Post 6: Performance Art and Reading Responses
(Marina AbramoviΔ, The Artist is Present, performed at the Museum of Modern Art, 2010 (photo: Alejandro Mallea, CC BY 2.0))
Performance Art is a medium of art that is in the moment, a performance, made to be witnessed and experienced, as stated in An Introduction to Performance Art, "These artists wanted to make life's unpredictable and changing nature the subject and material of the work"(time 0:55). It's a craft that most often don't really accept as a medium or "real art" due to the unique acts it possesses. We've seen theater, dance, and musicians, but Performance art doesn't fall into any of those categories due to its "untaught" abstract work. Yet, it does exactly what it's set out to do, bend and push the boundaries of what we know as art, what really counts as art...which I had once answered, "Art is Art... it's everything and nothing all at once"(me). There's no set definition for art; even if there is, it's still unlimited and ever-changing. Another interesting take during the video was, "Performance isn't a medium unlike painting and sculpture. It's not about what it is made of. It's a tool used by artists to raise question about how art relates to us and the wider social world"(time 1:51). I think this isn't entirely correct, Performance isn't a medium, but there are still mediums involved in the work, like the human, the audience, the message at hand, time and presence. This is also a subject that can be accessible, as so much can be seen as a performance, lying in bed because you're tired, doing work you hate and love, even getting dressed, can be that; once again, it all pushes this idea of what art is.
"Performance Art, an Introduction" The Art Assignment and Dr. Virginia B. Spivey
"Indeed, at its worst, performance art can seem gratuitous, boring, or just plain weird. 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. It often forces us to think about issues in a way that can be disturbing and uncomfortable. Still, it can also make us laugh by calling attention to the absurdities in life and the idiosyncrasies of human behavior"(para.1).
- As an artist who has been drawing their whole life, art has always been a developed skill. Thinking about musicians, dancers, theater, painters, digital artist and writers...they all had to learn and practice for years to get better. Performance art was a slap in the face. It was boring, useless, it took no skill, and it was not interesting. How could someone walking in a circle be considered art, yet something that took me years and hours can be considered on the same level of "Art"? As I aged, I began to not be limited to understanding art, what counted as it, and why it does, I started to find it everywhere and in everything. That includes human nature, basic instincts.
"These performative approaches to making art were built on philosophical interpretations of Abstract Expressionism, which held the gestural markings of action painters as visible evidence of the artist’s own existence"(Para. 7).
- What is art outside of skill, time, medium, if not a sign of existence? There have been performances that have stuck with an audience, can be written down and recorded at times, remembered by audiences, and experienced in its full moment, the way it's meant to. But for those outside, it can look pointless and a waste of time, yet time is also the medium. To truly understand performance work, you need to have an open-minded look at what art could be and why it is, accepting even if it's out of the ordinary.
Yoko Ono's Art of Defiance by Louis Menand
"She would ask him what kind of dinner he wanted, and then tell him to imagine it in his mind. This seemed to make him happier. She later called it “maybe my first piece of art"(para.5).
- World War II was horrific. Innocent people were dying at the hands of their own government and at the hands of the other government. Japan was scarce on food, many had starved, and some even died. In this case, Ms.Ono and her siblings were no different, where they used to have privileged life, food at their fingertips, and no worries- now survival was their daily challenge. She mentions that her first work of art was telling her brother to imagine the food he had wanted. Not only is it her as an older sister providing some comfort to her younger sibling in trying times, but even talking about this moment in time, memory, is impacting and human. One that connects people, hope, and survival, human instincts.
"One consisted of mounting a piece of paper on the wall, opening the refrigerator and taking out food, such as Jell-O, and throwing it against the paper. At the end, she set the paper on fire. (Cage had advised her to treat the paper with fire retardant first so that the building would not burn down.) The artwork consumes itself"(para.23).
- One can look at this and go "what the hell" and believe me, reading this, I had done exactly that. Taking Jell-O out of the fridge and throwing it onto paper, then proceeding to light it on fire and have it vanish, or in other words, "Consumed itself." I now look at this through a different lens, maybe it's not aesthetically pleasing or makes sense in the moment, but what can an audience do but capture it in their minds, make sense of it later, possibly. But I tried to morph this, maybe it's a person, pressure of jello, something to be eaten and enjoyed, consumed, and now staining the paper, like a passion that felt strongly, something that meant to be consumed now had the artist consume itself, stained and burned out by their own passion.
Chapter 3 Art of Activism Responses:
"In order to be heard and understood, an activist needs to learn how to use popular culture, but they also need to know how to transform it so that it speaks to and for their own cause"(page. 93).
- Activism needs to be understood, heard, comprehended, and ways that can be done are engaging in popular culture. The reason this is important is because the message you want to get out often falls into the hands of an audience, whatever their trends or styles are- cater to it. This in other words is the same style as propaganda, catering to a audience and delivering a message in a way that audience would understand. Do that, but with a better message!
"The Principle: Style matters. People associate the message with the messenger, and how we appear in public communicates a message that is often more powerful than the words on the pamphlets we hand out"(page. 109).
-When reading this I thought about how folks present themselves during protests, an example of that would be the inflatable dinosaurs against ICE, its now a group symbol. That also goes with the Black Panthers, Black leather jackets, usually boots, black beret, and black turtle neck, there's a whole dress code! But dressing in these big statement pieces or classy attire, those who witness and receive the message of the group will judge based off the attire, the attire is apart of the message.
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