To conclude, all of the artists and their work illustrate the boundaries of performance art and comedy as well as the blurring lines in between. Abramovic's Rhythm 0-1974 is highly emotive, experimental and interactive. These elements are also key within The Artist is Present (2010) as without the audience the piece is nothing. This lends itself to Sparticus Chedwin's practice as the interaction is essential to creating the piece as the scripted lines are not enough to make the piece. However Bruce Nauman's practice is quite the opposite in reference to the need for an audience as he shot his early videos alone in his studio. But, his work like the others is again highly experimental. This element within performance is also true in Monty Python's sketches as well as Elanor Antin's miniature stage setups.
The main blurring of the boundaries of performance art and comedy was between the movement created within Bruce Nauman's Walking Around in an Exaggerated Manner (1967-8) and Monty Python's Mynistry of Silly Walks (1970). Without context and the conceptual thinking behind a performance art piece the work that they are working could be considered as acting different roles.
However, performance art is as real as it gets,
“The knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real.” http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/wordpress/?p=1197
As much as I am not a fan of the 2012 Turner prize nominee , Chedwin represents our 'New Age' performance artists. She, and others bring performance art into the forefront of the art world. Her work is interactive as well as immersive, which I credit as it gains memorability. However, the childish performances seem to lack originality as the reference to comedy and fantasy are so clear and poorly executed revealing cliche performance art.
The sixties art scene inspired existentialism through the devolution of faith.
Due to seminal historic occurrence , such as the Vietnam war (1959-75) and The African- American Civil Rights Movement (1954-68), as well as Second Wave Feminism (1960's-80's). The manifesto of the decade was 'no one voice' which (in cultural terms) was the beginning of Post-Modernism.
Bruce Nauman's Waling in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square(1967-8) is a seminal piece of performance work which has inspired many artists in the twenty-first century. He is an artist that pushed the boundaries of art- especially in his early practice- to a level that had not yet been reached. a quote of his which I believe justifies as well as describes his practice is as follows,
If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art. At this point art became more of an activity and less of a product. http://www.art21.org/artists/bruce-nauman
In my opinion, Abramovic's dedication to her art is truly phenomenal. Sitting in a chair from nine to five absorbing the feelings and emotions of as many people that could get through the doors is what affords her the worldwide respect of artists and viewers alike.
One of my favorite quotes of hers is, 'the hardest thing to do is nothing.' I believe that this is a powerful statement from a performance artist and hints at the zen like qualities that often underlie this great artist's work.
The emotion displayed by people who visited the exhibition was astonishing; people who would never see her again sat in front of her and cried or smiled or held a hand up to their heart in awe. It was truly refreshing to see this piece of work, as the viewer could decide what it meant to them instead of the artist, forcing an idea onto the audience.
The colour of Abramovic's dress changed in representation of each month of the exhibit. In total she changed her garment three times from white to blue to red. The styling of the dress also never changed giving the work no aesthetic change and affording the piece a consistent focus with no sign of change to in any way affect the viewers perception of the piece, only a progression of time.
The performance occupied a large white space with up lighting from each corner giving the space a stage lit quality, as opposed to a gallery feel.
The proximity of Abramovic to the participants was close - each sat at either side of a small table, yet it gave the artist and each participant enough room for personal space. The vastness of the space in which the two sat gave the piece connotations of religion, as well as a sense of sins becoming replenished as both artist and participant sat in the light - exposed and perhaps similar to a view of how Judgement day can be interpreted.
What an artist has to do to make their work immersive has always been of interest to me and Abramovic has always been a highly controversial artist yet her fans have remained ever loving. I must admit that I do find some of her pieces quite strange but I can appreciate her dedication to her subject and her unique way of displaying her love for art.
All of her pieces can be seen as extremely powerful due to the effort that she puts into and evidences in to her pieces, for me, especially the work that she did with her former lover Ulay. They explored many issues that others would never dream of, including their own personal relationship. For one piece they were attached by the mouth and had to rely on one and other for survival for a full twenty minutes, and Abramovic always displays a running theme of human relationships, especially between a man and a woman.
The question of how much a performance can be stripped down became apparent when Abramovic made the piece 'The Artist is Present'. This title is very literal- the piece involved Abramovic ('the artist') being 'present' for the full three months showing of the exhibition at MOMA in New York. Abramovic sat on a chair for eight hours a day and looked into the eyes of each viewer that participated in the piece one at a time. Some participants cried, some smiled and others just sat silently. However, an effect on each and every person was clear throughout the video documentation of the 'Artist is present', and the power of the piece became apparent through the affects on the participants which appeared to vary from excitement and contemplation to deep emotional release.
I do admire Abramovic for her experiments as she explores desires and human behaviour like no other performance artist.
As a person who is highly motivated by performance I find what she does fascinating. In particular this piece, as she almost hands over the performance to the viewers of the work.
The fact that it was the audience that halted the performance after some of the spectators didn't agree with how other spectators were using her body, to me, is highly emotive as it arguably mirrors the traditional religious teaching that 'Love overcomes all'.
Abramovic offered herself to the spectators with a sign on the wall reading: 'There are seventy two objects on this table that can be used on me as desired. I am the object.' The artist then stayed amazingly silent as spectators cut off her clothes with a razor, hailed her with a crown of thorns and pressed a loaded gun to her head. Spectators stopped the performance after six hours as they became worried for her safety.
