Please post at least two comments on the readings for this week: the Klaus Groh essay, the Jon Erickson essay, and pages 7-49 in the Goldberg book.
Here are some considerations:
•How do the working definitions of performance art, whether delineated, implied, or retreated from, differ for each author?
•What claims are you inclined to believe/agree with? (and why)
•Are you willing to answer any of the questions asked by Erickson in the concluding sections of his essay? ("Should we expect a historian. . .to be a skilled theoretician at the same time?" "When and how does theatre become 'performance theatre," "the relation of art to life" etc.)
•Defend or refute Goldberg's claim on pg. 9 that the base of performance art has always been anarchic.
•If you have studied the Futurists in other courses (art history, English, etc), how does this recounting of the movement's history differ from what you learned before about the individual artists work, their motivations? Does this recontextualization affect your reading of their manifesto claims?
•Why are these authors making claims about artists' "desperation" (Groh), "impatience" (Goldberg), experience in "ridicule" (Erickson)? What might this imply about the art world, mainstream culture's perception of performance art, or an artist's choice to work in performance? How does this square with your experience of the "art world"?
Please note: Erickson's references to Goldberg's book, Performance: Live Art Since 1960 differ from his references to her book, Live Art: 1908 to the Present, which is an earlier version of our class text.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
The Goldberg reading about Mayakovsky was interesting to me because I have never thought of performance artists to be so arrogant before. I also never thought of using art for propaganda before reading chapter 2
The Groh reading was much more about the exact definition of what he thought performance art was but it jumped around too much and had too much terminology for such a short answer on what performance art is
The Groh reading, Klaus Groh describes performance art as he sees it. I found his definition to be difficult to follow. It seemed to be very short and choppy. By reading the title to this paper, I believed it was going to give me a straight definition of what performance art is, which Groh does in parts of the paper. In other parts of the paper, he goes too much into detail about what he thinks it is, rather than what it is. It may just be the organization of his paper that throws me off or the fact that his examples are so specific. I looked up the definition of performance art on Wikipedia. The definition that it gave, actually described performance art and a broader look on what is considered performance art. This is Wikipedias definition of performance art:
"Performance art is art in which the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. It can happen anywhere, at any time, or for any length of time. Performance art can be any situation that involves four basic elements: time, space, the performer's body and a relationship between performer and audience. It is opposed to painting or sculpture, for example, where an object constitutes the work. Of course the lines are often blurred. For instance, the work of Survival Research Laboratories is considered by most to be "performance art", yet the performers are actually machines.
Although performance art could be said to include relatively mainstream activities such as theater, dance, music, and circus-related things like fire breathing, juggling, and gymnastics, these are normally instead known as the performing arts. Performance art is a term usually reserved to refer to a kind of usually avant-garde or conceptual art which grew out of the visual arts.
Performance art, as the term is usually understood, began to be identified in the 1960s with the work of artists such as Vito Acconci, Hermann Nitsch, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell and Allan Kaprow, who coined the term happenings. Western cultural theorists often trace performance art activity back to the beginning of the 20th century. Dada for example, provided a significant progenitor with the unconventional performances of poetry, often at the Cabaret Voltaire, by the likes of Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara. However, there are accounts of Renaissance artists putting on public performances that could be said to be early ancestors to modern performance art. Some performance artists point to other traditions, ranging from tribal ritual to sporting events. Performance art activity is not confined to European art traditions; many notable practitioners can be found in the United States, Asia, and Latin America.
RoseLee Goldberg states in Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present:
“Performance has been a way of appealing directly to a large public, as well as shocking audiences into reassessing their own notions of art and its relation to culture. Conversely, public interest in the medium, especially in the 1980s, stems from an apparent desire of that public to gain access to the art world, to be a spectator of its ritual and its distinct community, and to be surprised by the unexpected, always unorthodox presentations that the artists devise. The work may be presented solo or with a group, with lighting, music or visuals made by the performance artist him or herself, or in collaboration, and performed in places ranging from an art gallery or museum to an “alternative space”, a theatre, café, bar or street corner. Unlike theatre, the performer is the artist, seldom a character like an actor, and the content rarely follows a traditional plot or narrative. The performance might be a series of intimate gestures or large-scale visual theatre, lasting from a few minutes to many hours; it might be performed only once or repeated several times, with or without a prepared script, spontaneously improvised, or rehearsed over many months.”
Performance art genres include body art, fluxus, happening, action poetry, and intermedia. Some artists, e.g. the Viennese Actionists and neo-Dadaists, prefer to use the terms live art, action art, intervention or manoeuvre to describe their activities."
This definition makes more sense because it gives a broader outlook on what performance art really is rather than one persons opinion about what performance art is.
The Performing Distinctions by Jon Erickson:
He represented totally himself. His... life story telling things. Aslo, he described about Godlberg and his works(and papers), but I am not sure he likes him or not.
Anyway, this essay was too lecture to me. I felt a little bit dry to read for fun. Maybe I needed summary of it. However, I am sure there were lots of information of modern performing art.
The Rose lee Goldberg reading:
First of all, I found really many interesting pictures, and these were new to me. Also, I think this chapter was about the first step of what we are going to learn and practice in the class. Modern Performance Art, it is totally new item to me; however, I found that all performing do not need to be "moved." I thought performing means moving.
It was a very good thing that we can found performing forms. Anyway, I think I need to find more about futurism art work.
I found the topic of "Noise Music" to be particulatly interesting. The description of "mechanized music" and the sound of machines makes me think of moderrn industrial techno. Also, the description of how it was used early in performing art as the backround for stechato movements mimicing machines or robots sort of eludes to modern pop and lock dancing to me, which is often performed to said industrial techno.
it was cool to get that image in my head, and relate it to performing art.
synthetic theater, as talked about on page 26, doesnt make much sence to me. i understand the "synthetic" or manufactured conothation, but i dont see the point behind reducing all of shakespears work into one act, nor how it would be possable while remaining comprehendable.
Post a Comment