Museum of Modern Art Archives -

Performing Histories at MoMA Part I

Performance Art — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 17:16:52 +0000

Recently, MoMA purchased works by Andrea Fraser, Ion Grigorescu, Martha Rosler Sharon Hayes, Kader Attia, Dorit Margreiter and Deimantas Narkevinius for their media and performance-art collection. Performing Histories is the museum’s exhibition that showcases their newest acquisitions. These time-based pieces reveal subjective notions of history in both political and social narratives.

Andrea Fraser’s Soldadera (Scenes from Un Banquete en Tetlapyac)

The first piece, Soldadera (Scenes from Un Banquete en Tetlapyac) was a two-channel video by the artist Andrea Fraser. It presented a female peasant, Frances Flynn Paine, played by Fraser herself as a heroic figure set in the 1930s. This was juxtaposed next to scenes of Eisenstein at the Hacienda de Tetlapayac in Mexico.

Ion Grigorescu’s Boxer

Boxing was a 8mm film transferred to 16mm from Romanian artist Ion Grigorescu. He was known for making work on the political regime in a time of social decline. The country in the late 70s was impoverished and authoritarian. In Boxing, Grigorescu, he fights with an image of himself. It’s as if he is fighting his own alternate persona.

Kadar Attia’s slide projection titled “Open Your Eyes” (2010) juxtaposes disfigured soldiers of war to broken pottery. Two histories unfold through a presentation-style-display that reinterprets two contrasting processes. The collection of both non-western techniques of repair and occidental cultures relay an idealistic interpretation of restoration and collective objects.

Martha Rosler’s She Sees in Herself a New Woman Every Day

Martha Rosler’s She Sees in Herself a New Woman Every Day is an installation of twelve chromogenic color prints presented in a gird and an audio recording of a female speaking with an abusive mother whom is not present on the other end. Rosler’s piece offers a personal examination of international politics has on one’s vernacular activities.

In Deimantas Narkevicius’s Once in the XX Century, is a video comprised of reversed Lithuanian television clips. The statue of Lenin is shown being erected and not disassembled. Therefore, the socialist party is starting instead of terminating.

Performance Histories was not only about a different perspective on historical events but a memory capsulated by cinema. This offered new ways to deconstruct important moments by creating a vantage point from a performative structure. This repository of social, political, and cultural narratives were reassembled into an unfamiliar storytelling. One can’t help but reflect upon the similarity to the recent Documenta 13’s statement (along with the inclusion of Kader Attia’s work) by suggesting that the viewer creates his or her own connections through a diverse range of artists. There were direct relationships and therefore, more information might have made a stronger introduction into the show. As a collection of works, it was well curated. The next part of the exhibition will be highly anticipated.

– Tiffany Trenda

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It “Made Me Cry”, the Radical Work of Marina Abramović

Performance Art — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 22:21:09 +0000

Marina Abramovic is one of the most celebrated performance artists alive. Abramovic has achieved notoriety beyond avant-garde circles, while remaining exceptionally true to performance art’s radical ethics.

Abramovic was born in 1946 in the former Yugoslavia. Her early pieces used body flagellation and life-threatening actions as ritualistic vehicles. “Rhythm O,” which took place in Naples in 1975, was the most taboo-shattering of her early works. For the piece, Abramovic placed on a table 72 pleasure and pain objects — ranging from honey, to a gun and a bullet — and encouraged the public to do as it pleased with her body. At first, the public was playful, but eventually people tore off most of her clothes, cut her skin and even engaged in mild sexual assault. At some point, a man took the loaded gun and pressed it hard against her temple. Years later, Abramovic described the performance as “Six Hours of Real Horror.”

In the mid-70s, Abramovic’s art took a different turn. She stopped putting her life at such risk. But, most importantly, in 1975 she met Frank Uwe Laysiepen, better known as Ulay. Both artists started a symbiotic artistic and personal relationship that lasted for over 12 years. They lived in a van and produced works that added cerebral and geometrical (or architectural) elements to Abramovic’s ritualistic concerns.

For 1977’s “Imponderabilia,” the two artists stood facing each other naked in a narrow museum entrance. To enter the museum, visitors had to turn sideways and choose to face, and rub up against, one of the artists. That same year, the couple performed “Relation in Movement,” for which they drove their van in counterclockwise circles for 16 hours, or 2,226 laps.

