hi my name's Jackie Klein and in this series we're going to be taking a close look at what's called performance art exploring five different ways in which we might encounter it inside and sometimes outside the museum but also be trying to answer questions like why these people dancing in a museum why am I allowed to touch this and is this really odd in this episode we're looking at artists who use their bodies to make art but we're not talking about just holding a paintbrush in your hand we're looking at those artists who go beyond traditional materials like paint or clay to ask why is this art and to answer that question like in the last episode we need to go back to the 1950s and 60s when artists were starting to explore new really physical ways of making art here's the American painter Jackson Pollock creating art by moving around the canvas on the floor this is the Japanese artist Kazuyoshi raga painting with his feet the French artist niki de san foul who fired a paint filled gun at the canvas and the italian painter lucha fontana who instead of using a paintbrush took a knife to the canvas to make marks and slashes these artists were still making what we call paintings but the way they were making them with a kind of extreme physical interaction and movement was totally new now artists being artists it wasn't long before someone thought what about if I don't make a painting at all what if I just make a movement could that be art that's exactly what the Nigerian artists Autobahn and canga suggests the little things are the little movements that you do to understand what is the power of that movement understand what your body's saying understand what your voice is saying understand the giving out by using their bodies directly artists can push the limitations of having to make something like a painting or a sculpture by actually embodying their ideas here's Stewart bristly whose art seems to put his body in uncomfortable positions [Music] people have said often about my work the kind of stress and strain and physical duress you put yourself under I don't feel it because I have a purpose in mind a concept that I'm trying to work on which to me has an importance way beyond my personal self perhaps the most famous artist known for using her body is Marina Abramovic who tests the limits of her own endurance but from us it's such a huge preparation people don't understand how actually long takes just being present as an artist in the space with full consciousness and and your attitude with your body and telling the the minimum the meaning that's the most difficult artists have also thought about using their bodies as a way of exploring important issues about identity how do we think about our own bodies how do we look at other peoples Anna Mandy Etta put her body centrally in her arms as a way of exploring personal questions about identity and photographers Cindy Sherman and Samuel Faso have used their own bodies to explore stereotypes about how identity can be influenced and formed by the society around us as we've seen our bodies can be the subject matter the material and the means for producing art and interesting things happen when they're all these things at once in the next episode we're going to be looking at artworks that involve audience interaction see you then you