BODY AS A MATERIAL IN ART IN THE 20TH-21ST CENTURIES: PERFORMANCE ART

Performance art is a kind of performing art style which has started in art environment of 1920's. Performance artists who were opposed to the formalism in avant-garde art movements and aiming at removing the art limits questioning the mentality of prior art began developing new methods and alternative materials in art. In this way, they destroyed the mentality of performing classic art integrating body or every object that comes to mind. Choosing the body as a material in performance art shook foundation of art and objected to portability and salability of art works in the twentieth century. Actually, performance art which is named as "body art" and "show art" in Turkish was born as a reaction to "culture" notion and created a completely independent area for itself after 1960s. Nowadays, the most important representative group of performance art, which has vital significant effects to visual arts, is Fluxus. In this article, performance art is handled within the context of performance art with its origin, improvement and relation to other art movements and is analyzed by way of illustration from Fluxus and other representatives with visual examples. Performance art was emerged with the change of boundaries between the work and the body of the artist and with the aim of taking art out of galleries and its effect on the end of 20th and 21th century art is analyzed in the light of resources.