10 Performance Art Pieces Straight out of a Horror Movie

Performance art is also sometimes called shock art. It’s inherently unsettling and uncomfortable, pushing the boundaries of society, artistic expression, and even the artist’s own body to provoke a reaction. Unlike traditional mediums, performance art isn’t something you just observe—the audience becomes part of the piece itself, sometimes as unwitting witnesses and sometimes as participants.

At its most extreme, this art form doesn’t just make people think—it makes them feel fear, disgust, and even revulsion. For the sake of art, performance artists have gone to places most wouldn’t dare, using their bodies to create something that resembles horror more than traditional art.

From self-mutilation to public violence to cannibalism, these are the most shocking performance art pieces ever staged.

Related: 10 Shocking Interruptions to Live Event Performances

10 Dinner – Eating People by Zhu Yu

With Dinner – Eating People, contemporary Chinese performance artist Zhu Yu posed a simple question: “Why can people not eat people?” In fact, he printed it on postcards and handed them out to anyone who asked about his work.

The resulting piece was a series of staged photographs showing the artist preparing and seemingly eating a six-month-old stillborn fetus. Though the images were withdrawn at the last moment to avoid Chinese censorship, they still went viral. Zhu insisted the work wasn’t performance art but “conceptual photography.” However, he never answered the question on everyone’s mind—did he eat an actual fetus? It was later revealed that it was a lab specimen soaked in formalin, and he hadn’t actually eaten it.

Zhu was no stranger to controversy. Previously, he had made headlines for eating jam made from human brains, using human cadavers in his live performances, and asking a prostitute to carry his child and abort it.^[1]

9 Fixation by Pyotr Pavlensky

People protest in all kinds of ways—signing petitions, chanting slogans, even hunger strikes. It’s rare, though, to see someone protest by nailing their genitals to the street. That’s exactly what Russian artist Pyotr Pavlensky did in 2013 as part of his performance piece Fixation, protesting Russia’s growing police state and state repression against artists.

Pavlensky had previously been in the news for sewing his lips shut in solidarity with Pussy Riot and wrapping himself in barbed wire to protest restrictions on freedom of speech. Fixation, however, was his most extreme act yet. He sat immobilized for over an hour with his scrotum nailed to the cobblestones of Red Square in Moscow as tourists and police watched, unsure of how to handle a protester physically attached to the ground.

He later explained the idea came from Gulag prisoners who, he claimed, nailed their scrotums to trees to protest the living conditions.^[2]

8 Suspensions by Stelarc

Stelarc is an Australian artist known for exploring the relationship between the human body and technology through his own body. His projects include Ping Body, where his body was remotely controlled by internet users, and Third Ear, where he implanted a lab-grown ear into his arm. His most shocking work, however, remains the Suspensions project—a series of live exhibitions around the world where he hung his body from hooks pierced through his skin.

First done in the 1970s, the performances used surgical hooks attached to cables that lifted him into the air, sometimes motionless, sometimes swinging or rotating. He repeated this over 30 times in locations ranging from Tokyo to Germany to Australia. The performances could last up to 20 minutes or end in a few seconds, like the time he fainted after just 60 seconds of suspension.

While these suspensions were carefully planned with engineers, they were never rehearsed—you can’t “rehearse” hanging yourself from steel hooks embedded in the body.^[3]

7 Untitled (Syncope) by Kira O’Reilly

Untitled (Syncope) begins with Kira O’Reilly, a UK artist, walking through an industrial space. She’s completely nude except for red stilettos and a black feather headdress, reminiscent of burlesque performances from the 1930s. The audience, usually unsuspecting viewers who don’t know what they’ve signed up for, watches as she breaks into a dance. She moves stiffly, almost like a robot, her steps matching the rhythm of a metronome beat playing in the background.

Suddenly, she picks up a scalpel and makes deep cuts in her calves. She continues dancing despite the bright red blood pooling in her shoes, creating a stark visual contrast with the gray and colorless surroundings.

The act was performed twice, in London in 2007 and in Glasgow in 2010. While O’Reilly’s earlier works explored themes such as self-harm and our relationship with modern medicine, Untitled (Syncope) was more of a statement against contemporary representations of women in popular culture.^[4]

6 Four Scenes in a Harsh Life by Ron Athey

Four Scenes in a Harsh Life was performed by Ron Athey against the backdrop of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the early 1990s. It was a controversial performance, featuring Athey and other artists engaging in disturbing acts with props like medical tables, suspended harnesses, and needles. The most shocking part was the bloodletting, as the performers occasionally used surgical instruments to bleed on stage.

