Description
Book SynopsisArgues the conceptual significance of performance, and of a performative model of art, to the revival of the monument in the wake of the Second World War, the Holocaust and the fall of the Eastern bloc. -- .
Trade Review'Mechtild Widrich’s astonishing and original book connects performance histories, feminist theory and speech act theory to elucidate the “event character” of public art by contemporary artists. Widrich advances a powerful argument about the stakes of spectatorship, temporality and collective memory.'
Julia Bryan-Wilson, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art, University of California, Berkeley
'Rigorously researched and argued, this important book will become required reading not only on the history and theory of performance art but also on the history of the "performative" itself as it has transformed public art and commemoration.'
Kirk Savage, Professor, History of Art & Architecture, University of Pittsburgh
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Table of ContentsIntroduction: what is a performative monument?
1. Documents
2. Audiences
3. Sites
4. Monuments
Conclusion: relations
Bibliography
Index
