The Artist's Body

The artist's body has throughout history been the subject of art -- primarily through painted self-portraiture. In the post-war period, however, artists began using their bodies as the subject and the actual material of the artwork itself, through such art forms as Body art, Happenings and performance. In these international art forms the artist's body is used to represent both the state of contemporary art and the human condition in general.

Selected by Tracey Warr, a curator specializing in performance, this book includes over 250 images of these often extreme, highly unconventional artworks, accompanied by documents that chart the ideas, critical reception and broader philosophical and cultural context which framed them. Texts by such art critics as Thomas McEvilley, Kristine Stiles and Lucy R Lippard are set alongside essays by philosophers and theorists who have shaped recent discourses around the body, including those by Donna Haraway and Gilles Deleuze. A Survey by Amelia Jones, one of the world's foremost authorities on the history of Body art and performance, discusses social history since the 1950s and analyses how artists have responded to contemporary events using the medium of their own bodies.