Showing posts with label performance art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance art. Show all posts
Art must be beautiful; artist must be beautiful.
'Art must be Beautiful, Artist must be Beautiful' (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1975) is one of Abramovic's typical early performances. As with the 'Freeing...' series ('Freeing the Body', 'Freeing the Voice' and 'Freeing the Memory', 1976), 'Art must be Beautiful, Artist must be Beautiful' is not about physical pain, but rather about the mental state that can be reached by way of pain. In the video recording of the performance, one can see Abramovic aggressively combing her long hair. With a brush in one hand and a comb in the other, she works on her face and hair, while repeating the sentence 'art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful'. Her voice betrays that she is in pain, and her face also makes it abundantly clear that she is hurting herself. Now and then, it seems as if she is falling into a trance. Then her voice is softer and the way she moves her brush and comb through her hair is less hard-handed. According to Abramovic, the purpose of her self-inflicted pain is to free the body and soul from the restrictions imposed by Western culture and from the fear of physical pain and death. From her perspective, performance art can be used to challenge and transgress physical and mental boundaries. In later years, she became acquainted with the Tibetan and Aboriginal cultures and with the rituals of the Sufi tribe. In the rituals of these cultures, the body is also driven to extreme physical limits, in order to enable a mental 'leap' into another dimension where physical limitations and fear no longer influence the human mind. During an interview in 1999, Abramovic said about her 1975 performance: 'A long time ago I made a piece called "Art must be Beautiful, Artist must be Beautiful". At that time, I thought that art should be disturbing rather than beautiful. But at my age now, I have started thinking that beauty is not so bad.' The video is also part of the 16-channel installation 'Video Portrait Gallery' (Abramovic 1975-2002).
"I mopped the floor with my hair...The reason I’m so interested in taking my body to those extreme places is that that’s a place where I learn, where I feel most in my body. I’m really interested in the repetition, the discipline, and what happens to me psychologically when I put my body to that extreme place."
- Janine Antoni (quote source)
PBS video on Janine Antoni:
Watch Loss & Desire on PBS. See more from ART:21.
Tilda Swinton's recent performances at the MoMA
So we know that Abramović is making art (making us ask questions, intriguing us, frightening us), but is any performance art? Actor Tilda Swinton has revived 1995's The Maybe, causing confusion over its qualification as art.
A summary of the original piece by Sarah Howell:
Want great art? Keep dreaming!
A summary of the original piece by Sarah Howell:
Tilda Swinton first performed The Maybe in 1995 in collaboration with artist Cornelia Parker. For seven consecutive days, the actress slept on a white mattress inside a raised glass box at London’s Serpentine Gallery. Visitors were forced into a situation of involuntary voyeurism, as the artists issued no press release and the gallery withheld information about the installation. Unsuspecting members of the public happened upon the slumbering actress purely by chance. It was a startling installation that garnered a mixed reaction, but its impact remained firmly within the parameters of the art world.Howell continues on to discuss what she sees in the performance:
Initiating voyeurism is at the heart of The Maybe. Its entire construct relies on Swinton as a recognisable face, but its resonance moves beyond this initial reaction, to one of obsession, of fascination and curiosity. She does nothing but sleep. She gives away nothing of herself, other than her physical appearance. But we're lapping it up. Search Twitter and you’ll find comments on anything from her hair to the position of her body. If it had been another, non-famous, woman lying in the MoMa it wouldn’t have caused such a furor. But The Maybe is all about creating a reaction – the installation is merely the initiator, the instigator, of a wider chain of events that ultimately reveal the vacuity of our obsession with celebrity.A disparaging reaction to the performance:
Want great art? Keep dreaming!
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