ARTS 420 Exploring Action: Performance Art - 3 credits

Prerequisite(s): ARTS 320 or ARTS 208 or Instructor Permission
This course explores action and the utilization of the body as a material in contemporary art. In this course, students create both in-process and developed performance artworks presented in class for critique. This course is experimental in nature and is open to a wide range of possibilities and interpretations of what performance art is and could be. We investigate audience-performer relationships, site-specificity, working with extended duration, body awareness, personae work and documentation strategies. We engage texts and other media to gain an understanding of the history of performance art. We also explore contemporary climate around the medium’s inclusion and/or exclusion from institutional art contexts, public spaces, and artist-run initiatives.

Semester(s) Offered: Spring