Performance Art Post 6- Johana Lira

Performance Art 

Performance Art are art pieces produced by actions of the artist or other participants which may be live or recorded, spontaneous or scripted.

Performance art, an introduction by The Art Assignment and Dr. Virginia B. Spivey

•  "But, at its best, it taps into our most basic shared instincts: our physical and psychological needs for food, shelter, sex, and human interaction; our individual fears and self-consciousness; our concerns about life, the future, and the world we live in."

- We are so human that our physical and psychological needs food, shelter, sex, and to have social connection. Our individual our individual phobias and self awareness; what we think about life and the world we live in. 

• "Whereas painting and sculpture relied on expressive form and content to convey meaning, performance art forced viewers to engage with a real person who could feel cold and hunger, fear and pain, excitement and embarrassment—just like them."

- Performance Art is not only "acting" it is the removing of the social mask we wear. An artist goes past the smart part of our brain and hits us in our most human and vulnerable place. They remind us that we are very biological beings that are driven by the same vulnerabilities. When an artist uses their own self to challenge these needs they force the audience to connect with them and confront their own.

Yoko Ono’s Art of Defiance | The New Yorker

• “I think it is possible to see the chair as it is,” she explained. “But when you burn the chair, you suddenly realize that the chair in your mind did not burn or disappear.”

- I think that the way we can call this is Conceptual Art because is the idea that an object is more real than the actual object. Yoko Ono said that the world may  break the material possessions we have but it wont touch what we feel and think. Whatever we as humans think of destruction at the end it shows what is truly permanent. 

•  "Lennon said that it was sexist of him not to have listed Ono as a co-writer, given that the idea and much of the lyrics were hers."

- Ono really put her artistic identity in question because of how famous Lennon was. Even thought Lennon wanted to give Ono recognition as a co-writer it too until 2017 to accept her as a co-writer, making all her work feel like it was pushed to the ground. 

Chapter 3 HISTORY, from The Art of Activism, Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert

• "History is a resource for the present. It’s a database of tactics, a collection of stories, and a source of inspiration for what’s possible."

- I think this quote gives another definition in history for today's activists. This chapter talks about what we do in the present is not about reliving what happened in the past,but study those actions and identify what made them successful or not. It also proposes that looking back is a way to move forward more effectively to provide the proof of concept where we can base our present and future actions.

• "The stories we tell about the past shape the possibilities we see for the future. If we only hear stories of top-down change, we assume change only happens from the top down."

- This is a display of the political value of storytelling. The authors report that History which reports on kings and presidents, does so at the expense of the average citizen’s voice. By telling “bottom up” stories of grassroots resistance and art which in turn challenges the status quo activists are in fact expanding what is possible. It also puts forth that which tells the story of the past has great say in what we as a society expect for our future.