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AN ATTEMPT to cook a human blood pudding as an act of outrageous art has been abandoned after health inspectors were alerted. Scottish artists John Beagles and Graham Ramsay were planning to slice and fry black pudding made from their own blood in a show of "live art" this afternoon. But they were forced to abandon the project after Edinburgh City Council dispatched its environmental health officers to the Royal Scottish Academy building on the Mound, the show’s organisers said. The National Galleries of Scotland, which runs the building, also read the riot act against any such creative cookery. John...

In 1962, the painter and film critic Manny Farber coined the phrase "termite art" to describe small-scale work with an obsessive bent. This month, the Chelsea gallery LMAKprojects is offering a strangely literal twist on this idea: for the inaugural exhibition of its satellite location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the artist Emily Katrencik is eating the wall that separates the gallery's exhibition space from the bedroom of its director, Louky Keijsers. Five days a week, Ms. Katrencik consumes a section of wall 1.956 inches square and three sheets of drywall thick, for a total of about 8.5 cubic inches of drywall;...

2 UCLA professors quit after gun allegedly used in performance Associated Press LOS ANGELES - Two tenured art professors have resigned from the University of California, Los Angeles, after the university refused to suspend a graduate student who may have used a gun during a classroom performance art piece. The resignations came after a brief performance on Nov. 29 in which a student simulated Russian roulette by appearing to point a loaded handgun at his head and pull the trigger, a student and law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times. The weapon didn't fire, but the student then left...

Two tenured art professors have resigned from the University of California, Los Angeles, because the school refused to suspend a graduate student who may have used a gun during a classroom performance art piece. Chris Burden and Nancy Rubins, internationally known artists who taught at UCLA for more than two decades, filed their retirement papers Dec. 20. "They feel this was sort of domestic terrorism. There should have been more outrage and a firmer response," said Sarah Watson, a director at a Beverly Hills gallery that represents the couple. In the brief performance on Nov. 29, the student appeared to...

Second of two parts. What is the artist's role in society? Artists have been debating the question throughout history. The former U.S. poet laureate said he thought about the election results all day -- "when I could think." "The question of how the rest of us should behave seems pressing," he said. "Erosion of civil liberties? The courts? Further and deeper predations on the environment? It's hard to see how the Endangered Species Act will survive, except perhaps in name. An interesting indicator of the intentions of that Bush clique will be to see whether they punish Republican dissenters like...

Puppetry of the Penis has survived yet another complaint, with police in the US city of Chicago ignoring pressure to ban performances by the controversial Australian act. Featuring two naked puppeteers who twist their penises into different shapes, the show has attracted much attention since being created by Simon Morley in 1996. The latest complaint came from a concerned Chicago community advocate during the group's current US tour. Chicago Citizens for Community group spokeswoman Arlene Sawicki cited the Chicago Municipal Code in saying that the play was illegal and subject to law enforcement. Ms Sawicki has urged people to register...

Confirmed to date: Vanessa Carlton, Toni Childs, Rosario Dawson, Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, Rha Goddess & WE GOT ISSUES, Jehmu Greene, Isabella Rossellini, Susan Sarandon (pending availability), Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Gloria Steinem, Julia Stiles, Marie Wilson, and many more. WE GOT ISSUES has been commissioned by V-Day for the event and will feature young women speaking out through a performance-based dialogue on feminine power, politics, and civic transformation. The Executive Producers are V-Day Founder/Playwright Eve Ensler and V-Counsel Member/Actor Jane Fonda. Two Centerpiece Events Announced: "Vaginas Vote, Chicks Rock" September 13 at NYC's Apollo Theater and "Women And Power III:...

Has anyone heard or seen "Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping" and can gives some details on what they have seen? The 'reverend' is a "Performance Artist" who is very Liberal, somewhat activist working in NYC. I know with the convention coming up some of these folks may be truying to get National exposure. I know about this group because I know one of the 'members' from college days. Was wanting to hear more about them first hand. His site is: http://revbilly.com/index.php

When we lodged a complaint that Columbia University had allowed Comedy Central to film a movie entitled "Porn and Chicken" at Columbia in 2002, we thought that we had reached the dregs of a cultural wasteland. We were wrong. According to an article in the June 13th edition of the New York Times Magazine, Andrea Fraser is selling her body to a collector for sex on a video. What the entertainment column failed to mention was that Ms. Fraser is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Columbia University School for the Arts. Even if the "art" was not performed at...

