Description
Book SynopsisOffers a formal account and theory of endurance as a practice in performance art and protest. Discusses influential performances by Marina Abramović, Chris Burden, Tehching Hsieh, Yoko Ono, and others, as well as 1960s lunch counter sit-ins and twenty-first-century protest camps. Essential reading in performance theory, art history, and political activism.
Trade Review'Lara Shalson's Performing Endurance is an original, bold, and impeccably lucid encounter with endurance art. Shalson's writing carries a deep and abiding sympathy for what it means to endure, to survive the situation in which one finds oneself: say, in art, in life, in conflict, or in love. This book will make an urgent and compelling contribution to theatre and performance studies now, and to broader political considerations of how and with what means one may endure, together and apart, in difficult or uncertain times.' Dominic Johnson, Queen Mary, University of London
'In this excellent, elegantly written, and tautly argued book, Lara Shalson offers nothing less than a profound rethinking of key works and concepts in performance art practice and theory … the distinctive contribution this book makes to performance art discourse will endure.' Heike Roms, Contemporary Theatre Review
'Shalson's theorisation of endurance, and its delineation as performance structure, is taut and precise, enabling generative readings of performance events as ambivalent, discomforting and yet deeply ethical in the way that they force artists and spectators alike to negotiate interpersonal relations and politically charged power structures … her argument is elegant and far-reaching.' Roberta Mock, Times Higher Education
'Performing Endurance is a valuable resource for scholars toiling to spotlight the rich and varied mechanisms at work in performance art. Shalson's study will undoubtedly serve as a springboard for researchers looking to extend discussions on crucial aesthetic investments in endurance and as a model for scholars invested in parsing the urgent affinities between performance structures and protest tactics.' Raegan Truax, Modern Drama
'Through Performing Endurance, well-known works of art are returned to and seen in a rigorously new and resolutely political light … Shalson's book will sit alongside works by Peggy Phelan and Rebecca Schneider with Amelia Jones not too far away … Her writing equals publications by these thinkers in significance and rigor …' Nik Wakefield, The Drama Review
Table of ContentsList of figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Enduring objecthood; 2. Enduring protests; 3. Enduring life; 4. Enduring documents; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
