Unlimited action

<p><em>Unlimited action</em> concerns the limits imposed upon art and life and the means by which artists have exposed refused or otherwise reshaped the horizon of aesthetics and of the practice of art by way of performance art. It examines the 'performance of extremity' as practices at the limits of the histories of performance and art in performance art's most fertile and prescient decade the 1970s. Dominic Johnson recounts and analyses game-changing performance events by six artists: Kerry Trengove Ulay Genesis P-Orridge Anne Bean the Kipper Kids and Stephen Cripps. Through close encounters with these six artists and their works and a broader contextual milieu of artists and works Johnson articulates a counter-history of actions in a new narrative of performance art in the 1970s to rethink and rediscover the history of contemporary art and performance.</p>