In 1988, Abramovic and Ulay ended their fruitful relationship with “The Lovers,” in which they walked from both ends of the Great Wall of China for 90 days (2,400 miles) met in the middle, hugged, and said good-bye.

After breaking up with Ulay, Abramovic went back to performing alone. Though her work remained ritualistic and, some might say, solipsistic, she was embraced by big art institutions. By the end of the 1990s, her oeuvre had grown to the degree that she started looking back both at her own history and that of performance art.

In 2005 she performed “Seven Easy Pieces.” Five of the seven pieces were recreations of earlier performances by other artists: Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, Gina Pane and Joseph Beuys. Performing someone else’s work was not normally done at the time. Abramovic argued that performance art was about live actions more than about photographs or written records, and that reenacting performances might be the best way to keep performances alive. In 2010, with the artist in her 60s, Abramovic had a career-long retrospective at MoMA. During this retrospective, younger artists reenacted some of her most celebrated pieces, including “Rhythm 0.”

Before the retrospective, Abramovic wondered if younger audiences would actually be interested in her work. “The Artist is Present,” a new piece in which she invited individuals to do nothing but sit across her, and silently establish eye contact, was performed as part of the retrospective. Scores of people, including many celebrities, sat in front of Abramovic. Many cried. Abramovic’s new work, though cool in execution, was compared to old religious art in the fervent reactions it brought out in people. “The Artist is Present” was less shocking than some of her earlier works, but no less challenging than anything she’d done in the ‘70s. The main difference was the amount of mainstream attention the work got — unmatched in the performance art world to date.

Written By Patricio Maya

Featured Series Made Me Cry
Portraits taken during the MoMA’s exhibit of performance artist “Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present”.
Abramović sits at a table in silence, and museum guests can sit across from her and stare.
Some people couldn’t handle the heat.

Portraits > http://marinaabramovicmademecry.tumblr.com

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The Academy Awards has closed the doors to the art world

Performance Art — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 02:47:58 +0000

This year was an upset to the art world as the Academy Awards didn’t nominate Ai Weiwei or Marina Abramović’s “The Artist is Present”.

Marina Abramović is an internationally recognized performance artist who released a documentary this last year. Her film “The Artist Is Present” was not nominated for the 85th annual Academy Awards. This movie archived her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in 2010. This film gave non-art-goers a glimpse into the art world and to have them understand what performance art actually is-besides Lady Gaga who has claimed herself as a performance artist.

Marina Abramović is considered on of the pioneers of performance art originating out of ground breaking durational pieces like Rhythm Zero where she allowed visitors to do extreme acts upon her. For example, they cut her, dressed her as a whore, and even put a loaded gun to her head.

The Artist is Present is retrospective that included other performers redoing her well known pieces and the artist herself, sitting for the duration of the museum hours staring face to face with the public. This event has become of the most historical exhibitions to date and the performance will be remembered for generations to come. It touched the hearts of many-even making some cry and created record breaking lines of people waiting to have their personal experience with the artist.

The Oscars are a completely different animal for Abramovic. We all remember the upset with known street artist, Banksy in the documentary, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” which was nominated for the 2011 Academy Awards. This year we have already noticed that the Academy does not understand the importance of art history. Will the art world ever catch the eye of the commercial film world? Obviously not this year.

For more information on MOMA’s exhibition visit their website: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/965

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Performance Art and Music

Performance Art — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:02:10 +0000

