Cyprien Gaillard - Floods of the Old and New World

Cyprien Gaillard - Floods of the Old and New World, 2011

Kate Owens - Affair at Styles (pink & blue)

Kate Owens - Affair at Styles (pink & blue)

Soft drink, cotton t-shirt, 2008-11

Martha Friedman - 'Yucca Column'

Martha Friedman - 'Yucca Column'

2006, Urethane foam, paint and stretch wrap

Gordon Matta Clark - Food

Tina Girouard, Carol Goodden, and Gordon Matta-Clark in front of Food, restaurant, New York, 1971

Photograph by Richard Landry, writing by Gordon Matta-Clark.

Janine Antoni - Gnaw

Janine Atoni - Gnaw (1992)

In Atoni's performance piece Gnaw, two 300kg cubes of chocolate and lard are placed on marble plinths in the gallery space. Using her mouth the artist gradually chews and carves away at the two blocks spitting out the chewed pieces to mould chocolate boxes and lipstick tubes.

Rirkrit Tiravanija - Free

In 1992 Rirkrit Tiravanija staged his seminal work Untitled 1992 (Free), a performative and interactive installation in the office of the 303 Gallery Soho New York.  Challenging the function of the gallery and the boundaries between viewer and audience Tiravanija emptied the space and installed a makeshift kitchen and apartment.

Open 24 hours a day, people lived, ate, slept, partied and had sex in the gallery, this simple anti-commercial gesture embodied an idealistic lifestyle of contemporary bohemian life. The interaction and action of the audience was the art. What has now been labeled as Relational Aesthetics, Tiravanija was at the forefront of dissolving the boundaries between art and life and challenged the establishment in which it was housed.