A Short History of Performance II

A short, comprehensive guide to the Whitechapel Gallery’s second performance season, which explores the impact and legacy of performance art from the 1960s onwards, with work by The Atlas Group, Joseph Beuys, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Inventory, Robert Morris, Martha Rosler, and Carey Young. A Short History of Performance II takes the pedagogical framework of the lecture as its starting point, not as a means of interpreting art, but as a medium of art in itself. Unlike the majority of performance art works, in which the artist appears as a neutral character, the artists brought together here inhabit a variety of different roles: art world professional, philosopher, historian, explorer, broadcaster or corporate CEO, dressing, behaving and speaking in character to explore their chosen field of enquiry. Adopting the language and behaviour of their chosen personae, their performances subvert the ideologies that they represent, creating a parallel academy with an able dose of wry politics, poetry and wit.