Performance breaks the boundaries separating art and life, private and public, custom and taboo. Its anarchic experiments have put it at the forefront of the twentieth-century avant-garde. In the four decades since the 1960s there has been an astonishing increase in the number of its practitioners worldwide, and it has radically influenced and altered not only all the other arts, from theater to music to photography, but is also all-pervasive in popular culture, politics, and social attitudes. Juxtaposing startling images and texts, this book presents for the first time the broadest panorama of this multifaceted and elusive art form. From Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni to Joseph Beuys and Robert Wilson, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, Pina Bausch, Matthew Barney, Bill T. Jones, Gilbert & George, Mona Hatoum, and many others, with scores of works from Europe, the Americas, Japan, and Australia, this landmark publication is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in visual culture. 332 illustrations, 123 in color.