Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 50-96 in the Goldberg book and the Performing Bodies conversation article found on JSTOR.
Here are some considerations:
•Construct a bridge between the motivating principles of the Dada/Surrealist artists and the contemporary Chinese artists.
•Explore the progressions, crossovers, and functional distinctions between the Futurists, the Dadaists, and the Surrealists respecting their performances.
•What provoking differences can you identify between the works of Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming despite their parallel backgrounds? Consider the similarities evident in an intial survey of their work and what different conceptual groundings could have led them to seemingly related products.
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What provoking differences can you identify between the works of Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming despite their parallel backgrounds? Consider the similarities evident in an intial survey of their work and what different conceptual groundings could have led them to seemingly related products.
Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming both came to performance art because of bodily experiences with their surroundings. Possibly because of Huan's experience of violence against his body he exposes his body to intense environments and primarily desires self knowledge, physically and spiritually. His performances are much less based around an audience and I get the impression that he would continue to expose his body to harsh environments even if there was no audience. Liuming's performances provoke thought among an audience regarding gender and involve more audience participation. His concept is more about the intellect and how humans think about the body and spirit. His thoughts on the body are based more on visual perception whereas Huan's are based more on touch.
I found it interesting that performance art is highly censored in China and indeed in all countries that have much censorship power. This makes sense because beginning with the Futurists, performance artists have consciously tried to be subversive. It seems that more so than any other medium in the 20th century art world, performance art blatently and purposefully questions cultural norms and values. You might even say that the creation of the medium was specifically meant to do just that. Performance Art=Subversive.
i compleatly agree with josh.
performance art, at least in most its forms = subversive.
ive noticed through class readings, and reading on my own that most perfomence art is controversial. having said that, one could argue that perhaps the less controversial forms simply do not get the same publicity because of that fact. I suppose what i have learned so far is that performance art has a different dynamic than other forms of art that lends itself to criticism. you can do it outright, and call it art.
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