Movies: Performance art

New wave geniuses who helped define an era with their quirky, futuristic, and revolutionary style are back, entertaining the Japanese crowds who love them as much today as they did 25 years ago. Devo have been through a lot over the years, developing...

When the daughter of a controversial performance artist inherits her late mother's home archive, an unexpected visitor comes to claim the most notorious artwork...as they discover an artistic legacy can be more of a curse....

The duo made up of musician and actress Julia de Castro and double bass player Miguel Rodrigáñez thus premieres their latest show, Exhalación: vida y muerte de De La Puríssima. With it, they intend to put an end to the ten-year revolution of EL CUPLÉ...

Filmed live at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, the self-proclaimed sweatiest woman in show business brings you her first ever standup special. Told in three acts and influenced heavily by her loves of surrealism and Russia, with multiple scripted sketc...

High school hotshot Zach Siler is the envy of his peers. But his popularity declines sharply when his cheerleader girlfriend, Taylor, leaves him for sleazy reality-television star Brock Hudson. Desperate to revive his fading reputation, Siler agrees ...

IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how...

An idealistic film student is drawn into a shadowy and intoxicating world when she befriends an enigmatic performance artist....

With his partner, a celebrity performance artist publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. An investigator from the National Organ Registry obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is ...

A selection of Survival Research Laboratories early performances, a must for those interested in how such an enterprise ever got started in the first place....

Five mechanized performances of Survival Research Laboratories, 1985-1986. 70 min. of endless pursuits, unavoidable captures, and merciless punishments....

Originally formed amidst the chaos of the 1970 Kent State anti-Vietnam War protest killings, the not quite new wave band Devo scored a hit with "Whip It" and gained mainstream success with their message of societal "de-evolution."...

McGuire constructs a murky black and white soap-opera world of endless, timeless, and placeless limbo, where the characters talk to each other entirely in clichés, bad poetry, and other contrite forms of speech — a short TV show in which nothing is r...

A mockumentary following an ambitious TV network executive trying to produce a controversial reality show where contestants play Russian Roulette....

The life of the bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey during a day of bullfighting, from the moment he dresses up to the moment he undresses....

Turtle Dreams, produced for WGBH-TV, originally aired September 2, 1983. Shot by Ping Chong. Composed by Meredith Monk, performed by her and her Vocal Ensemble....

A video portrait of the legendary late performance artist, fashion designer and nightlife icon Leigh Bowery. Atlas's camera follows Bowery as he flamboyantly strolls through Manhattan's Meatpacking District, outrageously costumed in a self-made reint...

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam....

A young woman wanders around New York City and stumbles across a number of strange characters and settings that represent the "underground" areas of the city. She sees stand up comedy in Central Park, a prostitution auction, a voodoo ceremony, an S&M...

A dramatic comedy following a Korean American performance artist who struggles to be authentically heard and seen through her multiple identities in modern Los Angeles....

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing ...