About

We aim to create a forum to question relationships between Comedy and Performance Art, asking questions such as ‘can (or should) Performance Art can be funny?) and ‘is the laughter response is something that both comedians and performance artists actively and legitimately seek?’ As Video artist Martin Creed suggests, 'comedians seem to look for the absurd and ridiculous, for things that are silly, in the same way that artists do'.

The rationale for the project draws directly on both the ethos and the writings of the Fluxus Group Movement. It takes in the linkages between the avant-garde performances of the early twentieth century Dadaists' preferred style of fusing music and a form of comedy in the 'Cabaret Voltaire' and takes further inspiration from modern and contemporary comedic and radical Performance Art of practitioners such as The Kipper Kids, Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Bryony Kimmings.

Finally, the project will touch upon the nature of comedy's troublesome relationship with critical thinking about the exhibiting and curation of ‘comic’ art in traditional settings.