RoseLee Goldberg

Zhang Huan has emerged as one of the most important artists of the past decade, a fearless explorer of the limits of the human body and a key figure in the flourishing Chinese art scene. His earliest performances, including 12 Square Meters, 65 Kilograms, and To Raise the Water-Level in a Fishpond, subjected his body to grueling tests of endurance while addressing the relationship between physical endurance and spiritual tranquility. Zhang 's move to New York in 1998 contributed to establish himself as a widely recognized figure in the international contemporary art world, staging performances in several cities around the globe, including Sydney, Rome, Shanghai and Hamburg where he reflected on his experiences in the cities he visited and his ethnic identity in a foreign land. In 2006 Zhang established a studio in Shanghai, where he began to seek a greater connection to Chinese heritage and history. This marked a new direction in his work, as he turned from performance to sculpture, painting, and installation. Through creating large-scale sculpture in diverse media, such as ash from local Buddhist temples, and with found objects, such as doors from the Chinese countryside homes, Zhang Huan continues to explore new ways to render his interest in the body and its language.A significant aspect of Zhang's new work revolves around his interest in Buddhism. Although Buddhist themes figured indirectly into his early work, they took on a more prominent role after a visit to Tibet in 2005. There, Zhang began to collect fragments of Buddhist sculptures, which he then used as models for massive copper figures. Upon his return to Shanghai, Zhang Huan began to collect ash from local Buddhist temples for use in sculptures and paintings. The use of burnt incense, the product of religious offerings, strengthens the link between his art and Buddhist practices.

An updated edition of the pioneering study in the acclaimed World of Art series, this classic book surveys a full century of performance art, from the Futurist manifesto of 1909 through the second decade of the new millennium. Performance Art is a pioneering history of one of the most important art forms to emerge in modern times. Now in its fourth edition, it has been completely updated to reflect on performance in an age where digital technologies are increasingly dominant, and where live art stands out as an antidote to the overwhelming effects of our media world. Renowned art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg explains the worldwide phenomenon of performance art, and outlines developments in the medium up to and within the second decade of the twenty-first century. The astonishing increase in the number of works testifies to the significance of the medium for new generations of artists entering the global conversation of art and culture and for articulating ‘difference’. Matthew Barney, Tania Bruguera, Nikhil Chopra, Nicholas Hlobo, Zhang Huan, Anne Imhof and Rashid Johnson are among the many artists whose work can now be seen in the context of innovators in the field, from the Futurists and Dadaists to Yves Klein, Marina Abramovic and Laurie Anderson.

First published in 1979, the latest edition of this pioneering study in the World of Art series surveys a full century of performance, from the Futurist manifesto of 1909 to the second decade of the new millennium. Art historian and gallery curator Rose Lee Goldberg explains how a medium once used only in sporadic outbreaks of artistic dissent has become, over the course of a century, a vital and integral part of the contemporary mainstream and a global phenomenon.

This book embarks on an interdisciplinary study of dance theater, one that provides a deeper insight into contemporary performing arts. Ciane Fernandes combines Laban movement analysis and the writings of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault to investigate repetition in the works and creative process of Pina Bausch (b.1940), who is considered to be one of the most important choreographers of the twentieth century. This book examines repetition in Bausch's pieces as both method and subject, exploring its power in the metamorphosis of meaning. Repetition is used to subvert its own process of domination over the body at aesthetic, cognitive, and social levels. The body simultaneously becomes natural and linguistic, experiential and automatic, personal and social, constantly repeating and transforming the history of its domination.