Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art

In this article, Frazer Ward observes conceptual art and performance during the 60’s and 70’s and comments on the perceived similarity of the two and argues that performance art – as art – must co-depend upon conceptual themes for legitimisation.

He begins by specifying the two key focuses:

“Conceptual art might be considered as work that emphasised the underlying conditions of aesthetic experience: Language was seen as foremost among the conditions. Material for and sensory perceptions were made secondary to analyses of their discursive and institutional themes. Performance art, on the other hand, seems relatively straight forward to define, ‘as a form of art that happens at a particular time in a particular place where the artist engages in some sort of activity, usually before an audience’. The main difference between performance art and other modes of visual art practice, such as painting, photography and sculpture, is that it is a temporal action.”

The focus of the argument centres around Acconci’s Step Piece and it is argued that while it is a performance action, the existing work is documentation of the execution of written instructions. Therefore what the work provides is subject to a prior conceptual scheme. As a result, Kosuth argues, the work inquires into the very foundations of the concept of art itself.

ART & SPIRITUALITY - Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker is a English sculptor and installation artist. her sculptures are visually captivating and explore humanities perilous relationship with the world through spirituality. her works are often suspended in animation, capturing the moment the object itself explodes. I found this work to be rather ammusing in concept and a great comment on the push and pull of the science versus religion debate, and also looks at faith, a foundation of spirituality.

Cornelia Parker's Mass (Colder Darker Matter) was originally featured in the 1997 Turner Prize Exhibition at the Tate Gallery. Parker's haunting installation was constructed from the charred remains of a Texas church that was struck by lightning. The Tate's Turner Prize brochure described the work as “chunks and splinters of charcoal…suspended from the ceiling to form the illusion of a cube, dense at the centre, thinning at the edges. It appears at once flat and three-dimensional, but never solid, almost disintegrating before our eyes.”
Deitch Projects' exhibition of Parker's Mass (Colder Darker Matter) was awarded the International Association of Art Critics Prize (US) for Best Show by an Emerging Artist in 1998.

'Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance art' - Frazer Ward, Summary

Frazer first outlines the typical perceptions that surround performance and conceptual art and their relations to each other, most of all, their differences. He soon begins to outline their characteristics; Conceptual art with its emphasis on the public, rationality and the reverence it gives to language over material and the senses; Performance art confined by its temporality and its strong connection to the physical. But soon after these differences are brought to light, they are completely broken down. The symbiotic relationship that has manifested itself between the two over many decades becomes clearer. Though performance art has never been declared a movement as Conceptual or Minimalist art has, that also means it has had the advantage of being an “undercurrent” of almost all major art movements. After realising the part performance has had to play in art, it doesn’t seem too hard to picture it as a vital element in Conceptual art. Instead of naively observing them as separate entities, we gain insight into the way that the concept can breed aesthetic and physical qualities; and reversely, performance can breed conceptual branches. With these common threads one relies on the other and vice versa. Performance challenges the claims that conceptual art is in denial of its own burden of physicality and publicity while conceptual art incorporates Bochner’s claim that all art has a physical aspect. Even the rationality of conceptual art is questioned through Acconci’s Step Piece which as a performance also has a conceptual base found in the linguistic premise of the work. It shares nothing in common with rationality except for the fact that it possesses intention and carries it out as expected. In this one work the connections between performance and conceptual art become transparently clear.

One though that I had, which doesn’t really have an important connection to the text is the statement that presents the distinct difference in a work that explicitly reveals its ideational premise and an artist who dictates his/her intentions. It made me wonder if one or the other had a greater purpose to serve in contemporary art. Do we need work that gets us started, leaving us to create the work ourselves in a way, or would we benefit from work that tells it how it is without any grey areas. The former suggests a trust is present in the audience to responsibly handle the works potential by themselves; but I think the latter can have the upper hand from time to time, considering the audience isn’t always as well informed as the creator and not as inclined to apply the same attention, consideration or action to the work. The artist might find it more advantageous to just spell it out. I’m on the fence with these ideas but I think it may be an issue better considered on an artwork-to-artwork basis.

