Many Lives of Perfomance: A Short Review

Abstract

Starting from the ontology of performance by Peggy Phelan, the article seeks to demonstrate the ontogenesis of performance, showing how performance has been manifested in various forms from its beginnings. Performance is analysed in the context of a new artistic practice in the 1960s and 1970s, where porous boundaries between artistic disciplines led to the fruitful permeation of performance, photography, video, film, and conceptual art. Special attention is paid to the medium specificity of performance as a nonmaterial art form and to its representation, documentation, archiving, and exhibition. The last section of the text is dedicated to reperformance as a recently emerged form of repetition and documentation and to the use of performance in light of the increased interest in preserving the live art of the past.