Performance art is a medium that has been around for quite some time and has introduced us to many of the biggest names in the field of art. Not least of which are the women who have contributed greatly to its progress and popularity, including the likes of Yoko Ono and Marina Abramović. While they get the most recognition and credit, there are plenty of other women in performance art who deserve the same acknowledgment. On this list, we’ll introduce you to the best female performance artists who will certainly inspire you!
Ana Mendieta
Artist Ana Mendieta is known for using her own body as the medium when it comes to creating her artwork, one of which is the Silueta Series. It is among her most well-known works, and in it, she imprinted her body onto different Iowan and Mexican landscapes. The outline her form created was then filled with various organic matter such as moss, tree or plant branches, and flowers. Sadly, Mendieta passed away in 1985 at the young age of 36, but the degree of her impact continues to this day.
Adrian Piper
Adrian Piper was an artist who was most active during the American Civil Rights movement. True to the period, her works explored the rampant cultural and racial bias experienced by her kin. As part of one of her performances, Piper walked the streets disguised as an African-American man, while also engaging in stereotypical masculine behavior. This piece was called The Mythic Being and was documented through photographs and video.
Tania Bruguera
The Cuban artist’s work focused on issues of representation and political power. In the beginning, she often paid tribute to Ana Mendieta in her work. Using her own body as a canvas in the same way the late artist did. However, she later shifted her medium to sharing the flooring with the audience during her performances. The most well-known of which is Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana version). This was comprised of a stage where audiences were free to talk about anything for a whole minute before they were escorted offstage by actors wearing military uniforms.
Joan Jonas
Joan Jonas was initially trained as a sculptor, but she is better known for her experimental art pieces, which incorporated the use of performance, video, installation, the internet, and drawing on top of her sculptures. Through her work, Jonas explores the audience’s experience and their perception of both imagined and real images. This is something online classes won’t teach you! A good example of this is her piece Organic Honey’s Visual Telepathy, where she appeared dressed as Organic Honey, her alter ego. Jonas wore a plastic mask, a pink feathered headdress, and a sequined jacket as she interacted with the camera that recorded her performance. All the while, images of multicultural women were played on a TV monitor.
Martha Wilson
Artist Martha Wilson has been active since the 1970s, first establishing a name for herself in NYC’s avant-garde art scene. Aside from performance art, she was also one of the founding members of the group DISBAND, which is a conceptual punk band comprised of Ilona Granet and Barbara Kruger, among others. Her solo work focuses on issues related to beauty ideals and gender identity. To create electricity during performances, she transforms herself into various feminine figures and personalities, which includes the likes of drag queens, lesbians, traditional housewives, and even former first ladies. In fact, for her most recent work for the series Martha Meets Michelle Halfway, she impersonated Michelle Obama.
Carmen Beuchat
Chilean artist Carmen Beuchat was initially trained as a ballet dancer. After moving to New York during the ‘60s, she began to incorporate other mediums into her performance art. This includes poetry, video, and photography. In 1971, she helped establish the experimental dance group called the Natural History of the American Dancer. Together with the group, they provided gas for the downtown NYC performance art scene. Two of her most frequent collaborators were Juan Downey and Trisha Brown. Some of her most recognized work fused movement with mobile structures, which was also incorporated into the choreography of the performers.
These are just six of the most inspiring female artists in the field of performance art. We hope you consider checking their works out and learning more about the ideas and concepts they contributed to the world of art as a whole!
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