Action and Body Art. Term used of certain art manifestations of the late 1960s, making use of the body, or direct reference to it, also involving actions by its exponents on their own bodies, or public performances calculated to shock or bore and so prompt consideration of the tedium and violence of life. Instances include patterned sun-burning, the taking of casts of limbs, e.g. Bruce Nauman's From Hand to Mouth (1967), a 12-hour lecture by Beuys Joseph, self-mutilation, and shocking or obscene exhibitionism.