Performa: The Best of Performance Art

This year’s Performa, the biennial of performance art taking over New York from November 1 through November 24, got an unexpected boost from none other than Jay Z. When he paid homage to Marina Abramovic at New York’s Pace gallery this summer, rapping for six hours straight in front of a delighted VIP crowd—including Performa founder RoseLee Goldberg—the reverberations were felt throughout the Twittersphere. It was proof that Vine and Instagram have birthed a new future for performance art, whose path to wide appreciation has been hampered by the genre’s fleeting nature. In addition to works by such notable provocateurs as Eddie Peake and Ryan McNamara, here are a few highlights to train your eyes (and smartphones) on at the fifth edition of Performa: French artist Philippe Quesne (Bivouac, 2010, above), known for his Seinfeld-ian observations of quotidian life, goes surreal in Brooklyn, creating a phantasmagorical outdoor movie studio to get lost in. Meanwhile, Indian artist Subodh Gupta invites his audience into a kitchen with immigrant storytellers, and local artist Marianne Vitale reimagines the American West with a cast of rattlesnake-bitten ranchers, wisecracking astrologers, and burlesque dancers.