EXTRA CREDIT is a new education series that aims to provide a general overview of contemporary art and to demystify the field for those outside of the art world. It is ideal for anyone interested in learning more and for those looking to further engage with exhibitions and museums. Classes will take place on Sundays at 12PM from June 4 through July 30.

Sharon Hayes presents Performance in Contemporary Art: On Stage, In Museums and on the Streets. The term “performance art” came into use in the art world in the mid-1970s as a catch-all to describe a wide range of activities that included protest art actions, concrete art, Happenings, Fluxus, ceremonies, demonstrations, dance, kinetic theater, arte povera, earth or ecological art, process art, interactive art, guerrilla art, guerrilla theater, guerrilla art action, street theater, live art, event art, event structure, consciousness raising, survival research and other activities. This course will make a quick pass through this unruly history and then focus in on a few performance works to help understand what performance is and why artists use/do it.

This event is free and open to the public; register here.

SHARON HAYES is an artist who engages multiple mediums—video, performance, and installation—in an ongoing investigation into specific intersections between history, politics, and speech. Hayes’ work is concerned with developing new representational strategies that examine and interrogate the present political moment as a moment that reaches simultaneously backward and forward; a present moment that is never wholly its own but rather one that is full of multiple past moments and the speculations of multiple futures. From this ground, Hayes often addresses political events or movements from the 1960s through the 1990s. her focus on the particular sphere of the near-past is influenced by the potent imbrication of private and public urgencies that she experienced in her own foundational encounters with feminism and AIDS activism. Hayes teaches in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Fine Arts.

Extra Credit is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.