Performance art
Art made from live action, usually the artist's own body, staged for an audience or for the camera.
Performance art came into its own in the 1960s and 70s, when artists made their actions the work itself rather than an object left behind. Film and video were often the only lasting record, and soon became part of the piece.
Matthew Barney began with the Drawing Restraint series, drawing while held back by harnesses and ramps. His films are performance scaled up: ordeals, rituals and feats of endurance staged with a large cast and recorded on camera.
Films to start with
In the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Cremaster 3
The last and longest of the cycle, set as the Chrysler Building goes up. Its centrepiece, The Order, is a 31-minute contest staged on the ramps of the Guggenheim and the only part of the cycle ever released on DVD.
Drawing Restraint 9
Barney and Björk board the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru as guests at a tea ceremony, while the crew cast a 25-ton sculpture of petroleum jelly on deck. Björk wrote the score.
Nearby
Movements, forms and techniques that share filmmakers or methods with this one.