Tania Bruguera's 'Travelling Performances

Tania Bruguera ranks among the foremost contemporary conceptual artists. Both in her life and in her art, she has defied and crossed borders and boundaries. This article intends to demonstrate the paradoxical nature of Bruguera's artistic enterprise: even as she adopts a post-modern stance, mostly through live performances, her work is deeply rooted in Cuba's indigenous traditions and painful past, as well as in its present-day life and politics. Breaking traditional boundaries between artistic media – painting, sculpture and body performance – Bruguera’s installations combine solid structures with ephemeral ones, while others are performances with the artist performing in front of an audience, requested to actively participate in the artwork. This article also discusses the changes introduced by the artist in the performances that took place in the US and in Europe, and concludes by discussing the impact of militant practices in contemporary performance art on audiences in our age of globalization

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Contemporary art · Ephemeral key · Indigenous · Media studies · Militant · Painting · Performance art · Political science · Politics · Sculpture · Sociology · Visual arts · Computer Science · Cuban History and Society · Law