where does The ART OF PERFORMANCE come from?

Sometimes it may seem that there's a 'new idea' and so it is that many on discovering 'Performance Art' consider it a revolution with little linking it to the past (as we are perhaps guilty of with other revolutions).

I have been intrigued by Marina Abramovic as an individual for some time.  initially I thought of her as The first Performance artist but having read her autobiography and learnt a little more about Art I now realise that she herself would not claim this and the very ephemeral concept of originality is  of course  like quicksilver and forever impossible to nail down.

There was a bell that rang (internally to me) when I heard the story of how 'Great Wave' artist Hokusai had a Chicken  with its' feet having been immersed in red paint run across one of his partly  completed works (in the court of Shogun Tokugawa Ienari around 1804)  - this was an example of his ability to use self promotion where a commission was to be decided amongst competing artists.

Reminded that that, in earlier times during the 13th century  the artist Giotto was able to win a commission by submitting a near perfect hand drawn circle to the current Pope.

Now fast forward to another performance pioneer Yves Klein (also famed for creating his own version of the colour blue)   and his 'Leap into the Void' - sadly Klein died at the young age of  34 in the early 1960's - goodness knows where his career would have taken him had he lived longer.

With the greater longevity that Joseph Beuys enjoyed a Performance art career built and his association with others in the Fluxus group helped legitimise the discipline (which was often required by its practitioners) amongst the Fluxus group was a Japanese artist Yoko Ono. 

Fluxus was clearly influenced by Dada now the idea of 'performance' being a standalone discipline is of little purpose and routinely many  describe self publicists (perhaps)  like Warhol  as his own  greatest work.

[I thought it'd be nice to do a blog post with no images - and partly inspired by film I saw about Jean-Michel  Basquiat on BBC TV]