Marilyn Arsem’s reply to our projects: What is performance art? and Timeline of performance art

Marilyn Arsem, 2011-12-28

In my simplest description, I say that performance art is "an action by an artist, created and executed as an art work." In speaking of performance art in such neutral terms, I hope to include the broad expanse of human activities that has been or will be identified as performance art. I want to honor the generosity of a field that encourages an inclusive notion of human actions as art, one where the artist defines the work first, and where challenging the status quo is encouraged.

What is performance art?

Often when I am asked to define performance art, I begin by asking the person to first define painting or drawing or sculpture. Even with familiar media, the task is daunting. One can always think of exceptions and complications...

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Timeline of performance art

This question of when and how I began making performance art, or perhaps more accurately, when I began to name what I was doing as performance art, is complicated.

I can identify my first awareness of performance by artists in the mid-60s, when I heard about Happenings. I was in high school, and my friends and I began to create our own Happenings. They were non-narrative events with simultaneous actions incorporating different media. We were all involved in many kinds of art - music, dance, theater,poetry, painting, sculpture - and the events reflected that.

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