Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979 is the first major museum exhibition to examine the complex relationship linking the creative process, action or performance, and works of art in the postwar period. Featuring nearly 150 artists and collaboratives from approximately 20 countries in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Japan, and North and South America—including figures associated with the New York School, Nouveaux Realistes, Fluxus, Viennese Actionists, Hi Red Center, Arte Povera, the Gutai group, happenings, process art, and performance art—the exhibition centers on how the possibilities and implications of using time and process as elements of art were realized by a number of international movements during this influential 30-year period. 

Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979 is organized by MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel in consultation with an international advisory team consisting of: Guy Brett, independent curator and writer from London; Hubert Klocker, Vienna-based critic, independent curator and curator of Collection Friedrichshof; Shinichiro Osaki, curator at the National Museum of Art in Osaka; and Kristine Stiles, professor of art history at Duke University.