BOOK LAUNCH: Performance in the Museum - 8 October 2025
Join Lund Humphries and Sotheby's Institute of Art for the launch of Pierre Saurisse's new book Performance in the Museum. The author will be in conversation with Catherine Wood, Director of Curatorial & Chief Curator, Tate Modern.
Date and time:
Wed, 8 Oct 2025 18:00 - 19:30 BST
Location:
Sotheby's Institute of Art
30 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3EE
About this event
Pierre Saurisse will present his new book Performance in the Museum. This book charts the main stages of the inclusion of performance in the museum from the 1960s to the present day. It focuses on four specific areas affecting museums: the staging of live performance within exhibitions; the conservation of performance; the acquisition of performance works; and research on performance.
Following this short talk, Saurisse will be in conversation with Catherine Wood.
This conversation will be followed by a drinks reception.
The event is free to attend but you must register for a ticket.
About the author:
Pierre Saurisse is a Senior Lecturer on the MA in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. Since writing his book on chance in 1960s art in 2007, his research has primarily concentrated on performance. He has explored the history of performance in numerous articles and essays, including ‘Gilbert and George’s Radical Good Manners’ in Visual Culture in Britain and ‘Creative Process and Magic’ in the book The Mediatization of the Artist. Over the past years, his work has focused on the relationship between performance and art institutions, leading to his book Performance in the Museum. In 2023, he was an invited speaker at a major conference on museum collections at École du Louvre in Paris and Université de Montréal.
About the interviewer:
Catherine Wood is Director of Curatorial & Chief Curator, Tate Modern. She joined Tate Modern in 2002 and has curated and co-curated major exhibitions such as The World as a Stage in 2007, A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance in 2012, Robert Rauschenberg in 2016, and has worked with artists such as Tania Bruguera, Anne Imhof and Cecilia Vicuna. She has been instrumental in making performance and live art a core part of Tate Modern’s programme, becoming Senior Curator, International Art (Performance) in 2015. In recent years she led on the BMW Tate Live Exhibition series in the Tanks and initiated Tate’s first live-streamed performance programme in 2012. She has also played a key role in bringing live, time-based works of art into Tate’s collection.