Athey, an HIV-positive artist with a Pentecostal upbringing, created the piece as part of his Torture Trilogy, combining religious imagery with extreme body art. The performance included four scenes, each escalating in intensity as Athey and his team explored themes of pain and endurance.

The backlash was immediate. Conservative politicians pushed for defunding similar performances, leading to censorship of Athey’s other works by art galleries and the National Endowment for the Arts.^[5]

5 Ham Cybele – Century Banquet by Mao Sugiyama

In 2012, Japanese illustrator Mao Sugiyama made the most extreme statement possible about bodily autonomy and sexual minorities. A self-identified asexual artist, Sugiyama had his penis and testicles removed at age 22. He preserved the organs in a freezer and initially considered eating them himself. Instead, he decided to turn them into a meal, offering it to people on Twitter for 100,000 yen.

His post quickly went viral, and the meal was arranged as a public banquet he called Ham Cybele – Century Banquet, referencing the Anatolian mother goddess Cybele. About 70 people attended, though only five paid to eat the main dish.

Sugiyama dressed as a chef and prepared his genitals with mushrooms and parsley, though the meal was criticized by some as rubbery and bland. The banquet also included a panel discussion on gender identity and asexuality.^[6]

4 Cut Piece by Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono is usually remembered for her relationship with John Lennon, though few people know about her crucial contributions to performance art. Her most well-known piece, Cut Piece, was first performed in 1964 at Kyoto’s Yamaichi Concert Hall, and she repeated it in Tokyo, New York, London, and Paris.

It began with her kneeling onstage with only a pair of scissors next to her, inviting audience members to approach—one by one—and cut a piece of her clothing. Ono remained still and expressionless as people slowly cut through her garments. Some participants hesitated, clipping small pieces politely, while others were more audacious, like the man in New York who cut her bra strap.

While often interpreted as a feminist commentary on objectification, Ono clarified that the performer didn’t have to be a woman; it was a broader commentary on power and the relationship between artist and audience.^[7]

3 I Miss You by Franko B

Franko B was an Italian-born artist from the UK known for his disturbing, often bloody performances. In I Miss You—performed at London’s Tate Modern in 2003—he walked naked on a white canvas runway, with blood dripping from medical tubes inserted into veins in his arms. Styled like a fashion show, the piece had photographers at the end of the catwalk as he walked up and down for about 15 minutes, leaving pools of blood at each end. The blood-stained canvas was later used in his paintings and installations.

Born in Milan, Franko grew up in an orphanage before moving to London at age 19. His art style was inspired by other live artists like Marina Abramović. His other works included Aktion 398, where he sat in a room and chatted with people while sustaining a deep cut on his stomach.^[8]

2 Kunst und Revolution by Multiple Artists

Viennese Aktionism emerged as a radical live art movement in Vienna in the 1960s. Its main figures described it as experimental and boundary-breaking, often using extreme bodily acts to provoke and confront audiences.

Perhaps its most infamous event was Kunst und Revolution—or Art and Revolution—organized by Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Peter Weibel, Oswald Wiener, and Malte Olschewski in a lecture hall at the University of Vienna. While it was supposed to be part of ongoing campus protests, it quickly devolved into something far more extreme.

The artists performed naked, with Brus cutting himself, drinking his own urine, vomiting, and smearing feces on his body while singing the Austrian national anthem. Others engaged in urination, masturbation, and whipping. The media dubbed it “University Obscenity,” and the scandal led to arrests. Brus was sentenced to five months in prison; Mühl also served time, and Brus and Wiener were later deported.^[9]

1 Rhythm 0 by Marina Abramović

While Rhythm 0 started as a performance piece exploring control and power, it soon turned into an endurance test. Staged in 1974 at the Galleria Studio Mora in Naples, it lasted six hours. Abramović stood motionless beside a table holding 72 objects, including perfume, roses, and sugar, and dangerous items like razors, knives, and a loaded gun. A label read: “I am the object. During this period, I take full responsibility,” inviting the audience to do whatever they liked with her and the objects.

The audience was hesitant at first, just posing with her or writing on her skin. As the evening went on, however, the crowd became more violent. Someone cut her neck and drank her blood; others ripped her clothes and put a knife between her legs. Eventually, one participant aimed the loaded gun at her chest, bringing an abrupt end to the performance.

Rhythm 0 remains one of the most extreme performance art pieces ever created. It has never been recreated, though it can be revisited through photographs and the preserved original props at the Royal Academy in London.^[10]