Out of Actions. Between Performance and the Object

Post- World War II cultural life was marked by an explosion of performance art, which dissolved the tenuous line that separated the work of art from the creative action which produced it. Performance art, which lends itself as much to painting as to architecture, sculpture, installation, or any creative process in which it can be used as a strong vehicle for communication not only of artists, but also musicians, dancers, scientists, and writers. To shed some light on this creative force the MACBA, in 1998, housed artist Paul Schimmel’s exhibition Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979, a commission of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. This brief treatise, a product of the show, reproduces the full text of Schimmel’s own “Salto al vacío. La performance y el objeto.”