SUMMARY: 'Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance art' - Frazer Ward

Conceptual art amplifies underlying states of aesthetic experience - LANGUAGE: communication through material form and sensory perception. Is considered elitist which is IRONIC in regards to origins of conceptual art being anti-elitist (Marcel Duchamp). Performance art is harder to define because it wasn't a movement, it kind of weaved in and out through contemporary art since the 1960s and the Happenings.

In the late 1960s to the '70s conceptual art and performance collided; conceptual art is RATIONAL, which means the work has cause and effect - performance art is iffier in this rational communication because their main material is their body, where Ward raises the Duchampian found object/Readymade theory ("Anyone can do it" notion is trumped by artists' process to form the concept and how they translate it through the object, in this case, their body), so the means by which they project information is even more subtle and at times, more incomprehensible. And because their was no movement, they cannot really be defined with a "style" BUT they are more accessible by considering the overarching theme in their concepts (Chris Burden embodies danger; Zhang Huan post-Mao China and Buddhist mindset of experiencing the "now"; Vito Acconci combines physical and emotional intimacy with the public, etc.).

The audience's sensory perception exceeds not only sight and aural senses but is ACTUALLY witnessing the creation of the work; their subjectivity is really put on the spot and their response is more immediate, therefore the artist must take into account of everything in their work (movement, attitude, environment, audience). Though that is not to say that they are driven by "intent" - conceptual performance artists should be pretty lenient on their outcomes (Burden's 1974 'Trans-fixed') but their priority is predominately how their actions communicate their concept. "... in order to speak the artist is not only trapped but let go in art" they are so embodied by concept their mindset is just to evoke it through actions and representation. In conclusion, conceptual performance art kicks major ass, yeeeeaahhhh booiiii!

Relations Between Conceptual and Performance Art

My thoughts on Fraser Ward’s definitions

Conceptual: material form and sensory perception were made secondary to analyses of their discursive and institutional frames.

Performance: a form of art that happens at a particular time in a particular place where the artist engages in some sort of activity, usually before an audience

The main difference is that it is a temporal event or action.

I find Frazer Ward’s definitions quite conflicting.. I would never have, and still struggle to, view conceptual and performance art as separate entities. I don’t think that performance art can exist with out the precedence of conceptual art. Moreover, Ward claims that the main difference between the two forms is performance art’s transience, however documentation facilitates the materialization and sustained longevity of performance art with the use of film and photography.

Art and Architecture

Okie dokey...I'm a technologically challenged dinosaur so posted this blog somewhere totally wrong. It can be found in the Art and Architecture blog. It's hanging out by its lonesome as the only blog entry of that site- as if that wasn't enough to inform my failed blogging attempts!

The address is http://artandtoday2011-alexia.blogspot.com/

Couldn't copy and paste, not going to rewrite it. Sorry guys!

Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art

• I do not believe conceptual art is anti-elitist. Duchamp's intention to democratise the aesthetic language was not successful. The contemporary dialectic is an exclusive brand of knowledge that has failed to receive acceptance from the nonart (public) audience. It is art for artists. In which case, is it successful? Can it be legitimated considering the wider context of a rigorous and often collapsing global system? Is conceptual art necessary considering it exists as such a parochialised cultural activity? I hope so, but often doubt the fact.


• Definition is not description. Kosuth stated conceptual art is self-referential...is that not circular reasoning and hence a logical fallacy?


• Art practice: priority is given to the conceptual scheme found generally in linguistic formulation which is followed by the perceptual experience the artwork provides. This is not conceptual art for the concept does not refer here to intention of the manifest work. Intention deliberates a controlled outcome and the focus is on objecthood. Conceptual art is often undeterminable (chance-based) and planted in the procedure of art making itself.


• All art is manifestly physical. Performance art is distinguishable from conceptual art as being uninformed by the notion of relic. It exists in a splinter of time and place. The auratic experience of a performance is lost in the documentation procedure whereas other aesthetic mediums bless their physical outputs with substantial life force.


• Bochner: "There is no art that does not bear some burden of physicality. To deny it is to descend to irony." AGREED!


• Please comment! I've left questions open-ended for discussion. I haven't got any answers but since this is what we have involved ourselves in it's worth debating.

