Fifty Key Performance Artists is a critical introduction to some of the most influential and innovative performance artists from the emergence of the genre post-World War II to the present, whose work has largely been underrecognized and underacknowledged within an English-language context.

The collection compiles an international and innovative index of artists who, primarily through body art and live performance, define the field. It includes artists whose now-canonical work defined performance art through feminist body art, interventionist public art, and durational performance, as well as new artists who are redefining the genre through emerging technologies and an explicit alignment with social activism. Artists indexed include Arahmaiani, Rebecca Belmore, Rocío Boliver, Lorenza Böttner, Disabled Avant-Garde, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi aka crazinisT artist, Emily Jacir, Lee Wen, Lorraine O’Grady, Graciela Ovejero Postigo, Tracey Rose, Seiji Shimoda, Leafa Wilson aka Olga Krause and Marcía X. Each entry considers the artist’s body of work in its historical, cultural, and political context, and provides a brief biography and suggestions for further reading.

This is an essential survey of performance art for scholars and students in visual, theatre, and performance studies and for those interested in matters of the body in performance, reception theory, and live art.