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Live art has its origins in the futurist and Dadaist movements of the early 20th century.
The futurists celebrated the machine and modernity. They wanted to overthrow traditional academic approaches to study and art. The movement became discredited politically after it embraced fascism, but it succeeded in bringing technology and city living into the heart of modern artistic culture.
Sons of Dada
Dadaism emerged in the shadow of the First World War, when a group of artists rejected the traditional aesthetic and social principles that had so signally failed to prevent the slaughter. Visual artists such as Man Ray and Francis Picabia and writers like André Breton and Paul Eluard created anti-aesthetic works, based on irrationality and anarchy. Surrealism was the natural development, and besides painting, the surrealists also staged live events designed to make people question what they were seeing.
Live art began to establish itself as an identifiable genre in the USA in the 1950s, in the form of 'happenings' – performances by artists such as Allan Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg, which subjected audiences to a challenging combination of sounds and visuals and usually demanded their participation.
In the 60s came the youth counter-culture, and suddenly live art exploded. In New York, artists and choreographers worked together to create a high-octane mixture of dance, drama and exhibitionism. People performed in groups and individually – on stage, in galleries, at demonstrations, at parties. The movement encompassed such diverse activities as John and Yoko's bed-in, anti-war protesters putting flowers in the barrels of soldiers' guns, and body-painting.
But the party fizzled out during the 70s and live art once more became the preserve of dedicated artists. The genre was now formally recognised, and by the end of the decade it had its own Los Angeles-based magazine, High Performance.
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