Recommended Databases
SMFA Print Periodicals
- PAJ: a journal of performance and artPrint issues available at the SMFA Library
SMFA Online Periodicals
- PAJ: a journal of performance and artOnline issues
- Performance researchOnline issues
- Text and performance quarterlyOnline issues
Want to browse the stacks? Look at these call numbers
| N6494.B63 | Body Art |
| N6494.F55 | Fluxus |
| N6494.I57 | Interactive Art |
| NX456.5.P38 – 600.P47 | Performance art |
| PN3203 | Happenings |
Featured Performance Titles
Another Version: Thinking Through Performance by
Four Dutch collaborators on performance as a way of producing versions of the self Approaching performance as a method of producing different versions of the self, in Another Version four Dutch collaborators--performance artist, author and critic, dramaturge and sociopolitical designer--explore technologies and processes of so-called "versioning" and how to understand the self within this multiplicity.
Call Number: SMFA: NX456.5.P38 H62 2020
Between Us by
Between Us is an interdisciplinary project that brings together three institutions--Staatstheater Mainz, Kunsthalle Mainz, and the Mainz University of Applied Sciences--and disciplines they represent--dance, visual art, and digital dance research and education--with a focus on questions of the exchange of information and knowledge. Produced by the research project of the same title, this publication provides insight into the genesis of the choreography Effect by the Finnish choreographer Taneli Törmä and documents the rehearsal process. The dance performance and its transformation into graphically visualized data streams using digital recording technology by Motion Bank, a research program at the Mainz University of Applied Sciences, subsequently inspired six international visual artists to translate dance into their respective creative disciplines: taking their cue from the source material, Tim Etchells, Tamara Grcic, Žilvinas Kempinas, Søren Lyngsø Knudsen, Isabel Lewis, and Sissel Tolaas created new works that were gathered for a multimedia exhibition at Kunsthalle Mainz. --Publisher's website.
Call Number: NX460.5.P47 B48 2019
Dan Graham: Theatre by
Theatre is an artist book that documents seven early performances by Dan Graham taking place from 1969 to 1977 with notes, transcripts, or photographs for each work. Originally published in 1978, and produced here in facsimile form, the publication focuses on several key works that interrogate or undermine the psychological and social space created by, or between, individuals inside the performance venue.0Like most of Graham?s work, they also serve as a critique of cultural norms, with many of the performances utilizing quotidian, social acts that are amplified over time. For example, in Lax/Relax (1969), Graham's subversion of West Coast new ageism, the artist chants "relax" in sync with a recording of a woman saying "lax" in a meditative manner, which implicates the audience into a group breathing exercise or hypnosis over the course of 30 minutes. Throughout the '70s, the artist engaged in a series of works that subverted the prescribed roles of the audience and performer by creating conditions in which each simultaneously functions as both (creating a type of feedback loop). Remarking on another work form this period, Graham once stated, It begins with Minimal Art, but it's about spectators observing themselves as they're observed by other people.* This paradigm is extended even further in Performer/Audience Sequence (1975) and Performer/Audience Mirror (1977), in which the artist performs by describing the audience as well as himself, creating conditions whereby the audience is performing for the artist as well as themselves. Like (1971), Past Future Split Attention (1972), and Identification Projection (1977) are also featured in the publication.
Call Number: SMFA Library: N6537.G674 A4 2021
Entrare Nell'opera by
"It is impossible to imagine Arte Povera without Azioni Povere. From 1959 to 1979, the work of the artists associated with this movement was largely defined by actions. This richly illustrated publication examines Azioni Povere and its characteristics. For the first time it provides annotated catalogues raisonnés of the diverse actions. Furthermore, comprehensive photographic documentary material illustrates the virulence and vibrancy of this period in Italy. A picture essay serves as the prelude, followed by introductory essays and texts on the respective characteristics of the artistic praxis. Discussions with contemporary witnesses and entries on important keywords, incidents, and places, such as Aktionsraum 1 in Munich, the Piper Pluriclub in Turin, and Galerie L'Attico in Rome, complement the wide-ranging material, which was sourced from the archives of the artists, from artist estates, photographers, gallerists, and collectors"-- Publisher's website.
Call Number: SMFA: N6918.5.A73 E58 2019
Inside Killjoy's Kastle by
"Lesbian feminist histories can have a haunting effect on the present. This book explores the making and experience of Killjoy's Kastle, an immersive walk-through installation and performance artwork (by Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue). Inspired by Evangelical Christian hell houses of the past, the exhibition has been staged in three cities so far--Toronto, London, and Los Angeles--engaging thousands in interactive encounters with the spirits that haunt feminist and queer history. Where traditional hell houses set out to scare and convert, Killjoy's Kastle cheekily aims to provoke and pervert. Inside Killjoy's Kastle extends and reflects on the theoretical and political legacies of the installation in chapters by queer and feminist scholars and in vignettes by participating artists. The many colourful photos in the book also bring the Kastle to life, offering an important visual context."-- Provided by publisher.