In performance art and performances artists there are many instances of a distinct connection to music. Some music performance artists include Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. It can be addressed that many musical performance artists under the umbrella of “art rock” “glam rock” and visually striking stage performers such as Lady Gaga’s are indeed “performance artists” Although popular music and visual arts enjoy an elaborate set of copyright protections, live shows of a woman shouting until she manages to lose her voice or brushing and combing her hair until her scalp will bleed profusely each of which Abramovic has “performed art shows” are certainly not protected by copyright laws. Abramovic thinks they should be. As she complained to a NYC Times reporter: “Anybody will take anything, so we can’t perform thing over it.” The initial idea behind performance artwork, naturally, was its raw immediacy and ephemeral nature. Overall performance work of art is fundamentally about human presence as well as singular, non-reproducible transience. For music performance art performers such as David Bowie, Jobriath, Roxy Music, New York Dolls may have laid down a “mass appeal” idiom for performances artists and music. Earlier Yoko Ono experimented with performance art but few took it seriously and only in hindsight is she viewed as an instigator of true performance art and music. After the 70s Laurie Anderson integrated “soft technology” which she manipulated thru subtle clever visuals to “performance art” with music “attached to the performance” Probably one of the pioneers of commercial performance art and music are the early performances of Genesis with Peter Gabriel. Few musicians actually continue with the “album” concept. The future will probably be filled with one-hit wonders and songs will rule (democratization of music). As for taste filtering, I have thinking about online new music gurus who’ll review songs in the “little” musicians, categorize them into genres, highlight and popularize them. Although overall performance work of art could be said to include relatively mainstream activities for instance theater, dance, music, and circus-related things like fire breathing, juggling, and gymnastics, these are generally normally instead called the performing arts. Performance artwork is a term usually reserved to consult a sort of usually avant-garde or conceptual artwork which grew out from the visual arts. When I used to be studying (and performing) with technology, installation and performative practice – I’d several professors that encouraged us to appear beyond the Karen Finley/David Wojarnowicz school of overall performance. You will find splendid minimalist overall performance artists. Along with a strong tradition of “extremes” like Blaine. That late 90s “trend” of live TV, assisted suicides is in the school of performanceWhile New York’s Museum of Modern Art celebrated the opening in the performance-art retrospective at its sister museum P.S.1 last month, this rock band Fischerspooner placed on a concert inside the museum’s main atrium. Casey Spooner, a singer who contains great enthusiasm under his cool exterior, stopped the show and complained the audience wasn’t engaging with all the music enough. Later it turned out said the complaints counseled me section of the act as well as the entire piece will later be presented as a film about a fictional musician. Actually you can squeeze beginnings of recorded overall performance artwork with the prophets with the Old Testament. If you can you just read it that way they generally performed all kinds of metaphorical and didactic concepts to share their messages from their God. watch 9 online and watch harry potter as well as the half blood prince Within the same mind you are able to count a variety of shaman’s, medicine men and also other spiritual raconteurs and mukrackers in the category performance artist. In addition to artistic music artists, poets, musicians and film makers, Overall performance Art within the 1970s now encompassed dance (song and dance, yes, fresh fruits it’s not “theater”). Sometimes all of the above is going to be part of a overall performance “piece” (you simply can’t say for sure). Since Performance Artwork is live, no two performances are ever a similar. I think we’ve been affecting visual work of art institutions typically as we’ve been observed in theaters. Every one of those environments brings a different crowd. The audience inside a museum relates to our use less context which is often liberating but there’s also less dedication to visiting a overall performance through. Our dance audience is made up of peers, friends and colleagues. And so i imagine those folks see our shows within a trajectoryArtwork rock may be considered “arty” through replica of classical “fine art” popular music or literature, or simply just through eclecticism. The idea of “art rock” has also sometimes been used to refer the ” progressive rock ” bands which shot to popularity in the 1970s. The only remaining line between certain varieties of “art rock” and avant-garde classical is a vague one, with some artists, including Laurie Anderson , existing right on the boundary. Avant-garde and minimalist new music, like other classical popular music, continues to be usually composed and down on paper so it could be played in concert by various performers, during artwork rock, like any other modern pop popular music, the background music is just not down on paper since the primary medium could be the original recording, and succeeding live concerts are generally made by the songwriters/composers themselves. Indeed, much like the notion of artwork itself, thinking about art rock is amorphous and practically any specialist of rock or pop new music, regardless how seemingly “generic”, may be considered as “art rock” when someone will to mount a defense for him or her. However, during the early 2000s, use of the terms remains quite uncommon away from new music journalists, and isn’t especially common in serious popular music criticism either, because the term, while convenient, is often seen to be pretentious and without clarityThe nineties is frequently regarded as the golden ages of Performance Artwork. It “came out” with the gay and lesbian clubs and into Lincoln Center, with Karen Finley’s well known chocolate show. It is also a time when poetry readings officially morphed into performance work of art in the Nuyorican Composition Slams in New York City’s East Village. Since the start the 1980s, Performance Work of art has increasingly integrated electronic media into pieces – for the reason that we’ve acquired exponential numbers of new technology. Recently, in fact, an 80’s pop musician made good news for Overall performance Work of art pieces designed to use a Microsoft® Powerpoint presentation because the crux from the overall performance. Where Performance Artwork goes from here is only a few combining technology and imagination. In other words, there won’t be any foreseeable boundaries for Overall performance Artists and music.

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