Interesting and informative thread, which happily hasn't descended into war.

Also, timely to see Jim Carroll mentioning "agit-prop" (17 Dec 11 - 03:07 PM). I've just written about this in an essay on Performance Art and for information there's an entry on Wikipedia and also on the Tate Gallery website here.

Also interesting to note the comments about teaching being ignored (Owen 17 Dec 11 - 10:08 AM): In 1960 the then student Allen Jones (went on to become quite successful...) was expelled from the Royal College of Art for being "too independant"! (biog).

This could be viewed as thread creep, I guess, but adds to the wider context IMO.