Performance art = crazy?

 In this week's lecture, we were taught the concept of performance art. Beforehand, I thought performing art is equal to dancing and drama etc. However, through the lecture, I was able to distinguish the difference between performing art and performance. Performance is different than performing art in that it is not dance, drama or music and it doesn't have a clear storyline like performing art does. Performance is an art type that acts as a criticism to visual art and as a protest against high art and go back to daily life.


  From all the examples shown in the lecture, most of the performance art to me was quite extreme and doesn't really have a "beauty" to them unlike paintings genre such as the surrealist or conceptual art. One of the examples left me questioning is about a guy decided to live in a closed environment like a jail for a year and had to capture his every hour's movement. Although it is understood that he wants to convey the message about "back to basic in the daily life", I think he can just propose the idea and write down all the details or just draw the pictures instead of putting himself into experiencing, or simply showing the performance in a day or two. It seems kind of crazy to me cause he is sacrificing his time and it is not a short period of time at all. As such, I think instead of committing to the whole period of time, I think he should live his life and not waste his time so he can create more art pieces as in the end, I think most people only care about the message the art brings but not the whole process.

In short, in my opinion, I think although performance art has its own value, yet, I think artists may just propose their idea and try them out as a demonstration but not committing the whole life or 16 hours sitting there without doing anything.