PERFORMANCE ARTISTS TALKING in the EIGHTIES Montano a B I-Xvi 001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page Ii Montano a B I-Xvi 001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page Iii
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page a AHMANSON•MURPHY FINE ARTS IMPRINT has endowed this imprint to honor the memory of . who for half a century served arts and letters, beauty and learning, in equal measure by shaping with a brilliant devotion those institutions upon which they rely. montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page b The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution to this book provided by the Art Book Endowment of the University of California Press, which is supported by a major gift form the Ahmanson Foundation. montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page i PERFORMANCE ARTISTS TALKING IN THE EIGHTIES montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page ii montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page iii PERFORMANCE ARTISTS TALKING IN THE EIGHTIES athsexfoodmoney tual/deathfoodmo ey/fameritual/death xmoney/fameritua eathsexfoodmone fameritual /deathse COMPILED BY LINDA M. MONTANO University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page iv Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint interviews with Nancy Barber, Alison Knowles, Leslie Labowitz, Suzanne Lacy, Susan Mogul, and Bonnie Sherk from “Food and Art,” High Performance , no. (winter ‒); Ana Mendieta from Sulfur (); Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Vera from “Summer Saint Camp ,” The Drama Review , no. (spring ); Karen Finley, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Helene Aylon from Binnewater Tides (published by the Women’s Studio Workshop) – (–); and Carolee Schneemann from Flue (published by Franklin Furnace) (). University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © by the Regents of the University of California “Introduction: Shall We Talk? Linda M. Montano Performs Autobiographical Voices” © Angelika Festa “Introduction to Part Two: Food” © Moira Roth Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Performance artists talking in the eighties : sex, food, money/fame, ritual/death/compiled by Linda M. Montano. p. cm. “Ahmanson Murphy fine arts imprint.” Includes index. ISBN --- (cloth : alk. paper)— ISBN --- (pbk. : alk. paper) . Performance artists—United States—Interviews. Performance art—United States. I. Montano, Linda . Ј.Ј—dc - Manufactured in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of / .- (R ) (Permanence of Paper). montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page v This book is dedicated to: Chakra 1, Security: My creative parents, Mildred and Henry Montano Chakra 2, Relationships: 1+1=1 Chakra 3, Courage: All performance artists and lovers of Living Art Chakra 4, Compassion: My guides Dr. Aruna Mehta, Dr. A. L. Mehta, Mother Mary Jane, and Sister Giotto Chakra 5, Communication: My grandmother Lena Kelly and all of my teachers Chakra 6, Intuition: My meditation Guru, Dr. Mishra (Shri Brahmananda Saraswati) Chakra 7, Joy: ******** ***** montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page vi montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page vii contents Preface by Linda M. Montano xi Introduction: Shall We Talk? Linda M. Montano Performs Autobiographical Voices, by Angelika Festa PART ONE sex Introduction by Christine Tamblyn / Vito Acconci Philip Corner / Paul Cotton / Karen Finley Vanalyne Green / Lynn Hershman / Dick Higgins Laurel Klick / Steven Kolpan / Jill Kroesen Robert Kushner / Minnette Lehmann / Lydia Lunch Paul McCarthy / Tim Miller / Frank Moore and Linda Mac Vernita Nemec / Pat Oleszko / Carolee Schneemann Barbara Smith / Annie Sprinkle and Veronica Vera Hannah Wilke PART TWO food Introduction by Moira Roth / Jerri Allyn / Nancy Barber John Cage / Angelika Festa / Howard Fried Joan Jonas / Alison Knowles / Leslie Labowitz Suzanne Lacy / Les Levine / Antoni Miralda Susan Mogul / Faith Ringgold / Rachel Rosenthal Martha Rosler / Richard Schechner / Bonnie Sherk Stuart Sherman / Anne Tardos and Jackson Mac Low montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page viii PART THREE money/fame Introduction by Laura Cottingham / Eleanor Antin Robert Ashley / Bob and Bob / Eric Bogosian Nancy Buchanan / Linda Frye Burnham / Papo Colo Lowell Darling / Steven Durland / Simone Forti Mel Henderson / Julia Heyward / Mikhail Horowitz Allan Kaprow / Tom Marioni / Meredith Monk Jim Pomeroy / Willoughby Sharp / Michael Smith Martin Von Haselberg / Martha Wilson PART FOUR ritual/death Introduction by Lucy R. Lippard / Marina Abramovicˇ and Ulay Helene Aylon / Chris Burden / John Cage Ping Chong / George Coates / Betsy Damon Terry Fox / Cheri Gaulke / Alex Grey Deborah Hay / Geoffrey Hendricks / Donna Henes