Live performances are now an everyday occurrence in art museums. Yet is this really a new development? When, how and why did art come to life in the museum? These are the questions the author examines. She highlights the less well-known beginnings of the phenomenon of performance in the museum and thus rewrites the history of museums and performances within them. Starting with the US art world of the 1970s, a nucleus of early performance art, she examines presentations and exhibitions by performers such as Merce Cunningham, Laurie Anderson and Chris Burden. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a guest appearance. Beyond the common narrative of performance art as a form of resistance, analyses of the institutional, economic and political contexts offers an intriguing collection of curios from cultural history.