Reflexions sobre el fenomen de la «performance»

Abstract

lt has always been difficult to define the performance, just because of its character, its originality and its interest: multiplicity, mobility and polymorphy. So, we could say that it is rather a kind of spirit related to a precise period than a kind of artistic work. One of the most suitable ways of analyzing that phenomenon from a personal point of view is approaching it personally, contacting directly the main protagonists of the accionist movements during the seventies.

After an analysis of the different key moments of the development of the performance, concerning the dates and the geographical locations, it is necessary to look over its close ties with theatre, which will give rise to such artists as Hermano Nitsch, whose activity is characterized by the absence of aspecific support. Nevertheless, there is one point where performance detaches itself from theatre: in the perfomance is the artist himself who puts in show. It is necessary to eliminate, both in theatre and painting or sculpture, all that means a return to the matter, to the technical skill. The means is the artist who devotes himself in public to a real act, neither simulated nor dramatized, notas an actor but as person who acts.