from my upcoming book Quartet - four-part harmony from a recollected life.
Space Pie, a solo dance in silence sliced the performance area at St. Mark’s Church into parts of a pie – that desired pie so few could access whole. It was all about scarcity and limited availability. It was never documented, largely because I had broken a bone in my foot prior to performance and was dancing injured, so I cancelled the videotaping. After the fact, it seems appropriate that its life was only as a live experience for those assembled and otherwise does not exist.
Early on I had railed against everybody asking for video of my work when applying for grants and gigs. I said “I don’t make video work, I make live work.” This purism did not feed my career. In response I made a few made-for-video pieces, but eventually succumbed to the documentarians going forward. Now, in recent pandemic years, all experiences have become virtual and distant. Who could have known we would become a community only accessible by video or on computer-driven on-line points of contact? All purism has had to be diluted and reality has become something else entirely.
A couple of comments: I'm not certain that I agree with the notion that performance art originated primarily to obviate commodification, rather than the more positive, conceptualist view that the live or body or performance "medium" was regarded as the most appropriate form for realizing a particular vision. TH's evocation of imagination helps explain the power of Chris Burden's early performance having himself shot, to my mind a knock-out whether experienced live, through documents or "only" through imagination. By the mid-80s modernist-conceptualist-performance art morphed into something else often resembling music, dance, theatre that couldn't be experienced solely through imagination. Among early examples of this might be the difference between Laurie Anderson playing the violin until the ice in which her ice skate blades were encased melted and her hit song "O, Superman"
Thank you so much for your comments Robert. In the sentence I wanted to convey that the primary focus was to emphasize the lived moment, more than making a specific statement about the market. In other words, I meant that the question of making a product for commercial consumption was not on the forefront of artist's minds. Apologies if this was unclear.
Thank you for the question Noel- definitely one worth exploring. One way to make an argument against this proposition would be that, if indeed it was the case that an artist is selfish, selfishness typically includes the desire to be remembered forever, not the desire to make things that will likely be forgotten. Seen that way, it would be a rather foolish form of vanity to make art only for the moment that would not survive for posterity.
from my upcoming book Quartet - four-part harmony from a recollected life.
Space Pie, a solo dance in silence sliced the performance area at St. Mark’s Church into parts of a pie – that desired pie so few could access whole. It was all about scarcity and limited availability. It was never documented, largely because I had broken a bone in my foot prior to performance and was dancing injured, so I cancelled the videotaping. After the fact, it seems appropriate that its life was only as a live experience for those assembled and otherwise does not exist.
Early on I had railed against everybody asking for video of my work when applying for grants and gigs. I said “I don’t make video work, I make live work.” This purism did not feed my career. In response I made a few made-for-video pieces, but eventually succumbed to the documentarians going forward. Now, in recent pandemic years, all experiences have become virtual and distant. Who could have known we would become a community only accessible by video or on computer-driven on-line points of contact? All purism has had to be diluted and reality has become something else entirely.
Love your pieces! Reading them brightens my life.
Judith Ren-Lay
judithren-lay.com
A couple of comments: I'm not certain that I agree with the notion that performance art originated primarily to obviate commodification, rather than the more positive, conceptualist view that the live or body or performance "medium" was regarded as the most appropriate form for realizing a particular vision. TH's evocation of imagination helps explain the power of Chris Burden's early performance having himself shot, to my mind a knock-out whether experienced live, through documents or "only" through imagination. By the mid-80s modernist-conceptualist-performance art morphed into something else often resembling music, dance, theatre that couldn't be experienced solely through imagination. Among early examples of this might be the difference between Laurie Anderson playing the violin until the ice in which her ice skate blades were encased melted and her hit song "O, Superman"
Thank you so much for your comments Robert. In the sentence I wanted to convey that the primary focus was to emphasize the lived moment, more than making a specific statement about the market. In other words, I meant that the question of making a product for commercial consumption was not on the forefront of artist's minds. Apologies if this was unclear.
Some art may escape documentation, but I wonder if the denial or resistance to a documented art experience is an artistic act of selfishness?
Thank you for the question Noel- definitely one worth exploring. One way to make an argument against this proposition would be that, if indeed it was the case that an artist is selfish, selfishness typically includes the desire to be remembered forever, not the desire to make things that will likely be forgotten. Seen that way, it would be a rather foolish form of vanity to make art only for the moment that would not survive for posterity.