Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: Performance Art: (Some) Theory and (Selected) Practice at the End of This Century by Martha Wilson and section one in the library reserve binder, chapter 5 in Performance: A Critical Introduction by Marvin Carlson. (Pages 152-226 in the Goldberg book are addressed in your individual entry posts.)
Here are some considerations:
•After the descriptions of performance art as a genre in these two readings (and almost one month in class), locate/delineate your understanding of the nature of performance art.
•How do the discussions in these readings of some of the artists you are already familiar with from class videos, discussions, and prior readings clarify, expand, or change your understanding of these artists' works?
•For those of you with a background in theatre, respond to references to theatre as the antecedent and discussions of theatre's relationship to performance art.
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12 comments:
yes.
please post on this. especially that last consideration point.
my next door neighbor, who just finished her masters' in theater, and i were trying to talk about that very idea and got NOWHERE. so please, help me out.
thanks.
My assignment post for the Goldberg reading were the artists: Laurie Anderson, Julia Heyward and Adrian Piper. Each of these performance artists used material from their own lives for their pieces and these types of pieces were called "autobiographical." Using their past as fuel for their performance allowed them to connect with the audience in a different way than other types of performance art. The fact that it's the artist using their own past as symbols in their performance makes the performance seem less removed than other forms of performance art or any kind of art.
The reading on Anderson, Heyward and Piper also made me feel that my performing the self piece wasn't as bad as I orginally thought. These artists were using what they knew to interpret their art. They used what they already knew and combined it with other things to create their performances. The audience was able to better understand their meaning for it. The reason I chose such a straightforward approach to my performing the self piece was because I didn't want the meaning to be completely lost.
My understanding of performance art: Throughout the reading and classes it seems that one of the biggest factors in performance art is the use of the body. It can be used in different ways from very concrete uses like dance, to borish and literal examples of what you can do with the body like sit and move and walk, and also using the body to mean nothing like the happenings of the 70's. I have also gained the understanding that performance art is never really to be repeated like most other art forms. With theater you do several performances in a week and photography is duplicated over and over and even painting are being copied. Performance art though seems to be unique in that it is done specifically at a certain place and time and is impossible to recreate becuase the time cannot be recreated and the place may have lost its meaning or importance
In comparing the Carlson reading to Goldbeg's book, I think that Carlson is more about explaining what performance art is and what the artists were trying to achieve with ther works. Goldberg never really touched on this subject but more wanted to give the history of performance art and exactly where it came from and what happened when. Carlson deals with the history but only as far as he needs to in order to explain his point.
Marina Abramovic, from Yogoslavia, performed a series of works based on ideas of ritual, bodily pain, and the state of conciousness of the performer. In a work titled "Rhythm 10" she used knives to ritually stab her fingers, in "Rhythm 5" she ultimately passed out from lack of oxygen beneath a flaming star, in "Rhythm 2" she ingested various drugs that altered her body mechanics and mental states, and in "Rhythm 0" she had audience members inflict pain, with various instruments, upon her for six hours. She felt that during the high energy of a performance her body could withstand things it normally could not.
In "Rhythm 0", Abramovic explored the relationship between an audience member and the performer, a strongly reoccuring theme in performance art, by giving the audience a choice to inflict harm against her without consequence. From all the performances we have studied with the theme of audience/performer boundries, I think this piece is the most powerful. Since Abramovic, considered the "performer", is completely passive to any act by the "audience", the roles of each are reversed. And when the action is that of real violence, the performance by the "audience" is heighted, made more real, in the present.
My understanding of performance art is that it is an art which addresses all other forms of expression encompassing the importance of the moment. I am reminded of the Basualdo's lecture when he emphasized the importance between an art 'movement' and an art 'moment.' Performance art I think also weighs heavily on the own artist intention for his or her work. When the intention is set for the peice to be performance art by the artist, it is- and that alone qualifies it to be Performance Art. I also veiw performance art as raw spritual experience for the performer and the audience (if present and if member is open to it). From the readings, clips, and other examples we have been shown in class on performance art, I can conclude it is an expansive, limitless, art that provides space for the extreme to the very mundane dependant on the artists obedience to showcasing at a certain time, in a certain place, in a certain state.
For me, Performance Art is a culmination of several artistic forms. It can include: mime, theater, visual art, movement/ dance/choreography, vocal, music, slap-stick and commentary. An artist chooses the medium in which they are comfrotable or challenged by. Performance Art gives everyone the opportunity of both. In many forms of ART, the audience is the main benfactor, i.e. done for an audience's enjoyment/ critique. Performance Art takes that element to a broader and yet more personalized level. As we have seen/ experienced in class what one person may consider art another can't stand. General art exhibited in whatever format to the mainstream is often 'liked' by masses because of its pre-assumed appeal. If you go to a gallery or theater for a show, someone had to have liked it enough to make it accessible to the public. Performance Art is such a personal experience for the artist that if it is performed only once their is no chance to 'test' it before releasing it to the masses. In fact it is rare that the "MASS" even takes note of it. Performance Art combines the possibilities of so many different media it could be easily marketed to the masses but then it would lose its independent appeal. It is a choice by each participant (artist & audience) as to whether or not they approve of the performance. Although every art from has this right, many opinions are 'forced' upon the participants simply by being offered to the public-at-large.
As a theatre major I see some perfomance art to have a residue of some alternative theatrical styles. There is a group called The Neofuturists. They address social, political and personal enlightenment to there edgy sketches and montages of self written and self directed shows often interactive with the audience. They are an ensemble group that aims at strengthening the human bonds on, off and between the stage, by continuing the every day life into inexpensive art that embraces the moment. One of my favorite productions they do is called, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. It is an attempt to to do 30 plays in one hour. The plays are anywhere from three seconds to five minutes long and are all written and produced by the actors using their real names addressing their own real life. I have actually been in my own TMLMLBGB show, and have seen the neofuturists perform twice in Chicago. They are an inspiration to the theatre I am most interested in which I find closely relates to some performance art. I feel that honing in on performance art will bring a new element of a 'bigger conciousness' or some lifted human 'greater understanding' to my art. Atleast an artist can always hope their work is somewhat elevated and prestiges in its own special way. can I get a witness?
In the paper written by Martha Wilson, she talks early on about the distinct dividing line between performance art, and theater. For me, her definitions were helpfull, because they helped clarify some of the gray aria i still had. I came into this class heavaly relating performing art to theater, but the quote she included "theater is the willfull suspension of disbelief", and her description of performing art being a reality taking place here and now made the difference more clear in my mind.
Amelia. I witness. I think the reason performance art can give one that additional understanding about the creation of art is because the primary ingredient is TIME and the problems the performance artists have to solve involve how to manipulate an audiences reaction to the present. I can see how this would be very helpful for a theatre person because it's like taking a big box full of all the elements that go into creating art and dumping it out on the table and sifting through it to figure out what it is really made of and how it works. This may be the reason that so much performance art deals with the performers quest for experiences and meaning. It also makes sense that performance art would come into its own in the 70's when both conceptual art and minimalism were around- it is an art of ideas, but simple, vague, abstract ideas that are almost too subconcious to realize. Maybe
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