Performance Drawing

"What is 'performance drawing'? When does a drawing turn into a performance? Is the act of drawing in itself a performative process, whether a viewer is present or not? Through conversation, interviews and essays, the authors illuminate these questions, and what it might mean to perform, and what it might mean to draw, in a diverse and expressive contemporary practice since the 1960s. The term 'performance drawing' refers to Drawing Papers: Performance Drawings by Catherine de Zegher (2001), with origins in live works decades earlier. In this book, it is used as a trope, and a thread of thinking, to describe a process dedicated to broadening the field of drawing through resourceful practices and cross-disciplinary influence. The introduction presents a brief historical background and outlines approaches to performance drawing. As a way to embrace the different voices and various lenses in producing this book, each author reveals their individual perspectives and critical methodology in the five chapters. While embedded in ephemerality and immediacy, the themes encompass body and energy, time and motion, light and space, imagined and observed, demonstrating how drawing can act as a performative tool. The dynamic interaction leads to a collective understanding of the term, performance drawing, and addresses the key developments and future directions of this applied drawing process. Featuring a wide range of international artists, the acclaimed practitioners from the 1960s, such as Alison Knowles, Carolee Schneemann, Richard Long, Robert Morris, Tom Marioni, Trisha Brown and William Kentridge, have been instrumental in instituting and exposing the relationship between drawing and performing. This book provides the foundation behind these pioneers, alongside a platform for current and emerging artists, and for those working between the boundaries of the genre. Merging experiences and disciplines in the expanded field has established a vibrant art movement that has been progressively burgeoning in the last few years"--