Figure 1: Mel Brimfield, This is Performance Art, 2011, C-print, edition 1.

Many of us could have experienced performance art at some point or another and not even have been aware. Performance art can take place in  any location at all. It could involve many people or just one, or sometimes nobody at all. It can be very complicated, or can be something as simple as a person standing on the same spot for a period of time, doing absolutely nothing. The reason I love performance art is because to me it is undefinable and it’s extremely difficult to determine when a performance crosses the line from performance to performance art.

Figure 2: Performance artists in Jubilee Gardens.

Taken by Adrian Pingstone in November 2004.

The above image is another classic example of performance art that we see everywhere and yet have probably never classed as ‘performance art’. Figure one and two both show how a whole performance can be captured and understood in one photo when it comes to performance art. Another thing that interests me is the amount of skill needed to something so little as standing completely motionless for long periods of time like shown in figure two. Drawing from my own experience of when I performed in a commedia dell’arte piece in which we had to stay frozen for over half an hour and were only allowed to move once it got to our turn to act I know how much you need to use your muscles to stay still for such a long time, whilst it make look effortless it takes a lot of work and commitment to pull off, I don’t feel like this is something which is appreciated enough when viewing this kind of work.

One person who I feel has truly mastered Marina Abramovic, my personal favourite of her work being The Artist is Present(2010) A 736-hour and 30-minute piece which spanned over a month and a half where Marina would sit in a chair in the MoMa museum at a table and sit completely motionless while spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her.

“Spectators stare on in anticipation but of course Abramovic does nothing. In return, participants cry, scowl and smile. Sometimes all in quick succession. But mostly, they cry. “

-Karimah Ashadu, Art/Design, ‘The Artist is Present’: Marina Abramovic.

Figure 3: A spectator reacting to sitting opposite Abramovic.

One of my favourite moments is when Abramovic’s ex partner and co actor of many years sat opposite her and they were reunited. Even though she stayed motionless throughout the most part of this performance, their hands still reached over the table for each other, it was a very touching moment. The fact that Marina, although almost motionless can provoke such emotion from people as shown above is what I like about this piece of work, it shows that in this case, less is definitely more.

Figure 4: Marina Abramavic and Ulay, reunited.

Works cited:

Figure three and four:

Akers, Matthew (2012) Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present [DVD] New York.
Accessed online April 2013 at: http://karimahashadu.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-artist-is-present-marina-abramovic.html

Figure one:

Brimfield, Mel (20111) This is Performance Art, First edition, released for Ceri Hand Gallery, London, England
Accessed April 2013 Online at: http://membership.contemporaryartsociety.org/archive/talk-a-short-history-of-performance-art/attachment/belles-4/

Figure two:

Pingstone, Adrian (2004) Performance Artists in Jubilee Gardens, released for public domain, London, England
Accessed April 2013 online at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Performance.art.london.arp.500pix.jpg

 Posted on – 19th April 2013

From the start I was interested in doing a piece that made no sense what so ever, much like in the style of Dada performances. I started to look at smaller scale performance art performers, so I took to youtube to find some videos posted by people.

Two of my favourites were:

Video 1: Performed by Olivier de Sagazan in 2008.

I like this video because it isn’t about understanding what it happening, there is no explanation given to understand, it is completely up to you to interpret it as you wish. I’m not one to try and understand a piece like this and just watch and enjoy instead. If I had to give my own explanation about what was going on it would be to do with the fact that he keeps putting layers of what looks like clay on his face, and these layers cover up who he really is, each creating a new appearance for himself. When he digs through it all at the end it could be him deciding that he isn’t happy with whatever new appearance he creates and wants back his old original one…but that’s just my own take on it!

Another favourite of mine which I think took amazing talent and planning is

Video2: Penwald: 2: 8 circles” a performance by Tony Orrico hosted by Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences at the Keck Center, Washington DC on Thursday, May 20, 2010.

The description for this video states that “Using the dimensions of his body as measure, Orrico references geometry, biomechanics, endurance, and ideas represented by da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. His performance challenges constructed ideas about what constitutes art and where it can be seen.”

The fact that he took into account all of the above factors and so carefully planned every part of the performance to end up with the final finished piece shows how much he was committed to art and the level of endurance needed to carry out the whole performance shows hard work and careful planning and training.

What I like about these two piece of performance art is that they both show two opposite ends of the spectrum of which performance art has. The first video shows no sign of months of planning and looks effortless, for all we know he could of thought of that performance within the same week in which it was performed, yet in the second video we see that such a piece require a lot of planning and if you made a mistake it would be a lot more obvious to the human eye, where as in the first video if Olivier made a mistake we would not know. Despite both of these performance being very different they both still caught my attention equally.

After researching into performance art and looking at how something little could have a big impact I have decided that for my final performance I would like to do something small for eight minutes. A few ideas came to me such as;

• Making toast
• Tying my shoelaces
• Slow motion sneezing
• spending 8 minutes to close the door then get to the centre of the stage and the lighths go down.
• Writing a word.

I don’t know if anyone has ever tried slow motion sneezing for eight minutes but it is very difficult!

Works cited:

Orrico, Tony (2010) Penwald: 2: 8 hosted by Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences at the Keck Center, Washington DC
Accessed online April 2013 at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vldw0qs3A8

Video 1:

Sagazan, de Olivier (2008) Untitled.
Accessed April 2013 at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gYBXRwsDjY

Posted on – April 24rd 2013