Since the beginning of the Dadaism in the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich in 1916, many artists have experimented with extreme performance art as a critique of contemporary consumer culture. Some have used bodily fluids such as blood, faeces and urine. Other times they perform self mutilation. In the 1960s and 1970s extreme performance was elevated to a movement with the Viennese actionists. In recent times there has been a resurgence in extreme performance as a response to the increasing alienation some artists feel in the face of today's technological advances.
Some contemporary artists using extreme performance:
- Ron Athey
- Franko B
- Bob Flanagan
- Yang Zhichao
- Miss Crash
Famous quotes containing the words extreme, performance and/or art:
“We are in a period when old questions are settled and the new are not yet brought forward. Extreme party action, if continued in such a time, would ruin the party. Moderation is its only chance. The party out of power gains by all partisan conduct of those in power.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The honor my country shall never be stained by an apology from me for the statement of truth and the performance of duty; nor can I give any explanation of my official acts except such as is due to integrity and justice and consistent with the principles on which our institutions have been framed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.”
—Ernst Fischer (1899–1972)