The opening of The Tanks will be seen as a pivotal moment in the history of art, but at the first exhibition the curatorial failure was more or less total, writes Richard Dorment.

Performance art began in the early 20th century with the Futurists, Dadaists and Surrealists, combining elements of theatre, dance, literature, painting, sculpture, music and film.
It came of age with the collaborations between Merce Cunningham, John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg in the Sixties. Yves Klein’s paint-covered nude models rolling on blank canvases; Chris Burden being shot in the arm by a studio assistant; Gilbert and George covered in silver paint singing Underneath the Arches: only a handful of people actually saw these famous performances and not one of them first took place in a public gallery.
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