VANTAGE POINTS AND IMAGE WORLDS

Time and space compressions, caused by the ubiquity and eternal presence of media and image mediations, have propelled information into a geographically non-specific matrix. Information gathered from the sources of ever-perfected technologies is not a fictive rendering of reality or a formative mimesis but an effective strategy for humans to visualise and conceive of themselves. The medium of television in particular extends human interactive abilities much like a technical prosthesis giving us access to the greater human experience unlike ever before; the gift of broad self-reflexivity.

By no means does this cultural transformation impede on social functioning but has defined the modern procedure for survival. The shift exists as a pan-cultural phenomenon. It multiplies the individual identity of places, objects and people so that the global collectivity is bound to a network of analogous experiences of information. The shift to digital technologies sees the hybridisation of human identity. Notably the collective and inherited memory is carried in verbal fragments as opposed to written histories. This is the birth of an oral culture.

The action of viewing becomes less self-conscious with emerging desires for total immersion in image-worlds. This is evidenced in the popularised use of video games and HD screens. Personally, this is a precarious situation. We are on the precipice of forfeiting responsibilities as viewers to make image-world distinct from immediate and physical experiences. We cannot naively allow images to be used duplicitously for wide circulation of misinformation and unjust attempts at social control. The creation of images is an innate facet of human activity. It is imperative to maintain a schismatical relationship between the viewing and the living of images.

relations between conceptual and performance art

Conceptual Art- might be considered as work that emphasised the underlying conditions of aesthetic experience. Conceptual art works in the area beyond material form and sensory perception.
Performance Art- is a form of art that happens at a particular time in a particular place where the artists engages in some sort of activity, usually before an audience. It is usually a temporal event or action. It was not a 'movement' like many other art styles and it branches into many areas of art.

• Ian Burns 'Mirror Piece' (Conceptual) and Vito Acconci's 'Step Piece' (Performance). Comparing these works demonstrates the relationship between conceptual and performance art and the ways in which they can overlap and blur into each other. They "are engaged in a continuing dialogue, sometimes a conversation, sometimes an argument."

• Conceptual art is seen to have a certain amount of rationality.It tries to take away the outer shell of art and leaves us with the underscoring ideas and concepts of the work. (or at least that is the intention)
  

• Chris Burden's 'Shoot'- used his own body in his performance work, thoroughly irrational and works through a plan of what he was going to do, how he was going to do it etc. and it now only exists in documentation form.
  

• 'Mirror Piece' abandoned aesthetic authority, it was reproducible by anyone, it wasn't unique or authoritative in anyway.

• Mel Bochner, like many other artists isn't sure about the term 'Conceptual art' because it is unclear, hard to define and 'concept' could be confused with 'intention' (creating a work with an expected or intended outcome).

• Conceptual art might be seen to have been an attempt to demystify art and make it less elitist but audiences responded with hostility, specially 'non-art' audiences. It is easier for people to communicate on a visual level and while conceptual art of course has a visual element to it, the real point of the work is in the concept. People who aren't trained to pick out the ideas behind works find it much harder to engage with conceptual works so instead of making art less elitist in a way they had made it even more so.
  
• Acconci's 'Step Piece' tried to demystify art by bringing his audience into his home to watch him perform his work. This collapses the public exhibition space into the private production space for all to see. In this way Acconci's work overlaps with conceptual art practice.
• While conceptual art tries to forgo all notions of aesthetics there is no way of escaping that the visual, physical appearance of a work will always have an impact on its audience. Acconci's work interacts with his physicality.
• Performance art was an "undercurrent" in twentieth century art which surfaces through the century at different times.
• Conceptual art can be performance art and vice versa.
• Bruce Nauman's work 'Art Makeup' exists now only as documentation, the work is the documentation of the temporal performance.
  
• Conceptual art removed traditional elements of aesthetic expression form art and placed an 'Anybody can do this' attitude within. e.g. Sol LeWitt. This made conceptual art very hard to communicate.
  

Art and Politics - Marcelo Cidade

Cidade is an artist who embraces politics in a less flamboyant or distinct way. He sees even the choice of becoming and artist a political act and that to be political one doesn't need to raise a flag or become a pamphleteer. His work like Direito de Imagem (Image Rights) he uses cardboard imitations of surveillance cameras to comment on the Big Brother complex in society and Amor e odio a Lygia Clark (2006) transforms brass knuckles into a symbol of companionship. I think the simple nature of his work divorces itself from the connotations of politics being a patriotic act really well and brings to light that political art, more than anything else, helps find new way to transform our society.

