From Library Journal
Literature on performance art is becoming more plentiful, but few up-to-date histories exist. Part of the problem is the nature of this kind of art. Its enticement stems from the general lack of boundaries, but this same fluidity makes harnessing it to a simple text difficult. Building from a base of photographic stills of works now considered classics, Goldberg, former curator of the Kitchen Center for Video, Music, and Performance, has tackled this problem admirably. Goldberg writes about performance art from direct experience?she was involved with it from the beginning?and her lucid essays offer just enough theory to help the reader grasp performance art's impact within the context of the entire century. Goldberg incorporates dance, music, and other art forms from the same period. Essential for its seriousness, clarity, and illustrations, her her work will no doubt be the most important text on this subject for quite a while. Recommended for all art, academic, and large public libraries.?Susan M. Olcott, Columbus Coll. of Art & Design, OHCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Bomb
"...coffee-table size archive of gritty black-and-white images as well as glitzy color ones...invaluable compilation of biographies..."


Art in America
"...visually arresting coffee-table book."


Chicago Tribune
Indispensable."


Maurice
This book...serves as a model for cultural surveys."


Card catalog description
Live performance is now one of the dominant art forms worldwide. In the United States and Europe, Japan, India, and Africa, an ever-increasing number of artists, including Robert Wilson, Marina Abramovic, Pina Bausch, Karen Finley, and Matthew Barney, in a variety of styles, are engaged in evocative, contemplative, and critical performance works. This is the most complete and profusely illustrated survey of performance from the 1960s to the present. RoseLee Goldberg, the acknowledged authority on performance art and author of Abrams' 1979 Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present, begins her discussion with the emergence of performance in the work of Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni and later in that of Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson. She shows how performance explores and reveals the unexpected and the forbidden more than any other art form.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Live performance is now one of the dominant art forms worldwide. In the United States and Europe, Japan, India, and Africa, an ever-increasing number of artists, including Robert Wilson, Marina Abramovic, Pina Bausch, Karen Finley, and Matthew Barney, in a variety of styles, are engaged in evocative, contemplative, and critical performance works. This is the most complete and profusely illustrated survey of performance from the 1960s to the present. RoseLee Goldberg, the acknowledged authority on performance art and author of Abrams' 1979 Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present, begins her discussion with the emergence of performance in the work of Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni and later in that of Meredith Monk and Laurie Anderson. She shows how performance explores and reveals the unexpected and the forbidden more than any other art form.

FROM THE CRITICS

Christina Cho - New York Times Book Review

Goldberg...works much like a performance artist, allowing the images to speak for themselves....admirably respectful to the spirit of performance...

Christina Cho - The New York Times Book Review

Goldberg...works much like a performance artist, allowing the images to speak for themselves....admirably respectful to the spirit of performance...

Bomb

...coffee-table size archive of gritty black-and-white images as well as glitzy color ones...invaluable compilation of biographies...

Art in America