Performance art often feels like the wild frontier of the contemporary art world. It’s immediate, sometimes confrontational, and frequently ephemeral, existing most truly in the moments it unfolds before an audience. Unlike a painting or sculpture that sits patiently on a wall or pedestal, performance demands your presence, engaging senses and challenging perceptions in real-time. It’s a living, breathing medium that continues to evolve, reflecting our complex times. Keeping up can be daunting, but certain artists consistently create work that resonates, provokes, and expands our understanding of what art can be. Here are a few contemporary performance artists whose work offers compelling insights and experiences.
Ragnar Kjartansson: The Poetics of Repetition
Hailing from Iceland, Ragnar Kjartansson masterfully blends music, theatre, endurance, and a distinct sense of melancholic beauty. His works often involve repetition, stretching moments or simple actions over extended periods, transforming the mundane into something profound or absurd, or both. He’s not interested in shocking through physical extremity in the way some earlier performance artists were; instead, his endurance is often collaborative and musical, creating immersive environments tinged with emotion.
One of his most celebrated works, The Visitors (2012), exemplifies this approach. Filmed at the historic Rokeby Farm in upstate New York, the piece features Kjartansson and several musician friends performing the same melancholic song simultaneously but in different rooms of the sprawling mansion. Presented as a multi-channel video installation, the audience is enveloped by the music and the distinct personalities of each performer, experiencing both their isolation and their connection through the shared melody. The repetition of the lyrics, drawn from poems by Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, gains emotional weight over the hour-long duration, exploring themes of love, loss, and the romantic ideal.
Another significant piece, A Lot of Sorrow (2013-2014), involved the indie rock band The National playing their song “Sorrow” repeatedly for six hours straight at MoMA PS1. What begins as a familiar concert experience slowly morphs into an endurance test for both the band and the audience. The song warps, changes, and reveals new layers through sheer exhaustion and repetition, becoming a meditation on the nature of performance, fandom, and the emotional core of the music itself. Kjartansson’s work invites contemplation through duration, finding poetry in persistence.
Anne Imhof: Choreographing Atmosphere and Tension
German artist Anne Imhof has gained international acclaim for her large-scale, durational performances that feel like meticulously choreographed yet unsettlingly unpredictable ecosystems. Working often with a core group of performers, Imhof utilizes architecture, sound, movement, and symbolic objects to construct intense, atmospheric situations. Her work often explores themes of power dynamics, control, alienation, and the anxieties of contemporary life.
Her Golden Lion-winning piece Faust at the German Pavilion for the 2017 Venice Biennale was a watershed moment. Imhof transformed the pavilion, adding raised glass floors under which performers moved, interacted, or simply existed. Doberman dogs patrolled the perimeter, adding a layer of real menace. The performers, clad in streetwear, engaged in slow, deliberate actions – smoking, texting, leaning, occasionally breaking into bursts of movement or cryptic song. The audience watched from above or around the edges, implicated in the surveillance and the palpable tension. There was no single narrative, but rather a pervasive mood of angst, control, and ambiguous relationships.
Imhof’s pieces, like Sex (2019), which unfolded across multiple locations including Tate Modern, continue this exploration of choreographed bodies within imposing structures. Fire, smoke, stark lighting, and carefully curated soundscapes contribute to the immersive, often unsettling environment. The performers operate with a kind of detached intensity, their interactions hinting at intimacy, aggression, or boredom, often simultaneously. Imhof orchestrates these elements to create powerful, visceral experiences that linger long after the performance concludes, questioning the structures – physical and social – that contain us.
Nora Chipaumire: Embodied History and Sonic Power
Born in Zimbabwe and based in New York, Nora Chipaumire is a choreographer and performer whose work is a potent force, delving into African diasporic identity, post-colonialism, and the power of the Black body in motion. Her performances are often physically demanding, blending contemporary dance, spoken word, sound, and visual elements to create raw, challenging, and deeply personal statements. She confronts stereotypes and historical narratives head-on, using her own body as a primary site of investigation and resistance.
Her multi-part work #PUNK 100% POP *N!GGA (often presented as separate pieces like #PUNK, 100% POP, and *N!GGA) is a powerful trilogy exploring her formative years in 1970s-90s Zimbabwe alongside iconic musical influences like Patti Smith, Grace Jones, and Congolese Rumba. It’s a sonic and kinetic assault, investigating freedom, rebellion, visibility, and the complexities of self-representation. Chipaumire, often performing with collaborators, utilizes intense vocalizations, powerful, grounded movement, and direct audience address. She challenges expectations of what African dance or Black performance should look like, reclaiming narratives and asserting presence with electrifying energy.
Performance art fundamentally challenges the idea of art as a static object. Its value often lies in the direct experience, the interaction between performer and audience, and the specific context of its creation. While documentation like photographs and videos exists, they are generally considered records or traces of the artwork, not the artwork itself. This ephemeral nature forces us to reconsider how we engage with and value artistic expression.
Chipaumire’s approach is rigorous and unapologetic. She uses sound not just as accompaniment but as a weapon, a shield, and a generative force, often incorporating live music or generating intense soundscapes herself. Her work demands attention and doesn’t shy away from discomfort, pushing audiences to confront difficult questions about history, identity, and power through the visceral language of the body.
Why Pay Attention?
These artists, though distinct in their styles and concerns, represent the dynamism within contemporary performance. They utilize duration, space, sound, and the body in innovative ways to explore complex human experiences.
- Duration as a Medium: Kjartansson uses extended time to build emotion and transform perception through repetition.
- Atmospheric Control: Imhof meticulously crafts environments where movement, sound, and architecture create palpable tension and explore social dynamics.
- Embodied Politics: Chipaumire uses intense physicality and sonic force to confront history, identity, and representation.
Performance art isn’t always comfortable, and it doesn’t offer easy answers. It often requires patience and an open mind. But engaging with the work of artists like Kjartansson, Imhof, and Chipaumire offers unique rewards: a more direct, embodied understanding of artistic ideas and a chance to witness art unfolding in the present moment. Their work reminds us that art can be a living process, a shared experience, and a powerful way to grapple with the world around us.