ART & POLITICS - Gregor Schneider

The structure entraps, but it also protects. It’s a clear and safe space to stay at the beach.Gregor Schneider

In 2007 Gregor Schneider installed 21 4 by 4 metre cells, each containing an air mattress, an umbrella and a black plastic garbage bag on Bondi Beach. The installation, entitled 21 beach cells was open to the public, as a result the cells filled up during the course of the day as they offered refuge from the heat of the sun. Ironically, the work (which was recognised as an appropriation of Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray as well as Australia's immigration detention centres) became a popular site for relaxation on the beach. 21 beach cells "captured the atmosphere of the time, an environment of global terrorism, detention of illegal immigrants and the recent Cronulla race riots, questioning Australia’s egalitarian self-image." thus stimulating discussion of the integrity and proactivity of Australian government at the time.

Acts of Kindness by Michael Landy

I was walking through the lower part of Martin Place the other day and passed by a huge puzzle that depicts a map of the CBD, with a number of points marked with blue dots. i found out that it's one of the most recent works produced through Kaldor Public Art Projects, in colaboration with that art & about thing thats been going on.

it's a really lovely piece and captures nice little snippets of humanity that provide hope for our race in an age the is so fast paced and, at times, insincere.

Here's the link Acts of Kindness

Art and the Archive

The contemporary artist Jeremy Deller explores the relationships between the private and public spheres, to make politically charged performance and film works. This interesting approach to art and the Archive allows Deller to create engaging works like The Battle of Orgreave 2002.



The film is directed by Mike Figgis and re-enacts a miners’ strike that took place in 1984 under the Thatcher government. To undertake the project, Deller relied on archive footage of the actual event as well as collaborating with those that participated in the original event to recreate it with accuracy. The piece attempts to give us a greater insight to the event through multiple perspective thanks to the reference of Archival accounts.

Art & Polotics

The Swiss – American artist Mark Boulos works with documentary film primarily, to explore and convey his opinions on art and politics. The video piece All that is solid melts into air (2008) documents the corporate colonisation of Nigerian oil resources and investigates the clash of cultures and their ideologies as well as the materiality of colonial nations. The work is a 2 channel film that contrasts the two factions fighting over control of petrol resources. On one screen European investors speculate on the future of mining in the Nigerian Delta, while on the other screen guerrilla fighters have a bit of a dummy spit and run around with guns in the forest, with tea cosies on their heads.

Art and the Archive

Though their work has probably been exhausted in terms of critical discussion, I thought the McDonald's works by the Chapman Bros. were a good example of artists fabricating their own archive using popular culture. This adaptation of a kind of primitivism to a fast food joint holds this dark and offensive motive towards both McDonald's and the cultures they borrow these styles from. Ironically, the Chapman Bros. have said that they "want to make McDonald's into a religion". In relation to art and archive, it shows how artists, while taking things completely out of context even at the risk of being racist and radically offensive, still manage to raise relevant questions about how we see institutions such as the fast food industry and how we wish to communicate those feelings to future generations. So now the most important question is not so much, how did McDonalds become so ingrained in our lives, but more - now that it is how do we deal with that?

ART AND POLITICS!

THE BIRTH OF REALISATION!

Theophile Gautier - “l’art pour l’art!” (art for arts sake)

Whilst politics had always been an undertone in the production of art, it was not until Frenchman Gautier, made a call for the opposite - aesthetics opposing didactic function - that politics in art became a prevalently discussed concept.

Art has not been without strong politics since this statement was made, whether it be seen in the Utopian cries of the Lissitsky, dark oppressional works, such as Picasso’s Guernica or the American dream being realised through the Abstract Expressionism of Pollock.

A ‘Culture of complaint’ was recognised in 1980’s art by critic Robert Hughes. This recognised the regularity with which artists were using ‘one dimensional message art’ to create a sense of civil victim-hood amongst the art community, despite no reason to do so.

