Performance: Did you ever want to be someone else?

Ulla von Brandenburg is interested in the idea of the tableau vivant, or 'living picture'. Popular in the nineteenth century, the tableau vivant was a combination of fine art and theatre, with live models carefully posed and lit in a composition like that of a painting or photograph. In this perfor…

This performance recreates the groundbreaking work of Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica. Frustrated by the limitations of painting, Oiticica devoted himself to finding ways in which painting could be taken off the gallery walls and out into 3-dimensional space. One result was his ‘Parangolés’ of the …

‘The Fight’, a boxing, music and dance performance, was conceived by Panamanian-born artist, Humberto Vélez. More than 100 amateur boxers from South London boxing clubs took over Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall for a series of bouts in the ring, with music by MC Mic Assassin and choreography by street d…

Mark Wallinger’s contribution to this year’s Turner Prize is Sleeper (2004-05), a film of a performance in which, over a period of 10 nights, he dressed in a bear suit and wandered aimlessly around an art gallery in Berlin, startling unsuspecting passers-by.  He relives the long nights for TateShot…