Performance Art 2

PERFORMANCE ART 2 I THINK THEYRE WEARING THEIR COUl RS UP THIS YEAR- Comedy e Acting/Non -Acting by Scott Burton, Ruth Maleczech, Michael Smith, Elizabeth LeCompte, Laurie Anderson e L.A. Sounds e Rachel Rosenthal e Artist-as- Businessman o New Music, New York * Reviews $2.00 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 A Periodical of Performing Arts Journal Publications Publishers Bonnie Marranca CLOWNING AROUND 3 RACHEL ROSENTHAL 26 Gautam Dasgupta Tony Mascatello Executive Editor Bonnie Marranca Editor (Commedla and Sitcoms, Gleason and John Howell Duchamp, Body Sculpture and Pratfalls) Design ACTINGINON-ACTING 7 Gautam Dasgupta NEW MUSIC. NEW YORK 32 Scott Burton, Ruth Maleczech, Michael Smith, Staff Photographer Elizabeth LeCompte, Laurie Anderson Johan Elbers B6r6nice Reynaud L.A. LOOKS AT SOUND 19 - 1979 by Performance Art Magazine. Performance Art Magazine is published four times a year by Per- forming Arts Journal Inc. Editorial and business of- Clair Wolfe fice: P.O. Box 858; Peter Stuyvesant Station; New York; N.Y. 10009. Tel.: (212) 260-7586. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by self- addressed stamped envelope. Subscription rates 4 per year: Individuals-$7.50; Libraries and InstItu- ARGUMENT 22 REVIEWS 37 tions-$12.00; Foreign, including Canada, add $3.00 Artist as Businessman per year for postage. Request for permission to COVER DESIGN: Michael Smith reprint any material in Performance Art Magazine Anthony McCall and Photos: Kevin Noble must be made in writing to the publishers. Andrew Wyndall Advertising rates will be sent on request. m Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 eCL'N6' AROUND Tony Mascatello GlOSson and Duchamp, (Ceommedia and Sitcoms, 4 8.4 Sculpture and Pratfalls) It is clear enough by now that comedy of the clowning). And it will be well to keep in mind most vulgar kind asserts itself at the center of that clowning remains what it has always the art community as a prominent concern of been, an antidote to reason, a fertilizing white performance art. What is perhaps unclear is magic. why such diverse artists as Julia Heyward, Michael Smith, Ralston Farina, Robin Then one considers Winters, Jean Dupuy, Laurie Anderson, and the beginnings of art performance many others not only perform comic material, in the minds of turn-of-the-century but also employ comic forms and personae for painters. Art performers collage events-this is an extension of the transmission of non-comic material. As painters having incor- performance art gropes for an independent porated bits of the real world into their can- vases. When existence apart from theatre, one sees that the Picasso placed a real object within a painting, clown has been among the first on the scene, he witnessed the coming of Surrealism. enjoying the chaos attendant upon the birth When Duchamp shaved a comet into his scalp, of something new, and filling in the gaps with the painter's very body was in- characteristic gestures. PANTALONE corporated as material, comic material in fact. Process art transformed verbs into To begin with, it will be useful to distinguish nouns. The performer seemed bound to between verbal and physical comedy (wit and become a puppet. 3 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 THE HONEYMOONERS- Art performers looking beyond props confront thenselves on stage popular media; his lineage extends back through the commedia and are puzzled. If not an actor reading lines, then what? A painter dell'arte to the Etruscan Atellanae and the Greek satyr plays where or sculptor to begin with, but now? On stage, even if only as his own theatre is born of sophisticated fertility rites. Priapus is the pro- stage hand, the performer is forced to acknowledge his own presence. totypical clown. Dionysus was the popular god. It is rare to find a trained actor doing art performance (which is not to say that one does not find similar issues being explored within the Faced with the problem of stage identity, of persona, many art per- theatre). formers, referring to the popular media, seem to have adopted the The art performer has been a painter upon a stage, manipulating his comic mask. Chaplin reinvented commedia for our time. Cinema was event. A persona is sought, a way for the non-actor to act on stage. new, chaotic, improvisational, and vulgar. According to Chaplin, The stand-up comedian, the pop singer, deejay, emcee, the magician "nothing transcends the personality." The repertory gestures are have all been influential. And since the painter, like Chaplin's Tramp unified in it; the