Other critics, like Benjamin Buchloh, take aim against this idea, and believe that these artists are embracing their society by making use of its free speech and championing ideas of ‘the cultivation of pleasure’ a very capitalist ideology.

GUERRILLA GIRL!

Guerrilla Girls are an anonymous group of feminists devoted to fighting against sexism within the visual fine art world internationally. Started in New York City in 1985 to protest gender and racial inequality in the art world, members are known for the gorilla masks they wear to keep their anonymity.

Through their history the Guerrilla Girls have seen art and the world surrounding it evolve into a different place with issues changing since 1985. Tokenism is just one of the concerns challenged by the group today. Economic discrimination in art sales and the auction market is another. Women and artists of colour earn about 10-20% of what white men do for comparable artwork.

here is a link to their website: http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

here you can find a bunch of their artworks etc.

ART & ARCHITECTURE

Doug and Mark Starn are identical twins as well as collaborating artists in the USA. Doug and Mike Starn have been exploring the subject of Architecture in art for some time. Their preferred medium is the use of 30 – 40ft bamboo poles to create haphazard and chaotic architectural structures. As skilled rock climbers, they construct these structures from the ground up using pulleys and harnesses to attach the poles with nylon cord. Though these structures appear chaotic and random, they are informed by smaller models made from willow reeds, and are sturdy enough to support the weight of small tour groups (wheelchair access is still a problem).

Their work Big Bambu: You Can’t, You Don’t, and You Won’t Stop is a site specific work they made for the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The structure is comprised of both structural and aesthetically placed poles and is at odds within the straight angles and ordered space of the museum space. Because of its exposure to the environment, the structure gets bleached by the sunlight and rejuvenated by rain, as well as casting complex shadows of line.

http://youtu.be/gMa4HGJjnmo

Marley Dawson Heavy Industry/Light Commercial

Marley Dawson’s exhibition: Heavy Industry / Light Commercial is an engaging show that explores the manufacturing process and the balance of aesthetics and performance taken into consideration. The show is grouped into two concepts: the high speed counter-balance discs and the Endless loop tyres on parabolic rollers.

The overall show is strongly focused on kinetic sculpture, and the counter-balance discs allow audience participation allowing the audience to engage with the highly precise objects that seem to ignore the laws of inertia as they continually spin.

The Endless Loop tyres rotate perfectly in sync and each showcase the subtle markings of tyre tread and sidewall markings as a sort of unintentional aesthetic decoration

Vantage Point and Image Worlds

In Ron Burnett’s essay, he discusses our perception of images. He argues that the once humble image is no longer an object or sign, but in fact has evolved to become a “synthesis of language, discourse and viewing”. He explains that the constant stream of images we are exposed to on a daily basis becomes a coherent narrative of the international community all abbreviated down to one choice image that encapsulates the most grandiose of events. We then as individuals feel that we are injected into any given happening, and immediately involved regardless of disconnection from the story. All this is achieved through image.
With this blurring of boundaries, the audience has also begun to view the actual event and its depiction in image as one and the same. As Burnett explains, we as an audience naturally convert representation into visualisation thus the event is “internalised, personalised and then discussed as if the images approximate ‘being there’”
An interesting point Burnett brings up is the time origin of a photograph. He argues that it may be the time of its taking or perhaps the time of its interpretation.
With the introduction of technology into photography, this has a profound change on the vantage point of the image and how it is perceived. According to Burnett, this elevates pictures to a level of truth that does not need validation of truth.

Vantage point (sorry its late)

The section of Burnetts essay that i took note of, discusses the importance of the image, and how trustworthy it can be in speaking on behalf of the real object or person, which the image depicts.

Burnett begins to question our belief in the 'truth' of images. He asks what happens to the 'truth' when images are altered - eg photoshopped? The idea that someone can wipe certain elements from an image, or cause an addition to an image, is a very potent idea, as what if someone has only seen the altered image? that image, to them, is the original carrying all the authority of an original photograph - which in turn, depicts to documentational degree, what happened at the events and place where and when the photograph was taken. Maybe photos are just a way through which we re-imagine the past and if so how important is the original? He singles out reinvention, visualisation, imagination and retelling as some of the important aspects when considering images. He also make a serious point about the place an image takes in someones heart, in terms of sentimental value, due to its content. For example if a mother were to have a picture of her daughter, whom leived overseas on her mantle piece, she may talk to it, kiss it and for her, it takes the place of her daughter - when in reality it is simply ink and paper. The idea that this could physicallty be destroyed, and whilst nothing negative would actually happen to her daughter, the mother would still be distraught, and feel as though a part of her daughter were destroyed, as the image (due to her daughters absence) has taken the place of her daughter, and to the mother, is no longer simplya representation, but has become the real thing. If an image is that powerful, Burnett questions the morality in the alteration of images to suit a certain person or corporatinos agenda...

