One day in 1992, Zhang Huan, a student attending a university in Beijing, went for a bike ride. As he rode around, he stumbled upon a mannequin’s leg: A woman’s leg. No body, no arms, no other leg. Something about the strange object caught his eye. He picked it up, brought it to his studio …
Almagul Menlibayeva Russia conquered Kazakhstan in the 18th century. By 1936, that vast Middle Asian country had become a Soviet republic. This means that for most of the 20th century indigenous Kazakhstani culture was de-emphasized in favor of Soviet culture. Russian became the country’s official language and communism the official system. The loaded …
Marina Abramovic is one of the most celebrated performance artists alive. Abramovic has achieved notoriety beyond avant-garde circles, while remaining exceptionally true to performance art’s radical ethics. Abramovic was born in 1946 in the former Yugoslavia. Her early pieces used body flagellation and life-threatening actions as ritualistic vehicles. “Rhythm O,” which took place in Naples …
From grotesque to glamorous, artist Cindy Sherman has explored the identity structures of our social world, revealing through photography – usually of her self -our own desires and vulnerability, as well as ideas about beauty and gender. “I never see myself; they aren’t self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear,” Sherman said of her work to the New …
Artist, activist, educator and advocate Suzanne Lacy (b. 1945) tackles social issues, particularly those affecting women, through public and large scale art projects. She is notable for her work in raising awareness of women’s issues and blending performance art and community outreach. In 1969 Lacy enrolled as a student in a new feminist art program …
“The image of [Chris] Burden that unfortunately continues to resonate in the public mind is of a young man who had himself shot, electrocuted, impaled, cut, drowned, incarcerated and sequestered,” wrote curator Paul Schimmel in 1988 for a book celebrating the artist in the midst of his career. Schimmel was protesting on behalf of the …
Philosopher and conceptual artist Adrian Piper (b. 1948) has used her visual and performance art to explore her own multiracial and feminine identity, as well as more universal ideas about gender and race. Piper attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City in the late ‘60s before pursuing an academic career in philosophy. …
Ana Mendieta, only 36-years-old when she died falling out of a window from her 34th floor apartment in New York, was a unique voice in performance who left behind a short but incendiary career, as well as the haunting mystery of her death. She was one of the first artists of her generation to combine …
Yoko Ono, inextricably linked with late husband John Lennon and The Beatles, has been an important experimental artist in her own right since the 1960s. Born in 1933 to a wealthy Tokyo family with banking and samurai lineage, Yoko Ono grew up studying Buddhism, Japanese aesthetics and classical music. In the 1960s she moved to …
Mariko Mori is a multidisciplinary Japanese artist whose work explores identity, both human and alien, the discrepancies between utopia and reality, and our universal shared consciousness, through performance, video, photography and sculpture. Born into a wealthy family in Tokyo in 1967, her first experience performing was as a young girl in a school play, for …