This piece was Abramovic's experiment on 'exploring the dynamics of passive aggression'; passive aggressive behavior takes many forms but generally can be described as non-verbal aggression that manifests in negative behaviour.
Abramovic is a well known artist who dedicates her life to performance, setting up her own institute dedicated to helping other performance artists. In the 1970's she was a pioneer of her practice as she 'created some of the most well regarded early performance art pieces, also she is the only artist of her generation still making important works of long duration performances.'
Although Antin is closer to how I view Performance Art and how I would like to conduct my own performances, I really do appreciate the pioneering work that Marina Abramovic has done for pioneering and contemporary performance art.
Abramovic's work has formed a large part of my research into 'The Site of Performance'. I will now focus on two of her pieces 'Rhythm 0'from 1974 and the more recent 'The Artist is Present' from 2010.
This filmic
installation has the kind of aesthetic that I believe is missing from performance art
in the larger scheme of things. Antin’s piece displays the balance
between drama and art that I am at my most comfortable with and that pleases me,
as well as what I think is most effective- not the minimalistic sets with one
or two props. I believe that what she creates is amazing as it appeals to my
theatre background and love of film as well.
Also, I believe that a lot of
performance art can be seen as more for the artist than the viewer, whereas I see this piece as for the viewer.
The set and the costumes to me, are highly
theatrical and are very much of their time, as are the stills - black and
white, typical hairstyles and make-up.
When I think of performance art I think of
this woman’s work. This is the type of work that I would like to create.
These short
films create a reality to the fantasy persona of Eleanora Antinova.
The subject of the
piece is Eleanora
Antinova, the once celebrated Black Ballerina of the Ballet Russe, has fallen
on hard times. Diaghilev has died, the troupe has disbanded, and Eleanora has
returned to her native America, where she is trying to eke out a living in
seedy vaudeville houses and silent films – with what success this exhibition
shows. Comedy shorts, spicy farces, even, alas, a semi "blue movie",
exploiting her ballerina role, play in a deserted movie house, a wrecked train,
and an old theatrical dressing room, and give and account of this part of
Antinova's American career.This current exhibition is an intersection of
sculpture and film in which the films are embedded in sets that serve as a
commentary on the latest stage of the Ballerina's career.For
many years, Eleanor Antin has been presenting an autobiographical theatre of
the soul, through the lives of her three personae – the Ballerina, the King and
the Nurse – in performances and exhibitions of photography, video, drawing,
writing and sculpture.
An artist/filmmaker
working for many years in installation, photography, video, film, performance,
drawing and writing, Antin has an international reputation. She has had one
woman exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the
Wadsworth Atheneum, the La Jolla Museum (now the San Diego Museum of
Contemporary Art), the Long Beach Museum, etc., as well as a major 30-year
retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which traveled to
several venues in the U.K. and included a book catalogue. She has created major
installations at the Hirschhorn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts,
the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Jewish Museum in New York City,
among others. She is represented in major collections including the Art
Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish
Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, etc. As a performance artist
she has appeared in venues around the world including the Venice Biennale and
the Ford Theatre in Washington, D.C. Several of her mixed media, groundbreaking
works such as 100 Boots, CARVING: A Traditional Sculpture, The Angel of Mercy,
Recollections of my Life with Diaghilev, The King of Solana Beach, The
Adventures of a Nurse, are frequently referred to as classics of feminist,
postmodern art. As an artist she is represented by the Ronald Feldman Gallery
in New York. She has written three books, Being Antinova (Astro Artz) and
Eleanora Antinova Plays (Sun & Moon) and The Man Without A World; a film
script (Green Integer) and a photo book 100 Boots (Running Press). She has made
nine videotapes, among them Representational Painting, 1971, The Ballerina and
the Bum, 1973, The Little Match Girl Ballet, 1975 and From the Archives of
Modern Art, 1989, (all tapes distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix). She has
written, directed and produced narrative films, among them the feature, The Man
Without a World, 1991, (Berlin Film Festival, U.S.A. Film Fest., Ghent Film
Fest., London Jewish, San Francisco Jewish, Women in Film, etc.) and The Last
Night of Rasputin, 1989, (premiered with a live performance in a two-week run
at the Whitney Museum), (all films distributed by Milestone Film & Video,
N.Y.), and the video installations Loves of a Ballerina, 1986, Vilna Nights,
1993, and Minetta Lane, 1995. Her most recent awards include several AICA
(International Association of Art Critics) awards including one in 2003 for best
gallery show for “The Last Days of Pompeii”, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1997
and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture Media Achievement Award in 1998.
Antin has been a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California at
San Diego since 1975 where she was the recipient of the UCSD Chancellor's
Associates Award for Excellence in Art in 1996. Antin's most recent work
includes the Sydney Biennale with performances at the Sydney Opera House and
the premier of a major new photographic work The Last Days of Pompeii at the
Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York, the Kunsthalle in Vienna, the Craig Krull
Gallery in Los Angeles and the Marella Arte Contemporanea Gallery in Milan,
Italy. Her newest photographic piece “Roman Allegories” premiered in New York
at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in Feb. 2005 and the Marella D’Arte Contemporary
Gallery in Milan.