James out...

Art and Archive

The artist i chose to focus on for art and archive is Charlie Sofo. He is a young Australian artist, who showed in the ann Landa prize, with a very archival work. He work Fields is a documentation of what Sofo noticed, and what revealed itself to him when he took expeditional walks around the city of Melbourne. He documented his findings on a low table, spread out in a scientific manner presenting all the objects and sounds he found 'out in the field'. He collected such objects and statistics as a rock from the Gallery grounds, a slideshow of stones from the grooves of his shoes, a collection of paint samples lifted from suburban houses, and a video of Sofo touching familiar objects as if for the first – or last – time.

here is a link to the work, - you also should all remember it, as we actyually saw it in person. too...

http://www.darrenknightgallery.com/artists/sofo/2011/FieldsTHM.htm

James out...

Art and Politics

Will Coles is an artist you may have seen around. He casts sculptures and puts many of them around sydney in public, including the washing machine in newtown, theres a tv around there too and he has stuck some remotes to the ground around waterloo. His works are obviously political, for example the bust of a soldier is has a covered mouth. Coles' statement is perhaps that soldiers are not allowed to speak out and against attrocities of war and must follow orders without asking questions. The plastic appearance of the bust makes it seem cheap and manufactured and insignificant, as opposed to marble and stone busts of iconic historical figures. The soldier wearing a tutu is comical yet the stare gives it a tone of seriousness that creates a sense of dark humour when looking at wars and the needlessness to get into them and lose so many lives. The colour and stance of the soldier is a reference to toy soldiers, implying that the individual soldier in a war is a toy in the political power's agenda.

Art and the Archive

Kylie Stillman is one of my favourite artists who cuts shapes into paper as well as old pretty books including law digests, encyclopeadias and novels. She takes these old books that often have no use anymore and turns them into sculptures, allowing the books to live on in a lasting work. The design that is cut into the books is what draws the most attention but the books themselves are more than just a material and relate to the design. For example, the image is a work called Barberry which I believe is made of World Book encyclopeadias which are now on cd or even online, I don't think I've use it in any form in years. The books were redundant so Kylie has created a barberry plant, a topic which would be found in encyclopeadias, and has given the books a new function and lasting memory. I also find interesting that she often does plants and trees, creating an image of where the paper for the books originated from.

Art and Politics

DADANG CHRISTANTO b.1957

Christanto is an Indonesian artist who lives in Darwin and works in the field of art and politics. He works with performance, installation, sculpture, video, painting and works on paper. His subject matter relates to conflict among humankind, especially between those of different faiths and with different political beliefs and the disappearance of multitudes of Indonesian political dissidents during the mid-1960s purges, when Dadang’s father was lost without trace. He seeks to make a difference in the world with his art.

His 1996 work 'They Give Evidence' consisted of 16 figures of males and females standing in grid formation. They stand tall and naked representing displaced victims of oppression in Indonesia. In their outstretched arms the hold stiffened clothing that looks like its come straight off their bodies. The terracotta and fiberglass figures have empty dark holes where their eyes and mouth should be. They look a bit like an army of undead come to make their oppressors face up to their crimes. They stand there plainly as evidence of past atrocities. Viewers were allowed to move amongst the figures to observe their statuesque monumentality. The batik pattern on the clothing suggests their identities. After public protest the artist covered the naked bodies of the figures in black fabric.
“I am glad to say that many in Australia who have seen my work have been moved by it, reacted to it, are interested in its underlying themes, as distant as these may initially seem from their local reality”. Dadang Christanto

Dadang Christanto 'They Give Evidence' (1996), 16 figures, variable sizes, fibreglass mixed with terra cotta powder.