Related Works:
Sorted in the following format:-
• title of work and author/designer/artist
• brief description of project
• relevance of the project to your motivations
• ‘Seedbed’ – By: Vito Acconci
• In Seedbed Acconci lay hidden underneath a gallery-wide ramp installed at the Sonnabend Gallery, masturbating while vocalizing into a loudspeaker his fantasies about the visitors walking above him on the ramp.
• One motivation behind Seedbed was to involve the public in the work’s production by creating a situation of reciprocal interchange between artist and viewer.
• ‘My Bed’: By Tracey Emin
• The artwork generated considerable media furore, particularly over the fact that the bedsheets were stained with body secretions and the floor had items from the artist’s room (such as condoms, a pair of knickers with menstrual period stains, other detritus, and functional, everyday objects, including a pair of slippers. The bed was presented as it had been when Emin had not got up from it for several days due to suicidal depression brought on by relationship difficulties.
• My Bed has very quickly come to symbolise a certain kind of art, usually referred to as conceptual art, which is appreciated by much of the art world.
• ‘The Singing Sculpture’: Gilbert & George
They refuse to disassociate their performances from their everyday lives, insisting that everything they do is art. The pair regard themselves as “living sculptures”.
• They covered themselves in gold metallic paint, stood on a table, and mimed to a recording of Flanagan and Allen’s song “Underneath the Arches”, sometimes for hours at a time.
• The fact that they were performing themselves to create their art.
• ‘Soap’ – A Happening – By: Allan Kaprow
• 1st morning:
clothes dirtied by urination
1st evening:
clothes washed
(in the sea)
(in the laundromat)
2nd morning:
cars dirtied with jam
on a busy street
cars cleaned
(in a parking lot)
(in a car-wash)
2nd evening:
bodies dirtied with jam
bodies buried in mounds
at the sea edge
bodies cleaned by the tide
• A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered as art. Part of the Fluxus Movement where performances were usually brief and simple performances meant to blur the lines between performer and audience, performance and reality. The Happening is performed according to plan but without rehearsal, audience, or repetition. It is art but seems closer to life.
• ‘Cut Piece’, By: Yoko Ono
• A protest for peace, during which she sat on stage and invited the audience to use scissors to cut off her clothing until she was naked. Cutting the clothing away would be an act that destroyed the social protections and in a way, be a rape.
• Ono was an explorer of conceptual art and performance art.
• ‘Fountain’ – Marcel Duchamp
• The urinal signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt that shocked the art world in 1917, was selected in 2004 as “the most influential artwork of the 20th century”.
• ‘Readymade Objects that were part of his installation art piece.
• ‘Lipstick’ – Claes Oldenberg
• Sculptures, though quite large, often have interactive capabilities. One such interactive early sculpture was a soft sculpture of a tube of lipstick which would deflate unless a participant re-pumped air into it.
• Taking small objects in daily life and reconstructing them on a large scale.
• ‘Throwing 4 Balls in the Air to Get a Square’, John Baldessari
• The artist attempted to do just that, photographing the results, and eventually selecting the “best out of 36 tries”, with 36 being the determining number just because that is the standard number of shots on a roll of film.
• Intermedia (performance with photography)
• Self-Portrait as a ‘Fountain’– By: Bruce Nauman
• He imagines himself to be a figure on a fountain, is projecting a thin jet of water towards the camera.
• Interested in is absurdity of his art work.
• ‘Untitled’ – Kristina Müntzing
• It could be seen as an ironic art historical comment from the artist, but more important is that these kinds of laundry bags is a symbol of all the people travelling around Europe in search for a better life. You see them at bus- and railway stations, with all their belongings stuffed in these bags.
• A statement of social meaning and concern.
•’Organic Honey’ – Joan Jonas
• The artist herself performing in her New York loft as Organic Honey, her seminal alter-ego invented as an “electronic erotic seductress,” whose doll-like visage seen reflected bits on camera explored the fragmented female image and women’s shifting roles. For Jonas, in Organic Honey and earlier performances, the mirror became a symbol of (self-) portraiture, representation, the body, and real vs. imaginary, while also sometimes adding an element of danger and a connection to the audience that was integral to the work.
• Highly conceptual artist – exploring social topics.
• ‘Writing With Both Hands’, Alighiero e Boetti
• a close-up of the artist’s left and right hands simultaneously writing a date on a wall: “Giovedi ventiquattro settembre” (Thursday 24 September). The hands move away from each other as they write, and the further his arms spread apart, the further back the camera shot retreats, until his fully outstretched arms extend right across the screen. This synchrony between the movement of the figure and the camera lens zooming out is supported by a visual symmetry.
• Interesting exploration of the absurd.
Illustrations
Works Cited
Bray, Anne. “The Community is Watching, and Replying: Art in Public Places and Spaces.” Leonardo 35.1 (2002): 15-21.
Colpitt, Frances. “Report from San Antonio: Jewel in the Rough.” Art in America 90.2 (2002): 58-65.
Durland, Steven. “Comments on “Sculpture, Theater, and Art Performance: Notes on the Convergence of the Arts”.” Leonardo 19.4 (1986): 356-7.
Gay, Pamela. “Installation Art: Actual Meets Virtual.” Digital Creativity 12.4 (2001): 228-35.
Hartzell, Emily, and Nina Sobell. “Sculpting in Time and Space: Interactive Work.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 101-7.
Higgins, Dick. “Intermedia.” Leonardo 34.1 (2001): 49-54.
Lichty, Patrick. “The Cybernetics of Performance and New Media Art.” Leonardo 33.5, Eighth New York Digital Salon (2000): 351-4.
Marranca, Bonnie. “Performance History.” Performing Arts Journal 19.2 (1997): 115-20.
Saltz, David Z. “The Art of Interaction: Interactivity, Performativity, and Computers.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55.2, Perspectives on the Arts and Technology (1997): 117-27.
Spencer, Jenny S. “Performance Art as Progressive Education.” Art Journal 60.1 (2001): 102-4.
Turim, Maureen. “Marina Abramovic’s Performance: Stresses on the Body and Psyche in Installation Art.” Camera Obscura.54 (2003): 98-117.
Ward, Frazer. “Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art.” Art Journal 56.4, Performance Art: (Some) Theory and (Selected) Practice at the End of This Century (1997): 36-40.
