ABSTRACT
Performance art was taking over gallery spaces. It then began leaving the gallery walls behind altogether and stepping out into the streets in actions and happenings. The Viennese Actionists, a collective of artists including Hermann Nitsch, Gunter Brus, Rudolf Schwarzkogler and Otto Muehl, often took the body to extremes with their performances. Japanese artist Yoko Ono works with her body and the cut quite directly in the performance Cut Piece, a shockingly intimate and expressive work in which her clothing is cut away, piece by piece, bit by bit, unraveling the layers as she is laid bare both literally and symbolically. In 1976, British performance art collective COUM Transmissions made headlines with their Prostitution show. Working in visual art, sculpture, video and performance art, Mendieta worked with this displacement through a variety of methods and materials. American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat shifted the history of art by bringing art from the streets into the gallery.
