Taking its title from David Hockney’s iconic 1967 image of a California swimming pool and Jack Hazan’s docu-fiction film about Hockney’s life, A Bigger Splash considers the specific ways performance art has challenged and energized the medium of painting from 1950 to the present day. Moving through more than half a century of key works in painting, video, and photography, this book features examples by artists such as Yves Klein, Jackson Pollock, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Cindy Sherman, along with new work and archival and documentary materials. Three essays, covering the evolution of contemporary practice, the issue of pictorial space in painting with reference to history, and the relationship between the theoretical concept of “performativity” to the issues played out within that high period of “performance art,” offer readers new ways of looking at the web of influence between familiar works.