Skip navigation

Main menu

  • What's on
  • Art & Artists
    • The Collection
      Artists
      Artworks
      Art by theme
      Media
      Videos
      Podcasts
      Short articles
      Learning
      Schools
      Art Terms
      Tate Research
      Art Making
      Create like an artist
      Kids art activities
      Tate Draw game
  • Visit
  • Shop
Become a Member
  • DISCOVER ART
  • ARTISTS A-Z
  • ARTWORK SEARCH
  • ART BY THEME
  • VIDEOS
  • ART TERMS
  • SCHOOLS
  • TATE KIDS
  • RESEARCH
  • Tate Britain
    Tate Britain Free admission
  • Tate Modern
    Tate Modern Free admission
  • Tate Liverpool + RIBA North
    Tate Liverpool + RIBA North Free admission
  • Tate St Ives
    Tate St Ives Ticket or membership card required
  • FAMILIES
  • ACCESSIBILITY
  • SCHOOLS
  • PRIVATE TOURS
Tate Logo
Become a Member
Tate Modern courses

A History of Performance Art

3 June – 1 July 2019

VALIE EXPORT, Action Pants: Genital Panic 1969. Tate. © DACS 2025.

A critical introduction to performance art and its disruptive potential

Performance art creates new and exciting challenges for how we read, understand, and value contemporary art. This course explores how artists have used performance as a set of artistic strategies that both complement and disrupt what museums can exhibit. This course will explore both well-known and lesser-known practices in performance art – as well as its documentation from the late 1960s to the 1990s. We will examine works in the Tate collections – including Paul McCarthy, VALIE EXPORT, Marina Abramović, Stuart Brisley, Regina José Galindo, Song Dong, or Tehching Hsieh – as well as works that have not been included in insititutions. The course is led by Dominic Johnson, a scholar of performance art, and Reader in Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London.

Biography

Dominic Johnson is a Reader in Performance and Visual Culture at Queen Mary University of London. His authored books include The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art (2015), and his edited books include Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013).

Tate Modern

Bankside
London SE1 9TG
Plan your visit

Dates

3 June – 1 July 2019

Artwork
Close

Join in

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
Sign up to emails

Sign up to emails

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Tate’s privacy policy

About

  • About us
  • Our collection
  • Terms and copyright
  • Governance
  • Picture library
  • ARTIST ROOMS
  • Tate Kids

Support

  • Tate Collective
  • Members
  • Patrons
  • Donate
  • Corporate
  • My account
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Contact
© The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery, 2025
All rights reserved