hobbled walk, the trouser hitch, shrug, cane twirl called upon for words at the end of Modern Times, is at a loss for and flex, the image of his silhouette, all describe the same faun-like them, physical gags and slapstick forms assert themselves, and words little man. Chaplin did not invent the mask of the tramp, however. become sounds. Ralston Farina is a magician without tricks, obsessed He was born to elevate this vaudeville character to the heights once with timing. Julia Heyward and Laurie Anderson explore the notion reached by the great Harlequins who were revered by the kings and of speech as sound. Gilbert and George stand there sculpturally. literati of their time. His personality is the lifeblood of those silent Michael Smith deadpans. The art performer's sources include the gestures which the world has recognized as art. 4 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 THE SECOND HONEYMOON Television was a kind of new, proletarian repetition until they reveal themselves as un- banter and gags, is history. Improvisation cinema. In its formative years, it thrived on changing objects, not events. They are placed was the rule, and highly prized as part of the the work of superlative clowns. From Milton within the simple plot to be deliciously an- performer's technique. Difficulties in transi- Berle through Sid Caesar to Jackie Gleason, ticipated like the drop in a roller coaster. tion were filled with specialized bits of clowning yielded to sit-com. In Gleason, physical comedy (lazzi) which every per- finally, there coexists a brilliant clown The terms "mask" and "role" are inter- former held in repertory, and with which he alongside a merely tolerable (because of text) changeable in the commedia. And the mask or she was often associated. These gags (body sit-com actor. This split accounts for the deri- was in more ways than one a physical thing. art) were eagerly anticipated by every star's sion in which both he and Jerry Lewis are The face piece and make up, the actor's fans who, it seems, watched as well as listened often held. Because it is Gleason's repertory typical postures, his bearing, the shape of the to their idols. The nobility sustained the com- gestures that have all the power, the varia- body, were all aspects of the mask, unified by media as art. tions on the slow burn are what we anticipate the personality of the performer who iden- with delight. In the explosion of his pent up tified with the role. The clowns of the com- I recall waiting time and again for Gleason to fury his absurd persona becomes incandes- media often played a single role for life, rarely explode at Art Carney's provocation. I yearned cent, his growl delightful, his gesture more than two. That the masks were mythic, to see again the exquisite timing, the com- sculptural. These meaningful moments are and the plots simple paths along which the ing together of performer and his mythic im- set pieces, gaining power from continual great ones walked sustaining themselves with age. I watched the limited repertory go by 5 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pam.1979.0.2.1 by guest on 27 September 2021 dozens of times, and came to see not only Kramden's gestures as objects, but his rela- tionships as well. They are so simple, his wife and his best friend, both of whom provoke his anger and his love to excess. In either case, Ralph becomes part of a mythic pair. Like Stan and Ollie, Ed and Ralph are fixed in the relationship of the slow burn. They do not change; they never change. And they are physically a traditional sculptural unit, Fat & Skinny doing Punch & Judy. All the classic commedia masks were performed with pup- pets, despite the stress on physical prowess for the stage roles. The comedian's profile, his image, was re-stated by Chaplin, Keaton, THE CHAPLIN REVIEW and Arbuckle in the improvisational welter of early cinema. Not only their persons, but their gestures and events were sculptural, both in concept and in their physicality as film. HARLEQUIN The comic form is a short form, perfect for i-> an actor. By new beginnings, thriving on improvisation. If virtue of his being on the stage as the center of attention, he seems art performers working in this mode succeed defined as such. The difference is in the performer's role in the long term, will they be creating art or as author. He is forced to act, but within his comedy? Or a new hybrid form? It is notable own non-theatrical construction he may act as that art performers do not always go for the he chooses.

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