Kim Jones / Alistair MacLennan / Ann Magnuson Ruth Maleczech / Paul McMahon / Ana Mendieta Hermann Nitsch / Lorraine O’Grady / Morgan O’Hara Pauline Oliveros / Adrian Piper / Jerome Rothenberg Brian Routh / Robert Schuler / Theodora Skipitares Stelarc / Elaine Summers / Fiona Templeton Mierle Laderman Ukeles / William Wegman Paul Zaloom / Ellen Zweig Afterword: Quicksilver and Revelations: Performance Art at the End of the Twentieth Century, by Kristine Stiles Biographies Index montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page ix illustrations following page 142 Sex Paul Cotton, Meditation of the Time Being Vanalyne Green, This Is Where I Work Lynn Hershman, Binge Laurel Klick, Self-Portrait Minnette Lehmann, Many Minnettes at Her Birthday Party Paul McCarthy, Grand Pop Tim Miller, My Queer Body Pat Oleszko, The Padettes of P.O. Town (The Primary Colored Group) Carolee Schneemann, Fresh Blood: A Dream Morphology Food Jerri Allyn, Love Novellas Howard Fried, Long John Silver vs. Long John Servil Joan Jonas, Double Lunar Dogs Alison Knowles, Make a Soup Suzanne Lacy, Know Where the Meat Comes From Antoni Miralda, Liberty Engagement Gown (Honeymoon Project) Martha Rosler, Watchwords of the Eighties ix montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page x x Illustrations Money/Fame Bob and Bob, Forget Everything You Know Papo Colo, Superman Mel Henderson, Oil Mikhail Horowitz, Dramatic Reading from NYNEX Phone Directory Willoughby Sharp, Saskia Ritual/Death Ping Chong, Humbolt’s Current Cheri Gaulke, This Is My Body Alistair McLennan, If Underhand Ana Mendieta, The Burial of the Nañigo Hermann Nitsch, .Action (“Three-Day Play”) Stelarc, Street Suspension Paul Zaloom, Sick But True montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page xi preface Food is good material for my art. MILDRED MONTANO, PAINTER AND MOTHER OF LINDA MONTANO This project began when the anthropologist Diane Rothenberg invited me to her “Anthropology of Food” class at the University of Southern California in . It was then that I started to gather slides of food per- formances, which led to a series of ten interviews with performance artists who use food in their work. Those interviews were printed in High Performance in the early s as part of the magazine’s food issue. After food, I explored other themes: sex, money and fame, ritual and death—all things I wanted to know more about. I realized that per- formance artists were addressing these topics, so I talked to them, some- times intermittently, sometimes intensely, for the next ten years. After each artist chose one of the four topics (sex, food, money and fame, ritual and death), I asked him or her essentially the same ques- tion: How did you feel about (food, sex, money, fame, ritual, or death) as a child? It has always been my personal belief that the themes artists employ are born in childhood and that an artist’s work explores, transforms, perpetuates, or makes the information from that time understandable and manageable via symbolic acts—art. Some artists I talked with are not interested in that connection and ex- pressed this in our conversations. Some discovered it again or for the xi montano_a_b_i-xvi_001-538 10/30/00 16:09 Page xii xii Preface first time. Others responded conceptually—for example, when asked about sex, Tony Labat said: “Interpret my silence.” My own childhood habit was not to speak but to silently intuit ev- erything. By placing myself in an atmosphere of talking with artists about subjects I once thought too delicate or taboo to discuss, I have slowly untied my own tongue. Also, I now have even more permission to unearth my personal re- current art theme—hunger. Had I been interviewed for this book, I would have chosen to talk about food. I would have mentioned my al- lergic reactions to cow’s milk as an infant, my childhood vomiting in- cidents and hospitalization; I would have mentioned the way my grandmother cooked roadkill and humorously called all of the different animals she cooked “chicken”; I would have mentioned my two years in the convent and anorexically going from to pounds; I would have mentioned my live chicken installations and later performances as Chicken Woman. Finally, I would have mentioned that for thirty years I have translated and transformed physical hunger into ecstatic, meta- physical longing disguised as art. Performance births Meditation! Can Performance Artists Continue to Practice? As I reread these interviews, some from twenty years ago, I am moved by two recurrent themes: courage and mortality. In his book Writing as Sculpture, the Indian philosopher Harish Johari told members of a workshop in Holland that artists are saints. I have always believed this, and had it been appropriate, I would have titled the book Performance Art Saints Talking, because we are not shy, but visible warrior-saints,