender norms and expectations of the 1960s.

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Francis Alÿs -

One of the leading figures in the world of modern performance art is Belgian-born Francis Alÿs, who has been based in Mexico for most of his career. His pieces gathered widespread attention, and as he is not one of the most abrasive or controversial performance artists working today, he is well liked by galleries and the general public.

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Francis Alÿs -

His most famous work is ‘When Faith Moves Mountains,’ an exposé of uselessness and futility on an epic scale. In 2002, Alÿs gathered 500 volunteers in the deserts near Lima, Peru, and armed them with shovels. In one single line, the group walked up and over a giant sand dune, shoveling with each step, thus moving the entire dune by a few inches.

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John Cage -

Avant-garde composer and music theorist John Cage is renowned in the music world for his obsession with the fundamentals of music, sound, and its absence. Throughout his career, he strived to deconstruct music into its simplest parts and push the boundaries of the art form.

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John Cage -

This was best exemplified by his controversial piece, ‘4’33”.’ This piece, written for "any instrument or combination of instruments" in 1952, is written at a tempo of 54 bpm, and contains not a single audible note. The piece is four minutes and 33 seconds of deliberate silence, leaving only the ambient noises of whatever environment the piece is performed in.

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Marina Abramović -

Marina Abramović is the only performance artist to reach mainstream superstar status, with a fan base of millions upon millions of people around the world. She has been the subject of numerous books and documentaries, and since her 2010 performance of ‘The Artist is Present’ has become a household name.

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Marina Abramović -

‘The Artist is Present’ is surely the Abramović work with the greatest influence on art and society at large. Over the course of two weeks, Abramović entered the Museum of Modern Art and sat, silent and still, in the museum’s atrium in a chair across from another chair, with a table between them. For a total of more than 730 hours, visitors were invited to sit across from Abramović for as long as they pleased. Many visitors were moved to tears, some sat for an entire day, and Abramović herself said the experience changed her life.

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Picasso, Cocteau, and Satie -

In a collaboration that seems too good to be true, three of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century, coming from three different disciplines, came together in 1916 to create what would prove to be one of the most disruptive and disorienting performances Paris had ever seen.

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Picasso, Cocteau, and Satie -

The one-act scenario, written by Cocteau, with music by Satie and costumes designed by Picasso, was a jarring mix of Surrealism and Cubism. Picasso’s massive, restrictive costumes and Satie’s use of non-instruments to create abrasive soundscapes caused a massive scandal, and even landed Satie a jail sentence, which he thankfully managed to avoid.

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Vito Acconci -

One of art's most disruptive figures, Vito Acconci, born in the Bronx in 1940, made a name for himself during the 1970s with his shockingly intimate confessional performance pieces. While they varied in their daring and audacity, they were usually focused around Acconci using the audience as a tool of the performance so as to make the art piece a reciprocal exchange between artist and audience.

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Vito Acconci -

In 1973, at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York, Acconci placed himself in front of a mirror and a camera, which broadcast his face and mirror image into various areas of the gallery, and described in great detail and emotion the events of a tumultuous relationship from his past. The performance was framed as Acconci’s attempt to process the abuse from the relationship, stating, “I am talking to you so I can understand myself the way you see me.”

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Emma Sulkowicz -

An art student at Columbia University, Emma Sulkowicz made headlines in the art world and mainstream media with her protest endurance art piece titled ‘Mattress Performance.’ Sulkowicz developed and executed the piece after Columbia University failed to take punitive action against a student that she and two other students had accused of sexual assault and abuse.

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Emma Sulkowicz -

The performance consisted of Sulkowicz carrying a 50 lbs (23 kg) mattress, similar to hose in Columbia’s dorms, around with her to all of her classes and other events until the accused student was brought to justice. But the student was never punished by the school or charged with a crime, and the performance ended at Sulkowicz’ graduation.