Call Number: N6545.65.I56 I57 2019
A Lab for Apologies and Forgiveness by
The 'Laboratory Notebook" incorporates a series of installations, performances, videos, written works, and feelings. The book documents a multifaceted artwork inspired by the bacteria "Geobacter sulfurreducens", which reduces radioactive uranium to a non-water-soluble isotope.
Call Number: SMFA Library: N6498.I56 L33 2021
Nick Cave: Forothermore by
The definitive volume on the ever-evolving and shape-shifting work of the Chicago-based artist, Nick Cave: 'Forothermore' highlights the way Cave's practice has shifted and continues to shift in response to our history and current moment of cultural crisis. Including several new, never-before-seen works, the book shows an artist at the height of his power. Addressing topics ranging from art history to social justice, 'Nick Cave: Forothermore' includes essays from Naomi Beckwith, Romi Crawford, Antwaun Sargent, Malik Gaines, Krista Thompson and Meida Teresa McNeal. Punctuating these contributions is an interview with the artist exploring his life, work and teaching practice, as well as a roundtable discussion between Cave and dancer Damita Jo Freeman, musician Nona Hendryx and publisher Linda Johnson Rice, on Cave's art and influences, as well as pivotal cultural phenomena from 'Soul Train' to 'Ebony' magazine. 'Nick Cave: Forothermore' reveals the way art, music, fashion and performance can help us envision a more just future. Exhibition: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, USA (14.05-02.10.2022).
Call Number: SMFA Library: N6537.C384 A4 2022
The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance by
"Presenting works from the early 20th century to today, The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance examines the notion of stillness as both a performative and visual gesture, featuring practitioners who have constructed static or near-static experiments that hover somewhere between action and representation as they are experienced in the gallery space. The exhibition investigates performance from the perspective of the object rather than the body, examining how performance has reinterpreted traditional artistic media. Stillness and permanence are qualities typically seen as inherent to painting and sculpture-consider the frozen gestures of a historical tableau or the unyielding solidity of a bronze figure. The Paradox of Stillness, however, expands the artwork's quality of stillness to accommodate uncertain temporalities and physical states, investigating works that merge objects with human bodies suspended in motion. Featuring artists whose works include performative elements but also embrace acts, objects, and gestures that refer more to the inert qualities of painting or sculpture than to true staged action, The Paradox of Stillness rethinks the history of performance through its aesthetic investigations into the interplay of the fixed image and the live body"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents
Call Number: N6487.M56 W354 2020
Performa 15 by
"Celebrating ten years since the founding of the historic Performa biennial in 2005, Performa 15 once again explored the most exciting innovations in contemporary visual arts, dance, film, radio, sound and architecture. This edition brought together a total of more than 30 artists from 12 countries around the world-premiering new works by artists Robin Rhode (South Africa), Pauline Curnier Jardin (France/The Netherlands), Edgar Arceneaux (United States) and Erika Vogt (United States), Performa alums Jérôme Bel (France) and Jesper Just (Denmark), and Francesco Vezzoli (Italy) in special collaboration with dancer David Hallberg (United States), among many others. Performa 15 documents all of Performa's programming along with significant texts from leading art historians and curators. Fully illustrated with works and performance photos, and featuring interviews with the curators and artists, Performa 15 captures a critical juncture in the evolution of performance art and the world's leading performance biennial"-- Provided by publisher.
Call Number: SMFA: NX460.5.P47 P455 2019
Performance Works by
An anthology of new and reprinted essays, interviews and fictional texts on performance art today, Performance Works investigates how artistic institutions and technological change have contributed to changes in exhibition format.
Call Number: SMFA: NX460.5.P47 P47 2019
Queer Nightlife by
The mass shooting at a queer Latin Night in Orlando in July 2016 sparked a public conversation about access to pleasure and selfhood within conditions of colonization, violence, and negation. Queer Nightlife joins this conversation by centering queer and trans people of color who apprehend the risky medium of the night to explore, know, and stage their bodies, genders, and sexualities in the face of systemic and social negation. The book focuses on house parties, nightclubs, and bars that offer improvisatory conditions and possibilities for "stranger intimacies," and that privilege music, dance, and sexual/gender expressions. Queer Nightlife extends the breadth of research on "everynight life" through twenty-five essays and interviews by leading scholars and artists. The book's four sections move temporally from preparing for the night (how do DJs source their sounds, what does it take to travel there, who promotes nightlife, what do people wear?); to the socialities of nightclubs (how are social dance practices introduced and taught, how is the price for sex negotiated, what styles do people adopt to feel and present as desirable?); to the staging and spectacle of the night (how do drag artists confound and celebrate gender, how are spaces designed to create the sensation of spectacularity, whose bodies become a spectacle already?); and finally, how the night continues beyond the club and after sunrise (what kinds of intimacies and gestures remain, how do we go back to the club after Orlando?).
