Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 97-113, 177-194, and 203-224 in the Fusco book.
Here are some considerations:
•Comment on the usefulness and functionality of some of the alternate labels for work (other than "performance art") mentioned in the Ramos essay. How might some of these terms better describe your own work? How are they useful in the context of Venezuelan work, or do you find similar problems with all terms?
•Discuss the claim from the 1981 CADA work that "the work of improving the accepted standard of living is the only valid art form/the only exhibition/the only worthwhile works of art." Pay attention to specific implications of words and how they translate for you and your experience, i.e., if this statement is assumed to be valid, what is really meant by "form" and "exhibition"?
•Are you persuaded by Lotty Rosenfeld's discussion of her work? Why or why not?
•What are the implications of Felipe Ehrenberg's designation of the street happenings between the two galleries as art? If these are pieces, is he the artist of the piece because he identified them as such? Or do the pieces have unwitting artists, or no creating artist at all?
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•Comment on the usefulness and functionality of some of the alternate labels for work (other than "performance art") mentioned in the Ramos essay. How might some of these terms better describe your own work? How are they useful in the context of Venezuelan work, or do you find similar problems with all terms?
I think the variety of labeling is very useful in both Venezuelan and all "performance art." The only common thread I observed in the Venezuelan artists was the continued use of oil as a conceptual subject, but for the most part, the artists were all very different and had very different ideas and performances. These different labels are useful because they can differentiate between a big group of artists that have all been lumped into the catagory of 'Venezuelan Performance Artists.' Of course, this whole business of labeling is primarily for organizational and associational purposes. Although as commented in one of the first essays we read in this class, that labeling is something that most artists don't really care about, it is nice when an artist labels himself as an "action poet" for example because then you won't have to debate so much on how to classify someone if the someone has already done so. Plus, since many artists have the desire to set themselves apart from other artists by innovative labeling, soon you have a short descriptive label for every artist and there are hundreds and thousands of labels and life is more interesting. You can see this in practice on internet radio websites where internet dj's get very specific about the style of music they like. I enjoy this trend.
I'm not very convinced by Lotty Rosenfeld. She uses such powerful language in her artist's statements that does not reflect such relatively passive work. She says or is described as, "desecrating the cult of art, exposing the operations of official power, altering the codes of urban movement, exposing the ideal expressed by linear transportation, contravening the traffic of meaning, etc." Perhaps there is something lost in the documentation of this work, but the "operations" are too innocous to deserve the inflamatory descriptions. The concept is novel but not emotionally charged. Perhaps this is a realized part of her work, to perform little actions but talk about them as if they were a really big deal.
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