An updated edition of the pioneering study in the acclaimed World of Art series, this classic book surveys a full century of performance art, from the Futurist manifesto of 1909 through the second decade of the new millennium.

Performance Art is a pioneering history of one of the most important art forms to emerge in modern times. Now in its fourth edition, it has been completely updated to reflect on performance in an age where digital technologies are increasingly dominant, and where live art stands out as an antidote to the overwhelming effects of our media world. Renowned art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg explains the worldwide phenomenon of performance art, and outlines developments in the medium up to and within the second decade of the twenty-first century.

The astonishing increase in the number of works testifies to the significance of the medium for new generations of artists entering the global conversation of art and culture and for articulating ‘difference’. Matthew Barney, Tania Bruguera, Nikhil Chopra, Nicholas Hlobo, Zhang Huan, Anne Imhof and Rashid Johnson are among the many artists whose work can now be seen in the context of innovators in the field, from the Futurists and Dadaists to Yves Klein, Marina Abramovic and Laurie Anderson.

'RoseLee Goldberg has been tracing and defining art performance for half a century and this book is essential reading' - Laurie Anderson
'A clear and accurate history of ... a continuous development of enormous consequence to the most adventurous twentieth-century art' - Robert Rosenblum
'It's my Bible' - D J Spooky
'A seminal book' - The New York Times

RoseLee Goldberg is an art historian, author, critic and curator specializing in modern and contemporary performance art. Goldberg has curated the work of many prominent artists from Philip Glass to Cindy Sherman, and in 2004 founded Performa, a multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to the research, development, and presentation of twenty-first-century visual art performance.