READINGS: Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, from The Art of Activism, Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert
Performance art encapsulates the experience usually between the artist and the viewer. While the works can be documented, performance art is truly an experience which cannot always be repeated. The spontaneity of these works challenge the idea of traditional art and transform our ideas of interaction with art and artist. These artworks serve as a form of engagement, an interactive in either physicality or mental questioning. Written commands, physical experiences and performing an action can be performance art.
“Culture is the raw material of artistic activism”
Art is influenced by the way we see the world. Activism can entail things we care strongly about and have been informed about. Together, our activism can be driven by culture as our cultures impact our lives significantly. Culture not only has to do with our heritage and family dynamics, but can also be related to the presentation of images we see. In different cultures, there are different symbols and meanings to the symbols. What means something to one culture might mean something completely different in another. If our activism can create social reform, it can also create representation for certain cultural perspectives and lead to further understanding of different peoples identities and their interactions with identity.
“If you want your students to remember the lesson, and to integrate it into their lives, they need to puzzle through it, process it, and make it their own.
This is a very important part to remember I think. The way I remember things the most is when I compare them to my own life. I took a lot of information in by thinking about how it would affect me or my perspectives. Sometimes things just don't make as much sense to me if they're just spewed out at me. A rant or preach can seem pretentious to most people. If you want to really reach someone, you have to think about WHO it's reaching and how this information can change their perspective or heighten their understanding of something.
I know this isn't technically an artwork from the book but it's IN the book so I wanted to mention it really quick. I actually wanted to reference this specifically because of the “not pictured” part that explains several other things the black panthers did to contribute to their community. I asked my mother (who is a boomer with a… old timers perspective) what she knew about the black panthers and first said “nothing” then said she thought they are a violence military group. So I showed her this and she said “wow.. wow I had no idea” and it was interesting to see her reaction. Of course she had no idea, because she at the time was given no perspective at all. Her parents wouldn't allow her to get that perspective either due to their own. Not sure if this counts as a response but I found it interesting to contemplate.
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| Cut Piece, Yoko Ono, 1964 |
Yoko Ono
Cut Piece performance
Yoko Ono’s cut piece is a performance art piece which focuses on violence toward women. Yoko was a part of the art performance in which the audience must interact with. In 1964, Yoko sat and let the audience use a pair of scissors to take part of her clothing. The piece is a sort of social experiment, as many performance art prices can be. The clothing could be seen as a souvenir from the art piece itself. The audience began taking larger and larger pieces from her clothing, becoming a violating experience. The piece has been seen as feminist for its exploration of the loss of agency on the human body and the objectification of women and their boundaries.
Side note, don't know if this is allowed but I'll take it down if I have to. I know we didn't really talk about this artist a lot yet but I casually stumbled upon this video talking about the dangers of performance art and some examples and I thought I'd link it in case anyones interested in a casual listen. Some of her tales are a bit watered down, casual & generalized but I love listening to video essays as I animate so here we go.
This is about Marina Abramovic!! But mentions other performance artists who have gone to extremes.
https://youtu.be/udo9alK5Sr8?si=oe2LkY7juiVgm00j
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