tured visually in a single moment because they are
created from a single situation. From his choice of
photographs, Burden shows he has a thorough
sense for aestheticizing and dramatizing his works.
ForThrough the Night Softly(1973), he crawls fifty
feet over broken glass before the eyes of a few pas-
sersby; in the photograph he released of the event,
the little pieces of glass against a solid black back-
ground look like a shimmering starry sky. The
photograph ofDoorway to Heaven(1973) shows
the artist with two tense electric wires around his
chest, and a flash of electricity makes it look like he
is encircled by a halo. Although his pieces are both
simple and sensational, Burden became the darling
of the mass media that always recognize star poten-
tial and report and broadcast the most controversial
and risque ́experiments. Artists understand just as
well how to harness the power of the media for their
own goals. For example, in the erotic environments
she creates, Yayoi Kusama poses as a pin-up girl
both in front of her camera and in front of the press
and public, who are informed beforehand.
In explaining his body works, Vito Acconci
claims that despite their simplicity, it is necessary
to freeze the flow of time, which he does with
video—Acconci is considered the founder of Life-
Video-Performance—and with Super 8 film, in the
same way as Bruce Nauman, Paul McCarthy,
Rebecca Horn, and others who prefer video and
film to the camera. The sequence of rather simple
photographs from, for example, Conversion II
(1971) is of secondary importance because the
photos are taken in such rapid succession that
they are difficult to tell apart; a complete, success-
ful, and detailed collection of photographs must
convey a precise impression whenever possible.
Gina Pane engages in the same practice, though
clearly in a more artistic way. Her action art, such
asAzione sentimentale(1973), plays out in three
phases. First she prepares every detail from sketches
she has on hand. When she executes her perfor-
mance, Pane becomes an active photographer and
strictly follows her plans and the arrangements pre-
pared in advance. The third part is the precise
arrangement of the photographs into a tableau
and their exhibition as an installation. The photo-
graphic recording and distribution serve Pane as the
substance and results of her action art. This under-
standing of photography’s role is shared by many,
including Ana Mendieta, who has carefully
recordedGlass on Body(1972) andSilueta Series
(1980) in color photographs, and Dennis Oppen-
heim, who as a rule permits the public to view only
recorded documentation of his performances.
Among Oppenheim’s color photographs isReading
Position for a Second Degree Burn(1970), in which
he allows the sun to burn his skin except for an area
of his chest shaded by a book. Hannah Wilke
emphasizes photography in her work for different
reasons—she practices body art as a staging of the
self before the eye of the camera in, for example,S.
O.S. Starification Object Seriesfrom 1974.So Help
Me Hannahwas from the beginning only a series of
photographs that were taken and exhibited at P.S.
1, New York, in 1978. Only afterward did she create
a performance out of it that she staged many times
between 1979 and 1985. She continued her work
until her death, includingIntra-Venus, a series of
photographs of cancer therapy taken by her lifelong
partner, Donald Goddard.
The spectrum of photography within body art
ranges in varying degrees of ability, from chance
snapshots taken by the public and press to profes-
sional photography taken by the artist or from the
artist’s instructions. Among these are also carefully
staged and arranged works with an expressive
value independent of the performance.BRIGITTEHausmann
Seealso: Export, Valie; Feminist Photography;
History of Photography: 7: the 1980s; Namuth,
Hans; Photography in Europe: Germany and Aus-
tria; Rainer, Arnulf; Wegman, William; Wiener
AktionismusFurther Reading
Abramovic/Ulay:Relation in Space, 38. Biennale di Vene-
zia, 1976, in Marina Abramovic,Artist Body, Milan:
Charta, 1998.
What the Body Cost: Desire, History, and Performance.
L’Art au corps: Le Corps expose ́de Man Ray a`nos jours.
Marseille: Muse ́e d’Art Contemporain, 1996.
Blocker, Jane.What the Body Cost: Desire, History, and Per-
formance. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
Burden, Chris.Doorway to Heaven. November 15, 1973, in
Paul Schimmel,Out of Actions: Between Performance
and the Object, 1949–1979. Los Angeles: Museum of
Contemporary Art, 1998, p. 96.
Fogle, Douglas, ed.The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photo-
graphy, 1960–1982. Minnesota: Walker Art Center, 2004.
Goldberg, RoseLee.Performance: Live Art, 1909 to the Pre-
sent. London: Thames and Hudson, 1979.
Hors limites: L’Art et la vie, 1952–1994. Exh. cat. Paris:
Centre Georges Pompidou, 1994.
Jones, Amelia.Body Art/Performing the Subject. Minnea-
polis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
Krull, Craig.Action/Performance and the Photograph. Los
Angeles: Turner and Krull Galleries, 1993.
Loeffler, Carl, and Darlene Tong.Performance Anthology.
San Francisco: Comtemporary Arts Press, 1980.
Pane, Gina.Azione sentimentale, 1973, in Valerio Deho`,
Gina Pane: Opere, 1968–1990, Reggio Emilia: Chiostri
di San Domenico, 1998–99, p. 47.BODY ART