John Armleder (born 1948) is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art pieces, installations and collective art activities. Armleder's position throughout his career has been to avoid associating his artistic practice with any type of manifesto.

Together with Patrick Lucchini and Claude Rychner, Armleder founded Groupe Ecart in Geneva In 1969, from which stemmed the Galerie Ecart and its associated performance group and publications. Groupe Ecart was particularly important in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, not only through its activity as an independent publishing house, but also because it introduced in Switzerland – and sometimes in Europe – a large number of notable artists, including Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol.

Armleder frequently examines the context in which art is displayed and views the exhibition as a medium in its own right. Since the 1990s, he has created installations, paintings, wall paintings, sculptures and what he calls Furniture Sculptures – installations which usually juxtapose furniture with monochrome or abstract paintings, either literally on the furniture or on a canvas hanging nearby. His work has varied greatly in form, and has, since the beginnings, used chance as a method of producing the final forms that pieces take. He often uses a dense scenographic hanging style, putting individual works into close proximity and creating installation-like exhibitions.

“I never consider a piece of work as started or finished”, John Armleder said about his work. “There's a plan and then what happens, happens. The furniture has a history that I don't know about, because they're used chairs... Whatever you use, there's something else to it than what you believe you know or you master."