Call Number: SMFA and Tisch: GT3408 .Q84 2021
Radical Virtuosity by
The artist Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) is remembered as the creator of powerful works expressing a vibrant and unflinching second-wave feminist sensibility. In Radical Virtuosity, art historian Genevieve Hyacinthe offers a new view of Mendieta, connecting her innovative artwork to the art, cultural aesthetics and concerns, feminisms, and sociopolitical messages of the black Atlantic. Mendieta left Cuba as a preteen, fleeing the Castro regime, and spent years in U.S. foster care. Her sense of exile, Hyacinthe argues, colors her work. Hyacinthe examines the development of Mendieta's performative artworks-particularly the Silueta series (1973-1985), which documented the silhouette of her body in the earth over time (a series "without end," Mendieta said)-and argues that these works were shaped by Mendieta's appropriation and reimagining of Afro-Cuban ritual. Mendieta's effort to create works that invited audience participation, Hyacinthe says, signals her interest in forging connections with the marginalized, particularly those of the black Atlantic and Global South. Hyacinthe describes the "counter entropy" of Mendieta's small-scale earthworks (contrasting them with more massive works created by Robert Smithson and other male artists); considers the resonance of Mendieta's work with the contemporary practices of black Atlantic female artists including Wangechi Mutu, Renee Green, and Damali Abrams; and connects Mendieta's artistic and political expressions to black Atlantic feminisms of such popular artists as Princess Nokia.
Call Number: SMFA: NX512.M46 H93 2019
Robin Rhode: Memory Is the Weapon by
Robin Rhode's trademark is the wall. His works are influenced by urban music culture, film, popular sports, youth culture, and traditional South African storytelling. They are created in the public space, on walls. It's not about the statement that he leaves behind on the street, though it's about the process. Hence, in his visual short stories he captures the links between drawing, performance, and sculpture, step by step. No body without a line, no line without a body. With drawing as his starting point, he develops increasingly complex photographic works, digital animations, performances, sculptures, and works on paper, which comprise a content-related balancing act between South African history, culture, mindset, signs, and codes and the abstract language of European-American art history. This richly illustrated catalogue accompanies Rhode's first solo show in twelve years in Germany. Besides pictures of the art itself, the book also contains an interview, an introductory essay, and poems by South African authors, to which his work often refers
Call Number: SMFA: N7396.R46 A4 2019
Sonya Clark: Monumental Cloth, the Flag We Should Know by
In the spring of 1865, a seemingly unremarkable dishcloth played a crucial role in ending the Civil War as the South's flag of surrender at Appomattox. A Confederate horseman carried a humble white linen towel into the lines of General George Custer, near the courthouse at Appomattox. The horseman was sent on behalf of General Robert E. Lee, who was requesting a suspension of hostilities while General Ulysses S. Grant proposed terms of surrender. Focusing on this Confederate Flag of Truce, Afro-Caribbean American artist (and professor at Amherst College) Sonya Clark (born 1967) explores the legacy of symbols and challenges the power of propaganda, erasures and omissions through her works. By making the Truce Flag a cloth that brokered peace and represented the promise of reconciliation into a monumental alternative to the infamous Confederate Battle Flag and its pervasive divisiveness, Clark instigates a role reversal and aims to correct a historical imbalance.
Call Number: SMFA: N6537.C4987 A4 2020
Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation by
Since the 1970s, Ulysses Jenkins has interrogated questions of race and gender as they relate to ritual, history, and state power. From his work with Video Venice News, a Los Angeles media collective he founded in the early 1970s, to his involvement with the artists' group Studio Z (alongside figures such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, and Maren Hassinger), to his video and performance works, Jenkins explores how white supremacy is embedded in popular culture. Beginning as a painter and muralist, Jenkins was introduced to video just as the first consumer cameras were made available, and he quickly seized upon the technology as a means to broadcast critical depictions of multiculturalism. This catalog features an extensive portion of Jenkins' archive, early documentary films, photographs, and ephemera, as well as his video art.
Call Number: SMFA Library: N6494.V53 J46 2021
