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

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.