You walk along the street and suddenly you see two sculptures in front of you, frozen and as if lifeless. Someone puts a coin in a hat lying here on the sidewalk, and the sculptures come to life. They perform a dance or make some kind of movement characteristic of the characters they represent, and then freeze again. The performance (performance) is not over until the sculptures here, it continues, just went into a static form.
"Performance? What is it?" - you ask. This is one of the areas of contemporary art. It arose in the sixties of the last century, when stereotypes broke down in all areas of human life: art, politics, social and interpersonal relations. A lot of new trends in philosophy, cinema, art, music appeared then. With regard to contemporary art, at the same time there were trends similar to the direction of "performance art" in the form of presentation - actionism, happening and others. What do they have in common, and how do they differ?
To begin with, we’ll understand, performance - what is it? This is a short artistic or theatrical action that is currently taking place in a given place and is performed by the artist himself or by a group of participants. It differs from the theater in that the participants in the performance do not play learned and rehearsed other people's roles. They act within the framework of the character or group of characters that they portray, and “live” it. They do not have written roles, but the plot, as a rule, is present. Another distinguishing feature of this trend in contemporary art is the central role of the person who represents him. If someone has a question: "Performance - what is it?" - you can safely answer that this is primarily the performance artist himself, his body, gestures, additional attributes in the form of costumes, props and other expressive means. This is the main difference from art, where the object of the presentation is a canvas or sculpture. In addition, unlike classical art, the perception and understanding of performance does not require special intellectual preparation, it is designed for any passerby who looked, was surprised and went further, without thinking about how to classify this action, who was its founder and what will be effects.
The closest associates of this kind of performance are actionism and happening. We already know about the performance, that this is a theatrical action of the artist, which does not pursue any specific goals and does not require the direct participation of the public. This is its main difference from happening, which is possible only with the active participation of the public. Happening is only "conceived" by the artist, and what will come out in the end depends on the participating spectators.
Actionism is a trend in contemporary art that focuses not on the fruit of creativity, but on creativity itself, on the process of creating a work of art. An artist draws in public, a musician steps on musical pedals, and music plays from under his feet and so on. Gradually, actionism underwent changes and merged with politics and outrageous. Today we see a lot of ugliness, called "artistic action." One of the most famous and resonant of them is the "trick" of the group Pussy Riot in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It was a protest rally carried out through musical and visual means (colorful tights on their heads, the use of musical instruments, the recitation of certain political texts). Therefore, the girls believed that they were committing an action in the spirit of actionism, what we learned from this.
The described directions (actionism, happening, performance) in art are perceived differently. Both supporters and opponents give powerful arguments in favor of their positions. Perhaps the only worthy judge in this dispute will be the time that will put everything in its place. Let's wait a bit ...