Because performance is by its very nature ephemeral, it elicits a desire for what is lost more than any other form of art making. But what is the nature of that desire, and on what models has it been structured? How has it affected the ways in which the history of performance art gets told? In What the Body Cost, Jane Blocker revisits key works in performance art by Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, Hannah Wilke, Yves Klein, Ana Mendieta, and others to challenge earlier critiques that characterize performance, or body art, as a purely revolutionary art form and fail to recognize its reactionary-and sometimes damaging-effects. The scholarship to date on performance art has not, she finds, gone far enough in locating the body at the center of the performance, nor has it acknowledged the psychic, emotional, or social costs exacted on that body. Drawing on the work of critical theorists such as Roland Barthes and Catherine Belsey, as well as queer theory and feminism, What the Body Cost reads against patriarchal and heteronormative tendencies in art history while providing a corrective to the established view that performance art is necessarily transgressive. Instead, Blocker suggests that the historiography of performance art is a postmodern lovers' discourse in which practitioners, historians, and critics alike fervently seek the body while doubting it can ever be found. Jane Blocker is assistant professor of art history at the University of Minnesota and author of Where Is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity, and Exile (1999).

Because performance is by its very nature ephemeral, it elicits a desire for what is lost more than any other form of art making. But what is the nature of that desire, and on what models has it been structured? How has it affected the ways in which the history of performance art gets told?In What the Body Cost, Jane Blocker revisits key works in performance art by Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, Hannah Wilke, Yves Klein, Ana Mendieta, and others to challenge earlier critiques that characterize performance, or body art, as a purely revolutionary art form and fail to recognize its reactionary-and sometimes damaging-effects. The scholarship to date on performance art has not, she finds, gone far enough in locating the body at the center of the performance, nor has it acknowledged the psychic, emotional, or social costs exacted on that body.Drawing on the work of critical theorists such as Roland Barthes and Catherine Belsey, as well as queer theory and feminism, What the Body Cost reads against patriarchal and heteronormative tendencies in art history while providing a corrective to the established view that performance art is necessarily transgressive. Instead, Blocker suggests that the historiography of performance art is a postmodern lovers' discourse in which practitioners, historians, and critics alike fervently seek the body while doubting it can ever be found.Jane Blocker is assistant professor of art history at the University of Minnesota and author of Where Is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity, and Exile (1999).

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From renowned mental health expert and speaker Dr. Gabor Maté, this acclaimed, bestselling guide provides insight into the mind-body link between illness and health, and the critical role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases. In this accessible and groundbreaking book—filled with the moving stories of real people—medical doctor and bestselling author Gabor Maté shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and many others. An international bestseller translated into over thirty languages, When the Body Says No promotes learning and healing, providing transformative insights into how illlness can be the body's way of saying no to what the mind cannot or will not acknowledge. With great compassion and erudition, Dr. Maté demystifies medical science and empowers us all to be our own health advocates.

Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.