ARTH 6845

Contemporary Performance Art in East Asia, 20th -21st Century

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

Since the mid-twentieth century, artists based in and across East Asia have turned to performance art, using bodily actions to blur the boundaries between art and everyday social life. This course analyzes performance art’s sociocultural underpinnings by treating it as an artistic medium and a critical practice shaped by interrelated histories of geopolitical conflict, colonialism, modernization, authoritarianism, and globalization in the East Asian context. Students will examine a range of approaches including happenings, body art, durational pieces, site-specific practices, and socially engaged performances to consider broader theoretical issues such as performance’s paradoxical dependence on visual documentation, censorship and the politics of visibility, gender and sexuality, temporality, and spectatorship. Attention will be given to local contexts while also tracing transnational networks and art festivals that influence how East Asian performance art circulates and is interpreted.

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