Before man was aware of art he was aware of himself. Awareness of the person is, then, the first art. In performance art the figure of the artist is the tool for the art. It is the art.

Equally, we use this assumption to help us "get out of' numerous situations. A work of art that may be quite useless, quite impossible to understand, perhaps, quite meaningless in every way, can be justified if it manages to refer specifically and exclusively to its own self. The phrase that explains this attitude, in French, is "l'Art, pour l'Art." It is the cornerstone of modernism. It is the major theoretical basis for all modern art, be it painting, video, architecture, or environmental. However, it no longer works.

The shifts in art that will be lasting and that will help determine the art of the future will be those that recognize the limitations, if not the absurdity of this assumption. A medium may, in fact, be interesting and useful and challenging when it tries to be something that it is not. | This attitude, expressed above, is difficult for some people to understand, they have been so thoroughly trained to accept the idea that art is what it is, as the only code for making, evaluating, and understanding contemporary art. Yet the very profound level of artistic energy that is currently expended in the… performance field indicates that the major basis for modernist art is crumbling. We are indeed upon the threshold of a new art, and it is about time. The art that has been presented as new, it is becoming painfully clear, usually isn't new at all. For it continually relies upon the basic assumption that made all modern art possible in the first place, and such art is, of course, no longer new or modern. A truly new modern art will emerge when the basic theoretical foundation for the new (old) art of our time gives way. | 1984, 10-11