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The article focuses on legislation concerning performance art in the United States. Performance art, through its confrontational use of the live body, is often interpreted as a danger to the public morals. In addition to being perceived as a moral threat, the performers conduct might be viewed as physically hazardous to others. As a result, performance artists have faced both legal and extralegal controls through obscenity or lewdness prosecutions; the forced editing of performances; denial of public funding; and regulation based on the public welfare, health, or safety. While the U.S. Supreme Court has assumed that artistic expression is entitled to some measure of First Amendment protection, it has never thoroughly articulated its reasoning behind this assumption. On effectively a medium-by-medium basis, the Court has determined that a variety of artistic expressive conduct falls within the scope of the First Amendment. The article observes that the application of principles of freedom of speech depends on whether one approaches a particular artistic medium or legal standard from an audience-centered or speaker-centered interpretation of the First Amendment.