History
Performa is the brainchild of RoseLee Goldberg, whose definitive book, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present (1979 & 2000), pioneered the study of performance art and has been translated into nine languages. Ms. Goldberg’s writing, as well as her activities as curator at The Kitchen in the late 1970s, has shaped the public’s view of live performance as a visual art form for almost thirty years.
In 2001, Ms. Goldberg originated and produced visual artist Shirin Neshat’s first live performance work, Logic of the Birds, with critical and popular success in both New York and London. The idea to create a biennial, with a specially commissioned new performance as the centerpiece, evolved from this highly successful production.
Committed to initiating new directions in visual art performance and to providing a framework for its history and reception, Ms. Goldberg founded Performa in 2004.
Performa is a multidisciplinary non-profit arts organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century. Part of Performa’s mission is to present a biennial of visual art performance in New York City that illuminates the critical role of performance in the history of art as well as its enormous significance in the international world of contemporary art.
Performa 05 The first of its kind, the 05 Biennial offered an exciting program of performances, exhibitions, symposia, and film screenings organized in collaboration with a consortium of leading museums, galleries, alternative spaces, and independent curators in New York. The first Performa Biennial was an enormous critical and popular success and set a new standard for the positioning of live performance in the international contemporary art world. Over 25,000 people attended sold-out and filled-to-capacity events at more than 20 venues across the city, truly activating and animating all of New York, from Harlem down to Wall Street, during Performa 05’s entire three-week run.
Performa 07, the biennial’s second edition, was greeted with as much enthusiasm and acclaim as the first. Performa 07 featured 10 Performa Commissions and an extraordinary array of over 100 performances by artists from around the world, with events taking place at a consortium of more than 60 venues across the city. More than 25,000 visitors from around the world attended over 95 different events, most of which were free. Reviewing Performa 07 in Domus magazine, critic and curator Francesco Bonami announced, “[Performa is now] high up in the sky as one of the major contemporary art events to look forward to.”
Performa 09, the third biennial of new visual art performance, will be held in New York City from November 1-22, 2009. The three-week festival will feature new Performa Commissions and an exciting program of performances, exhibitions, educational forums, public art projects, publications, film screenings, and radio, Internet, and television broadcasts. Presented with a consortium of more than 60 arts institutions and a network of public and private venues across the city, Performa 09 will showcase the work of more than 100 international artists, as seen from many different curatorial viewpoints, in a lively, performance-driven “festival as think tank” that will be a catalyst for envisioning the cultural future of New York City.