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Chris Burden -

Chris Burden, a native of Boston, was an infamous visual and performance artist who used his body as a tool to further his art, and took this idea to extremes. In one work, simply titled ‘Shoot,’ he had himself shot in the shoulder with a rifle in front of a small audience.

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Chris Burden -

Perhaps his most famous performance is ‘Trans-Fixed,’ from 1974. Once again, Burden put his body through immense pain and mutilation in the name of his work. For ‘Trans-Fixed,’ Burden was positioned on the back of a Volkswagen Beetle, his arms outstretched, and had himself crucified to the vehicle with the help of assistants who drove nails through his palms.

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Genesis P-Orridge -

Few names carry as much weight or spark as much inspiration in the world of the avant-garde as Genesis P-Orridge. One of the most productive and prolific artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, P-Orridge led a number of musical groups and art collectives to cultish levels of popularity within counterculture movements, including Psychic TV and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

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Genesis P-Orridge -

In one of the most daring art projects to ever be conceived, P-Orridge and their wife, known as Lady Jaye, started what was called the ‘Pandrogeny Project,’ during which the couple underwent a series of intense cosmetic surgeries trying to resemble each other as closely as possible, in order to become one singular, “pandrogynous” being. During this project and up until Lady Jaye’s death, they identified as the same individual and both went by the name Breyer P-Orridge.

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Bruce Nauman -

Bruce Nauman, born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1941, is a renowned sculptor who is well known for his recent work with neon. Back in the 1960s, as a young artist, Nauman also developed and recorded an important piece of performance art, and was one of the first artists to use film to record a performance in solitude and present it to audiences afterwards.

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Bruce Nauman -

‘Wall/Floor Positions,’ performed and presented in 1969, was born out of Nauman’s realization that, “If I was an artist, and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.” ‘Wall/Floor Positions’ was created to prove this point, and consists of about an hour of black and white footage of Nauman taking various poses and twisting his body into various contortions around his empty studio.

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Joseph Beuys -

Joseph Beuys was a prolific German post-war performance artist who was widely respected within European art circles. He was credited with consistently widening the possibilities of what art could be and how it could be expressed.

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Joseph Beuys -

In one of his most famous pieces, known as ‘I like America and America Likes Me,’ Beuys flew himself to New York wrapped from head to toe in a felt sheet and was transported via ambulance directly to an empty studio, where he stayed for three days in the company of a wild coyote, who was alternately docile and violent. At the end of the three days, he left the studio via ambulance, wrapped in his felt, and was put on a plane back to Germany. Throughout the performance, Beuys’ feet did not touch the ground, and he saw nothing of the United States apart from the gallery and the coyote.

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Survival Research Laboratories -

The biggest and loudest performers of the art world are without a doubt the industrial collective known as Survival Research Laboratories. Since their founding in 1978 by artist Mark Pauline, this anarchic group of artists, mechanics, and technicians have dedicated themselves to “re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare.”

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Survival Research Laboratories -

In their heyday, SLR built massive behemoths out of cars, industrial machinery, and military equipment and pitted them against each other with the goal of complete annihilation of both adversaries. After numerous run-ins with law enforcement and being banned from ever performing in San Francisco again, they have scaled down their performances but still put on regular exhibitions.

Sources: (ThoughtCo) (Tate) (Complex)

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LIFESTYLE Artists

One of the many things that sets humans apart from other animals on earth is our capacity for expression. Throughout history, we have channeled our thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears into a plethora of mediums in an effort to make more sense of them and to make more sense of the world. Art as a concept has been an integral part of our human experience for thousands of years, but there are still some methods of expression that are relegated to the fringe. One of these is performance art, a medium that does away with many of the long-held conventions of expression and throws the paint brushes and sketch pads in the trash. Performance art can be an intense and visceral experience for both the artist and the audience, and is no stranger to scandal and polarizing responses. Regardless of if you feel good or bad about a piece of performance art, you're bound to feel something, and for many artists that's their only goal.

Read on to learn more about some of the most daring and audacious performance artists and their defining pieces from throughout history.