Ambassador Mazel’s "Performance Art" 17:26 Jan 18, '04 / 24 Tevet 5764 Israeli Ambassador to Sweden Tzvi Mazel caused an international diplomatic incident Friday with his act of protest against an installation art piece equating an Islamist suicide bomber with her Israeli victims. Israeli Ambassador to Sweden Tzvi Mazel caused an international diplomatic incident Friday with his act of protest against an installation art piece equating an Islamist suicide bomber with her Israeli victims. The Ambassador literally pulled the plug on the exhibit, on display at Stockholm’s Museum of National Antiquities. The piece, entitled "Snow White and the Madness...

'Performance art' hits Wal-Mart Store staff forces crowd to leave The Oconee County Wal-Mart was under siege Friday night by a guerrilla performance art project staged by University students for their Studio Art 2810 final. The students, who call their group "Private Agenda," held a rave in the family bathroom and a fashion show in the electronics department before being asked to leave by Wal-Mart staff, who warned participants over the store's public announcement system that they could be arrested. "Wal-Mart is the New America ... united we stand, 24 hours a day, consume, consume, consume," said James Kubie, a...

An artist who rolled a monkey nut seven miles with his nose has announced his latest stunt.Mark McGowan says he intends to sit for 12 days in a bath filled full of baked beans, with two chips up his nose and sausages wrapped around his head.It is due to take place in the shop window of a gallery near his home in Camberwell, south London, next month.Mr McGowan, 37, claims the serious issue behind the stunt is to defend criticism of the full English breakfast.The graduate in fine art attracted media attention when, on hands and knees, he rolled a...

That's how Nao kicked off her infamous 1992 work "Indigurrito" in which she strapped-on a burrito to her loins and called for white men to come up on stage, take a bite out of the burrito and absolve themselves of 500 years of the white man's guilt. There was no shortage of enobled participants, who knelt in front of the protuding offering, some taking delicate bites, others deep-throated chunks.

"That's how Nao kicked off her infamous 1992 work "Indigurrito" in which she strapped-on a burrito to her loins and called for white men to come up on stage, take a bite out of the burrito and absolve themselves of 500 years of the white man's guilt..."

Sean Lennon cuts away with scissors a piece of his artist mother Yoko Ono's dress as she repeats her 1960s performance 'Cut Piece', in Paris Monday Sept.15, 2003. The appearance repeats Ono's famous performance in Japan, which captivated the media and art critics at the time for its boldness. Sean Lennon is the son of the late Beatle John Lennon and Yoko Ono. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

PARIS (Reuters) - John Lennon (news)'s widow Yoko Ono (news) could end up stark naked on a Paris stage Monday as she performs her one-woman art show "Cut Piece," in which members of the audience are to cut off pieces of her clothing. Ono, 70, who accompanied her Beatle husband in numerous controversial anti-war campaigns including the "Bed-In for Peace" against the Vietnam War, first performed her "Cut Piece" show in 1964 in Japan as a protest for peace. At the end of the show, she stood naked before her audience. "Come and cut a piece of my clothing wherever...

A performance artist trying to wipe out his student debt by using his nose to roll a monkey nut across London has arrived at Downing Street. Crawling on his hands and knees, Mark McGowan nudged the nut over a kerb and up the steps to the famous black door of Number 10. He began his journey on 1 September at Goldsmiths College in New Cross, south-east London. Each day he covered about three-quarters of a mile in about eight hours. During his journey, the 37-year-old from Peckham, south-east London, has encountered abusive people, curious children, wide cracks in the pavement...

Yoko to recreate naked art show Yoko Ono is to re-stage her conceptual art project which saw her invite people to cut off her clothes until she was left naked. It was 40 years ago that Ono, widow of John Lennon, took to the stage in Japan for Cut Piece. Now Ono, 70, will recreate Cut Piece in Paris on 15 September in an effort to promote world peace. During the original stunt she wore a white gown and gave audience members scissors to cut away the fabric. She remained motionless until she was left completely naked. Now she...

<p>A grateful mayor is delighted that the Republican Party picked New York as the site of the 2004 presidential convention next September, and no wonder. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expects the event to draw 50,000 visitors and generate $150 million for the city.</p>

Billing itself as "ultimate minimalism," a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is charging theatre-goers to stare at an empty and silent stage for an hour. With no cast, no plot, no props and no script, the play has attracted wide media coverage in Britain but, alas, completes its emptiness by also attracting next to no audience. Appropriately called Sweet FA, the play's opening night attracted six journalists to the early morning performance at the 142-seat theatre inside Edinburgh's Crowne Plaza Hotel. On the second night, one journalist turned up but fell asleep in the lobby before the show began....