Live: Art and Performance
...an excellent illustration of performance art's ability to engage its audience directly, to inspire the audience to search its own thoughts and feelings, and, in so doing, to complete the work that the artist began.–Library JournalLive presents a thought-tweaking array of work by a variety of artists. Every page raises questions on the direction of art, ethical use of children, animals, and wet ware (dolls made of living organisms) as performance props. Abuse of the human body, genitals as art materials and manifesting a cornucopia of unusual sexual behavior are the tools and production practices employed to shock and enthrall audiences.Live is laudatory book that dotes on the freakishness of performance and neglects to discuss critically the inherent problems associated with categorizing it as art rather than theater. Nevertheless, in the sea of literature vying for position in emerging art histories this book floats to the surface..–NoHo->LA[An] extremely useful, well-edited and readable book ... The essays inLiveare excellent, both varied and well-informed.–Performance Research, February 2005