Since entering the performance lexicon in the 1970s, the term Live Art has been used to describe a diverse but interrelated array of performance practices and approaches. This volume offers a contextual and critical introduction to the scene of contemporary Live Art in Britain. Focusing on key artists whose prolific body of work has been vital to the development of contemporary practice, this collection studies the landscape of Live Art in the UK today and illuminates its origins, as well as particular concerns and aesthetics. The introduction to the volume situates Live Art in relation to other areas of artistic practice and explores the form as a British phenomenon. It considers questions of cultural specificity, financial and institutional support, and social engagement, by tracing the work and impact of key organizations on the UK scene: the Live Art Development Agency, SPILL Festival of Performance and Compass Live Art. Across three sections, leading scholars offer case studies exploring the practice of key artists Tim Etchells, Marisa Carnesky, Marcia Farquhar, Franko B, Martin O'Brien, Oreet Ashery, David Hoyle, Jordan McKenzie, and Cosey Fanni Tutti.

David Gentleman has lived in London for almost seventy years, most of it on the same street. This book is a record of a lifetime spent observing, drawing and getting to know the city, bringing together work from across his whole career, from his earliest sketches to watercolours painted just a few months ago. Here is London as it was, and as it is today: the Thames, Hampstead Heath; the streets, canals, markets and people of his home of Camden Town; and at the heart of it all, his studio and the tools of his work. Accompanied by reflections on the process of drawing and personal thoughts on the ever-changing city, this is a celebration of London, and the joy of noticing, looking and capturing the world. 'David has spent a lifetime depicting with wit and affection a London he has made his own' Alan Bennett 'He delivers a poetry of exultant concentration ... The surface fusion of the sensuous and the sharply modern is echoed by Gentleman's imagery' Guardian 'The artist and illustrator has been responsible for some of the most-seen public artworks in this country' The Times 'Perhaps the last of the great polymath designer-painters' Camden New Journal

Leading artists and thinkers assess the relevance of Live Art now and its impact within the visual arts and the broader cultural sphere.

Drawing together all kinds of writing about and around Live Art, The Live Art Almanac is both a useful resource and a great read for artists, writers, students and others interested in the field of interdisciplinary, performance-based art. The Live Art Almanac Volume 4 is? a collection of ‘found’ writings about and around Live Art that were originally published, shared, sent, spread and read between January 2012 and December 2014. Selected through recommendations and an open call for submissions, Volume 4 reflects the dynamic, international contexts that Live Art and radical performance-based practices occupy. Live Art is experiencing a huge ?surge in interest with major museums embracing this disparate area of practice, formerly cult artists becoming household names, and everyone from Shia LaBeouf, Lady Gaga and Jay Z trying to get in on the action. Reflecting the diversity of approaches and key developments from the last few years, Volume 4 is grouped into seven loosely themed sections: Locating Performance; Performance Under Attack; Speaking Up/Speaking Out; Show Me the Money; High Art in Low Places; Reviews; and Dearly Departed. This volume includes writings by,? and about: Ai Weiwei, Pussy Riot,?Tim Etchells, Karen Finley, Vaginal Davis, Ann Magnuson, Shaheen Merali, Jennifer Doyle, Marilyn Arsem, Guy Brett, Nigel Charnock, Claire Bishop, Bryony Kimmings, Matthew Barney, Coco Fusco, Stuart Hall, Miley Cyrus, Petr Pavlensky, Reverend Billy, Ron Athey, Mike Kelley, Oreet Ashery, CHRISTEENE, Marcia Farquhar, Morgan Quaintance, Adrian Howells, Amelia Abraham, Brian Boucher, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Mat Fraser, José Esteban Muñoz, Kembra Pfahler, Hennessy Youngman, Joan Rivers, Mykki Blanco, Monica Ross, Wu Tsang, boychild, Wendy Houstoun, the vacuum cleaner and many more. The Live Art Almanac Volume 4 is published by Live Art Development Agency and Oberon Books.

