performance art

American  

noun

1. a collaborative art form originating in the 1970s as a fusion of several artistic media, as painting, film, video, music, drama, and dance, and deriving in part from the 1960s performance happenings.

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performance art British  

noun

1. a theatrical presentation that incorporates various art forms, such as dance, sculpture, music, etc

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• performance artist
  noun

Etymology

Origin of performance art

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

Maybe one day, over a decade after school ended, I’d get a lot of attention for making performance art about walking to grocery stores.

From Los Angeles Times • May 25, 2026

That is, of course, assuming there is some kind of larger strategy in play here and this isn’t some kind of performance art.

From Salon • May 12, 2026

Three years later, in a highly theatrical piece of performance art, he staged a live destruction of his Girl with Balloon at Sotheby's auction house - moments after it was sold for £1m.

From BBC • Mar. 18, 2026

He views Moltbook more as a piece of performance art, designed to create conversation.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 4, 2026

“No one ever understands performance art when it’s on the cutting edge.”

From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson