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There are artists who take their craft to a whole other level - the stage, that is - and whether or not the wide variety of performance art out there is indeed 鈥渁rt鈥� is still a hotly debated question. Performance art often challenges traditional social and cultural practices; it has multiple meanings, is live, often autobiographical and above all, there are no rules. The artist may use scripts or improvisations, perform solo, or with collaborators or audience participants. Performance artists tend to shock, evoking a response from the audience that is just as powerful as the piece itself. As critic and writer RoseLee Goldberg once noted, 鈥淧erformance [art] has been a way of appealing directly to a large public, as well as shocking audiences into reassessing their own notions of art and its relation to culture.鈥� Essentially, performance art intends to make an impression - and it can be labeled 鈥榓rt鈥� simply because the artist says so.

Check out these performance artists who have inspired a wide-range of reactions from critics and crowds, setting the stage for years to come. Like it or not, performance art begs the question...Is it art? You be the judge.

Up first on our list is the self-proclaimed grandmother of performance art, Marina Abramovi膰, whose career spans well over three decades. 鈥淥nce you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do,鈥� the artist has said. In some of her earliest works - the Rythm series, for example - Abramovi膰 played with knives (her injuries became part of the performance), cut her hair and toenails and threw them into a fire (which she later leapt across), and took pills to induce various altered mental states (including seizures). These explorations of ritual and gesture all meant to portray the violation of her body.听 (Above: Scene from The Artist is Present, 2010, with Abramovic and a participating viewer)

In 2010 she performed The Artist is Present at MoMA, which was the venue鈥檚 first performance art retrospective. Running for over two months, visitors were invited to sit across from the artist for any length of time, thus participating in the artwork. For her part, Abramovi膰 sat silently for hours, appearing more haggard as time went on. The Artist Is Present was her longest performance to date, and following its success, MOCA invited Abramovic in 2011 to serve up an 鈥� exhibit for its annual gala, which she did with characteristic flair.

Next, we couldn鈥檛 fail to mention a few of the genre鈥檚 other ground-breakers, like artist Chris Burden, whose 1971 piece Shoot involved him being shot in the arm by an assistant. Just a few years later, the artist brought pain back to performance when he was veritably crucified, nailed to the top of a Volkswagen for the aptly- titled Trans-Fixed. That same year he performed White Light/White Heat, spending 22 days lying on a triangular platform in the corner of New York鈥檚 Ronald Feldman Gallery, during which time Burden claims he didn鈥檛 talk, eat, or sleep. (Right: Burden is literally 'transfixed' by the Volkswagen. Below, image from Hsieh's infamous Cage Piece).

Then there鈥檚 the notorious navigator of imprisonment, Tehching Hsieh. In one of his most famous works, One Year Performance 1978鈥�1979 (Cage Piece), the artist was locked in a small wooden cage for one year, where he was not allowed to talk, read, write, watch TV or listen to the radio. Visitors were permitted to view Hsieh鈥檚 self-imposed jail sentence twice a month. In his career, the artist has completed a total of six durational pieces, which are said to be explorations of individual struggle. His most recent work lasted 13 years.