Photo: Kia LaBeija ‘Untitled, The Black Act’ 2019. Photo © Julieta Cervantes. Courtesy of Performa
Book Launch & Talk: Performa’s RoseLee Goldberg on ‘Performance Art’ with Randy Kennedy
Celebrating the release of the 4th edition of ‘Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present’ by RoseLee Goldberg, please join Performa’s founding director and chief curator RoseLee Goldberg for a conversation with Ursula magazine’s Editor in Chief Randy Kennedy at Hauser & Wirth 18th Street.
Surveying a full century of performance art, from the Futurist manifesto of 1909 to the second decade of the new millennium, the new, updated edition of this pioneering study in Thames & Hudson’s acclaimed World of Art series, coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Performa Biennial. The standard reference since its first publication in 1979, ‘Performance Art’ is a pioneering history of one of the most important art forms to emerge in modern times. Author, art historian, and curator RoseLee Goldberg, founding director and chief curator of Performa, has continually updated her magnum opus over the decades, selling more than 100,000 copies in 9 languages. This new, fourth edition reflects the current state of performance in an age where digital and web technologies are becoming increasingly dominant.
Copies of ‘Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present’ will be available for purchase at the event and RoseLee Goldberg will sign books after the talk.
Also coinciding with the event, copies of Ursula Issue 14 will be for sale. The issue features artist Aria Dean in conversation with writer Simon Wu and Jeffrey C. Stewart, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer of Alain Locke, on Dean’s upcoming commission for the Performa Biennial 2025.
This event is free; however, reservations are required.
Courtesy of Thames & Hudson
About RoseLee Goldberg
RoseLee Goldberg pioneered the study of performance art. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, she was the director of the Royal College of Art Gallery in London and curator of the Kitchen Center for Video, Music and Performance in New York. Author of Performance: Live Art Since the 60s, Laurie Anderson, and Performance Now: Live Art for the 21st Century, and a frequent contributor to Artforum and other magazines, Goldberg teaches at New York University. She is the founding director and chief curator of Performa, an organization focused on the history of performance and on producing and commissioning new performance for the twenty-first century, which has altered the cultural landscape of New York City with its critically acclaimed Performa Biennial of live performances by visual artists from around the world. In 2006 the French government named her a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
About Performa
Founded in 2004 by art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg, Performa has expanded the possibilities for visual artists working in performance, providing essential curatorial and production support, and, with its dedicated biennial, providing a worldwide platform for performance of the 21st century. Performa Commissions have changed the possibilities of the form, and its educational programs have shown its rich history as an integral part of artistic practice, reaching back through the centuries to the Renaissance. This visionary organization has entirely transformed every art institution’s approach to visual art performance, now a staple in art museums and galleries throughout the world. Since 2005, Performa has presented ten editions of its three-week international Performa Biennial that have animated New York City every other year. In 2022, Performa and the Hartwig Art Foundation, Amsterdam, under the direction of curator Beatrix Ruf, forged a partnership to combine curatorial and archival research of world-wide performance, and to co-commission and tour select productions. The Hartwig Art Foundation partnership also includes the training of two Hartwig Art Foundation Fellows at Performa.
About Ursula Magazine
Ursula is a quarterly magazine published by Hauser & Wirth that celebrates the artistic achievement and creativity of the gallery's artists and those beyond. Through the printed magazine, digital content platform and live programs, Ursula champions artistic practices that challenge and interrogate the future, highlighting a diverse range of contemporary culture that Hauser & Wirth finds compelling. Featuring stories from the worlds of art, design, film, books, food, and sustainability, Ursula invites readers to think critically, ask questions, and engage with the ideas shaping our world. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, Ursula appeals to a broad, inquisitive readership, from dedicated insiders to curious observers. ‘It has always been our mission to make the gallery a home for our artists where other thinkers, writers, and visionaries can also gather and engage,’ gallery President Iwan Wirth told Artnet News. ‘Now Ursula will be an editorial home as well, a truly global magazine that reflects our philosophy.’
