Performance art

"(Performance) art is, perhaps, the first art phenomenon to clearly demonstrate that modern art has become antiquated. Modern art is based upon a single assumption. That the artwork is only what it is. It is not a picture or a metaphor for something else. It is, say, a photograph, first and only. Or, perhaps, it is a painting, first and only. This assumption still looms above us all. We automatically accept it. We fall back upon it whenever we have a problem in criticizing, accepting, or understanding a work of art."

"Performance art isn’t hit/miss. It’s miss/miss/miss/miss/hit/miss/miss."

"If a performance artist started going on about England and our culture like that-in fact thats happened to Gilbert and George, they are about the only ones I know that have done anything of this sort. It seems to me that both yourself and other artists can talk about flags and America and all this… you can play with these ideas, you may not believe in it, that you can play such a close game with them without anyone being offended."

"Performance Art is a loosely defined area of artistic exploration, i.e, the artistic counterpart of a scientific research program. It encompasses a wide range of activity involving an ever-widening variety of artists with diverse styles, methods, and concerns. Had we set ourselves the task of characterizing the ambitions of performance artists, we should have had to abandon hope of saying something instructive about the import and intention of this nontraditional school. Generalizations are suspect at this stage."