Tag: The History of Performance Art in 20 Minutes

To coincide with the Performance Studies International symposium, FADO Performance Art Centre and Gallery TPW are pleased to present work by French curator and critic Guillaume Désanges.

A History of Performance in 20 Minutes is a performative lecture presenting a concise history of the representation of the body in art. The performance lecture aims to divide the history of performance into ten gestures—appearing, receiving, holding back, escaping, aiming, falling, crying, biting, emptying oneself and disappearing—all enacted and subjectively discussed. 

Accompanying the performance is Désanges’ exhibition Child’s Play (June 10–19). The work is the outcome of a workshop with seven Romanian children in 2008. The impetus for the workshop was an assertion that the history of performance art be read as a history of silence rather than discourse—a pre-linguistic history of primary gestures. Perhaps the experience of childhood is closest to this impulse in performance/body art. During the workshop, the kids replayed and interpreted more than fifty iconic performances, including gestures from Futurism and Dada to Paul McCarthy and Francis Alys. The resulting videos and drawings embody the immediate energy, humour, and embrace of the experiential experiment that is essential for an understanding of performance and body art.

Presented in partnership with Gallery TPW, for the PSi Conference taking place in Toronto June 9–12.

© Guillaume Désanges, The History of Performance Art in 20 Minutes, 2010. Photo Shannon Cochrane.