per•for•mance art
noun
1. since years I ask myself what is Performance art, and still I don’t know if a) it is an art. b) which are it’s limits. c) if it has limits.
2. maybe the answer to this question is the lack of answer.
Santiago Cao, Argentina
per•for•mance art
n 1. a ‘vessel’ that frames, holds, marks and brackets an experience wherein anything can and does happen, where boundaries are blurred and traversed, portals are opened, where spaces, places and people are bridged. 2. Inhabits the fabric of the live ‘collective’ moment, demanding presence, aliveness and self reflection from all ‘participants’ there and then. 3. a ‘space’ to go someone else, to meet afresh, to re-envisage ourselves and our world, to journey to the edges of social, cultural, mental, emotional and physical boundaries. 4. To experience Performance art is to experience the edge of knowing: to depart and to arrive, to collectively meet bare and stripped in the wash of the fabric of possibility and flux.
Paul Carter, UK
per•for•mance art
n 1. an art form, like painting, drawing, writing, poetry, installation, video, photography, sculpture, architecture, object, theatre, dance, film, music. 2. a way to express thoughts and ideas in an artistic manner, a tool to create art. 3. located within the broader field of Action Art, which historically emerged in Europe after the Second World War. 4. the creative act of an artist in front of, or with an audience at a certain place/space/site and during a certain timeframe it forms the centre of attention. 5. during its live process the artist and his actions are transformed into a general readable sign.
BBB Johannes Deimling, Germany/Norway
per•for•mance art
noun
1. the best language to undermine and question the contemporary for its capacity to express the crucial truth of an action that takes place here an dnow, in which the ‘actor’ in the literal sense is simply himself.
2. a form of knowledge.
3. a therapy.
Francesca Fini, Italy
per•for•mance art
noun
my body asking your body questions
Helena Goldwater, UK
per•for•mance art
noun
1. alive
2. live.
3. life.
Snnezana Golubovic, Serbia/Germany
per•for•mance art
noun
1. the fight with the angel.
2. a confrontation between ourselves, the occurance of the limit of our knowledge, and our becoming and pushing towards this limit.
3. a fight that is a dance, in which we ourselves become the limit in its happening, and we dance our coming towards the limit.
Francesco Kiais, Italy/Greece
per•for•mance art
noun
a process which involves an artist through using his/her body to actualize his/ her idea in real time and space. a) at times, during this process of searching, images of poetic significances are created.
Jason Lim, Singapore
per•for•mance art
noun
1. life in itself.
2. not corresponding to any art form.
3. emerges from the memory of the body.
4. participates at the present as an anti-narrative language, with supreme coherence.
Macarena Perich Rosas, Chile
per•for•mance art
noun
the creation of a space which allows us to work on our limits and to make free decisions so that from the achievable the improbably happens.
Gonzalo Rabanal, Chile
per•for•mance art
noun
1. allowing for vulnerability, being present and achieving empathy.
2. achieving a transformative potential within works through taking risks.
3. Performance artists are like alchemists turning dirt and tears into gold.
Rebecca Weeks, UK
per•for•mance art
noun
1. a shared extraordinary moment only fully experienced in the here and now.
2. a moment made of many facets of realities, blurring the boundaries between life and art.
Alexandra Zierle, UK
‘VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK artists answer to the question “What is Performance Art?”’ was originally written by Santiago Cao, Paul Carter, BBB Johannes Deimling, Francesca Fini, Helena Goldwater, Snezana Golubovic, Francesco Kiais, Jason Lim, Macarena Perich Rosas, Gonzalo Rabanal, Rebecca Weeks, and Alexandra Zierle for the 1st VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK, veniceperformanceart.org, December 2014.