1. From Happenings to Performance, 60s to 70s (to now)
   
   A table of non-parallel points
   
   

   	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980+
   contexts	photos of Pollock ptg.	Protests, "Be-Ins"	institutional critique	Museum Politics
   stimuli	John Cage 1958 class	Judson Dance Gp.	Feminism	Identity politics
   	Julian Beck Living Thtr.	Living Theater, cont.	Black Power	AIDS
   	Artaud "Theatre of Cruelty"	Phenomenology	Stonewall, Gay activism
   		Media theory (McLuhan)	Post-struct. subject theory
   what they called it	Happenings & Environments	Happenings & Environments	Performance Art	Body Art
   	Performance Art		Site-specific art

2. Differences:
   1. 50s and early 60s performances split
      1. between a cool, cerebral "abstracting"; mode (Brecht, Robert Morris)
      2. and a wildly theatrical sensual mode (Happenings, Oldenburg, some Kaprow)
   2. 70s performance art was
      1. edgier, more violent, more confrontational, more culturally political (sex & religion)
      2. and demanded viewer acknowledge complicity
   3. 80s+ performance art tended to emphasize labor, endurance, and a body critique of museums
3. Trans-national phenomenon?
   1. Documentation of performance art traveled swiftly, internationally
   2. Practitioners were eager to join forces with other avant-gardes (e.g., Schneeman's "Meat Joy"; at the Paris Festival of Free Expression, Fluxus internationalism)
   3. But there were strong national specificities (e.g. violent comedy of Vienna Actionists)

Slide List

Seen Before:
Oldenburg Foto-Death 1962 (NY)
Paik Zen for Head 1962 (Weisbaden)
Brecht Three Aqueous Events 1963 (Fluxus, NY)
Ono Cut Piece 1964 (Kyoto, New York, London)
Kubota Vagina Painting 1964 (NY)
Schneeman Meat Joy 1964 (Paris, NY)

New York/LA:
Schneeman Fluxus Statement 1964
Schneeman Interior Scroll 1975 (NY)
Acconci Trademarks 1970 (NY)
Acconci Seedbed 1972 (NY)
Burden Shoot November 19, 1971(LA)
Burden Trans-fixed April 23, 1974 (LA)
Burden Doorway to Heaven November 15, 1973 (LA)

Germany:
on web, important: Beuys How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare 1965 (Dusseldorf)
Beuys Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me 1974 (NY)

Vienna Actionists:
Nitsch Actions #48, Orgy-Mystery Theater 1970s? (Vienna)
Schwarzkogler Action 1965
Weibel (and Valie Export) Tapp und Tastkino 1968 (Vienna?)
Export Genital Panic 1969

South America and nomadic:
Oiticica Parangolé 1965 (São Paolo museum)
Oiticica Tropicalia 1965, 1969 (São Paolo, London, and posthumously)

U.K. and nomadic:
Long Hundred-Mile Walk 1971-2 (UK)
Long A Line in the Himalayas 1975 (Tibet?)
Long A Line in Bolivia - Kicked Stones 1981 (presumably Bolivia)

Remember to ask yourselves what role might be played by the photograph and increasingly accessible film and video media in popularizing performance art...

Images worth noting:

Acconci, Trademarks, New York, 1970
Acconci, Seedbed, New York, 1972
Burden, Exposing the Foundations of the Museum, Los Angeles, "MOCA", 1986
Beuys, Lecturing on Painting to a Dead Hare, Dusseldorf, 1965
Beuys, Fat Chair, 1964
Beuys, Coyote: "I like America and America likes me" New York, 1974
Long, A Rolling Stone: resting places along a journey England, 1973
Beuys, Fat Chair, 1964
Helio Oiticica, Parangole' at the Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio, 1965
Nildo of Mangueira dancing one of Helio Oiticica's Parangole capes, 1964