"The Only Way Home""Is Through the Show: The Performance Work of Lois Weaver" tells the stories of Lois Weaver: one of the pioneers of feminist and lesbian performance in North America, the UK and beyond. Exploring her career, capturing its history, as well as its aesthetics, principles, collaborations, inspirations, practices, innovations, humour, and commitments, this important book documents the story of Weaver s work by making visible the invisible. It reflects not only on the comparatively well-known work by Split Britches but also on Weaver s solo projects, her performance interventions and her work as a facilitator and leader supporting democratic access to performance and discussion, and championing human rights. Writer-contributors include many of Weaver s most important collaborators, old and new, and many of the most important feminist theorists, journalists and performance makers of the last forty years. Interviews are with seminal performance-makers including Weaver herself, Spiderwoman Theater s founder Muriel Miguel, and Weaver s long-time life partner in and performance collaborator Peggy Shaw. The reader is also treated to a wealth of unpublished and published performance work and exciting ephemera, including Weaver s dirty confessions, lust letters and pieces of memoir, her diary entries and letters as well as substantial documentary and scene-setting images. "The Only Way Home""Is Through the Show" is a lavishly illustrated and expertly curated compendium of Weaver s long and wonderful career so far."

"Kids are explorers of the everyday. For them, to light a match can be something extraordinary that needs focus and time, and creates an experience. The same is true for everyone who practices Live Art. 'Playing Up' is an artwork by Sibylle Peters of Hamburg's Theatre of Researcg, exploring the potential of Live Art to bridge generations. Drawing on key Live Art themes and seminal works, 'Playing Up' takes the form of a game played by adults and kids together." -- Box.

Unpacking the history of performance art and celebrating the work of contemporary practitioners--a must-read for both art lovers and students alike Stunningly beautiful, deeply puzzling, powerfully moving, or intensely unsettling--performance art can evoke a wide variety of responses. In this important survey, Catherine Wood, one of the world's leading curators and writers in this field, provides the broadest and most up-to-date insight into the subject yet published. Wood proposes performance not as a genre separate from object-making but as a medium that has profoundly influenced the shape of contemporary art. From the spectacular forms of intimacy performed by Marina Abramović to the painting processions initiated by Ei Arakawa and the social activism of Tania Bruguera, hugely divergent practices have emerged in the past 30 years that embrace the worlds of sculpture and painting, spectacle, and protest. Shifting the focus from "I" to "We" and then "It," Performance in Contemporary Art is divided into sections that examine the perspective of the individual, the social, and the object. Wood looks at histories of performance through the lens of contemporary practitioners: the Japanese Gutai group in the 1950s, Brazilian neo-concretism in the 1960s, and the feminist performance at Womanhouse in the United States in the 1970s are key examples of historical precedents that have been revisited, reformed, or rejected by contemporary artists in the 21st century.

Bringing together contributors from dance, theatre, visual studies, and art history, this title addresses the conundrum of how live art is positioned within history.

In 1861, the death penalty was abolished for sodomy in Britain; just over a century later, in 1967, homosexuality was finally decriminalised. Between these legal landmarks lies a century of seismic shifts in gender and sexuality for men and women. These found expression across the arts as British artists, collectors and consumers explored transgressive identities, experiences and desires. Some of these works were intensely personal, celebrating lovers or expressing private desires. Others addressed a wider public, helping to forge a sense of community at a time when the modern categories of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender were largely unrecognised. Ranging from the playful to the political, the explicit to the domestic, these works showcase the rich diversity of queer British art. This publication, the first to focus exclusively on British queer art, will feature sections on ambivalent sexualities and gender experimentation amongst the Pre-Raphaelites; the new science of sexology's impact on portraiture; queer domesticities in Bloomsbury and beyond; eroticism in the artist's studio and relationships between artists and models; gender play and sexuality in British surrealism; and love and lust in sixties Soho. 00Exhibition: Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom (05.04.2017-01.10.2017).