**A unique exhibition in a book, presenting challenging art that
addresses the place and function of performance in the contemporary
world.**Art Works: An exciting new series celebrating the vitality and
diversity of art in the twenty-first century. If all the world is a
stage, then each of us is a performer. Every day, we act out individual
roles and take part in private and collective rituals handed down by
society. In our relationships with others, we hide behind masks and
assumed personae; and when we interact with the objects, spaces, and
environments around us, we follow established patterns of behavior set
down by history and convention, playing out performances everywhere we
turn. In such a world, it is no surprise that the line between art and
life is sometimes blurred. Arranged into themed rooms, this book
reflects a wide variety of artistic attitudes and practices. Some
artists present collaborators as the living, performing objects of their
work, while others turn the audience into the main protagonists in the
creative process. Some artists transform themselves through disguise or
by altering their surroundings in order to perform a new reality, while
others make everyday items into art by changing their function or
context. Some artists explore the storytelling capacity of art, but
others present only cryptic fragments that leave the viewer to complete
the narrative. Where some question the permanence of art by producing
ephemeral or short-lived pieces, others leave traces of their actions,
and yet others seek to freeze time in highly dramatized tableaux or
hyperrealistic sculptures. For some artists, performance offers the
possibility of leaving the gallery environment altogether and enacting
art in public, on the street, for everybody. All of the artists in this
book use art to puzzle out the complicated ways in which performance
plays a part in our daily experiences. All of them help us understand
the world in which we live. 280 illustrations, 232 in color.
