KRISTINE LARSEN ROSELEE ROSELEE GOLDBERG York City and featuring work by Francesco Francesco by work featuring and City York New throughout venues at 22 through this year’sedition,takingplace November in Renaissance the on focus a by underscored fact years—a of hundreds for practice artists’ of part integral an been has performance However, genre. the for programs and spaces dedicated creating regularly now are fairs art even and universities, museums, as establishment the into swiftly moved has art performance biennial, Performa the IN THE 10 YEARS S NEWSMAKER TRENDS // SNEAK I NCE

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each biennial? S and beyond.Itisnotarecent phenomenon. artist’s experienceintheRenaissance that liveperformancewasintegral tothe With thisyear’sPerforma,Iwanted toshow workshop—it hadtobeaverytheatricalplace. ent classes mingling in a bustling studio were painted!Modelsofallagesfromdiffer- narrative paintingsandclassicalthemes Imagine thestudiosoftimethosegreat we know now as static paintings or sculptures. and workingwithapprenticestocreatewhat r :

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rG: One of the reasons I started Performa was to make the history of performance widely known, and to integrate that history into the history of art as we know it. Even though my book [: From Futurism to the Present] was published in in shaping 20th-century art, it took the crea- tion of Performa to get the attention of a larger public—the critics as well as academics and curators. With the intention of uncovering this history, each biennial is anchored in a historical theme that we start researching two years in advance. We pull together a selection of texts that are bound in a reader, much as I do for my students at , and we provide these readers for the artists, writers, curators, our staff, and anyone interested in getting to know the details of the particular historical period. We begin by reaching out to scholars and Leonardo da Vinci are performance artists. museum used to be a quiet, FROM TOP: Jesper Just They are certainly not performance artists, contemplative experience; A performance Princeton, who in turn put us in touch with a though aspects of their work have involved it was a place to study, still from True Love really interesting group of Renaissance performance. By the way, I rarely use the to be left alone, removed Is Yet to Come, a 2005 Performa scholars, including Alexander Nagel, Rebecca term “performance artist” to describe artists, from the street. But the commission. Zorach, and Pamela Smith. Much to my except in the broadest sense, to describe a museum of today is a Liz Magic Laser surprise and delight, I discovered a generation history. Rather, I follow the work of those bustling cultural palace, A performance of art historians who are looking at the artists who use “the live” as one medium with large spaces set aside still from I Feel Your Pain, commis- Renaissance through a lens of contemporary among many for expressing their ideas. Visual for crowds and events, sioned by the art, much in the way that we approach the artists throughout the 20th century have and some now also have biennial in 2011. done so—Andy dedicated performance Warhol, Robert spaces. The effect of this heightened attention Rauschenberg, Yves from academics and museums is that Klein, Yoko Ono, people can build a bank of references, they Vito Acconci, Joan can compare one with the other, they are Jonas, Mike Kelley, acquiring knowledge and entering into a very to name a few since contemporary conversation about media and the 1960s—and many engagement, narrative versus abstraction, contemporary artists time and space. We will see more and more today use performance museum-quality performance because among a range of the setting demands it, because curators media. Very few are becoming more effective producers, and artists use the term to because audiences will be expecting it. describe themselves, Sr: As museums are under increasing pressure either. Tino Sehgal to present sensational experiences, performance does not call himself a becomes more vulnerable to becoming spectacle. performance artist— How do you deal with this? no way! rG: So much of the art of the past two decades Sr: Much has has had a spectacular aesthetic, dazzling historical precedent to today’s performance. changed since Performa started. Marina surfaces of color, brilliant imagery, surround It’s been an extraordinary process of discovery. Abramovic´ ’s The Artist Is Present, in 2010, sound—which has as much to do with new I should point out that the artists whom we for instance, brought a lot of critical attention technology as with the highly tuned media ERFORMA

commission for the biennial are not expected to the form, while museums and universities world that we live in. Think of the pristine P to respond directly to this historical anchor, are integrating it into their programs. vitrines of Jeff Wall, Matthew Barney’s although quite a few of them do. Has this popularity and institutionalization Sr: You’ve said that many artists who are affected performance? installations of Pierre Huyghe or Pipilotti thought of as painters or photographers or rG: It has brought more attention to Rist, and the recent mega-installations AULACOURT AND

sculptors are actually performance artists. performance and created an avid audience of Paul McCarthy or Kara Walker. It is not P Can you explain this? who enjoy the experience of being up close at all surprising if performance of the same rG: With all due respect to the New York and personal to the artist, being able to era carries the same boldness of aesthetic, Times, I was misquoted as saying that turn to others in the room to discuss and the same richness of imagemaking, the same

Jackson Pollock, , and argue their take on the work. Going to a desire to seduce and overwhelm. Performance IMAGES: BOTH

24 MODERN PAINTERS NOVEMBER 2015 BLOUINARTINFO.COM EMILIE R EX AND MAGNOLIA PICTURES Ryan McNamara, and too many more to mention. mention. to more many too and McNamara, Ryan Peake, Eddie Spooner, Cally González-Foerster, Dominique Johnson, Rashid Laser, Magic Liz Kjartansson, Ragnar Kentridge, William Neshat, Shirin Fast, Omer Julien, Isaac Simmons, Laurie Djurberg, Nathalie Pendleton, Adam includes but here, list to long too is work revelatory similarly of list The work. producing and commissioning of way new a was It imagined. had I what delivered biennial Times the in appeared review and photo large a day next The mesmerized. completely literally, dropped, were jaws people’s and around looked I love.” you one the hurt always “you screaming men 25 with Choir, Men’s Screaming the included that scenes shifting of projection a was there and performer, live one was there sat, than rather stood We Street. Charles on Studio Weiss Stephan the space, husband’s late Karan’s Donna of box white the inside constructed stage small a on place took It surprise. by True LoveIsYettoCome r and thought,ThisiswhatIenvisioned? S content. of terms in and aesthetically both powerful, is that work produce to and context, its explain threads, historical its show to Performa, start to reason good another was that but absurd, as of thought often is on based imagination, public the in art performance Indeed, that.” done have could two-year-old “my joke old the of r a performanceartistnow. S the mediahavealwayslookedtoartworldforinspiration. up thenewestpropositionsbyartists.MadisonAvenueand eat will culture pop that inevitable it’s Conversely, personal. of avant-garde the to irresistible is technology of garde r S everybody. from participation instant allows It ways. of hundreds in performance of imagery the recycling for Instagram, for ideal is material Performa’s come. to more deals that Time, About program, commissioning a begun a has it that way a such in always but Internet, the use might they that ways various about artists Performa with conversation in constantly we’re and programming, our to integral is It screen. iPhone smallest the on impact have can and inventive, and powerful visually is it motion; in nature by is Performance exhibition. online r potential inthatrespect? transmitted viatheInternetandsocialmedia.Whatis S make bettersenseoftherangematerialbeingmade. this broadspectrum,complexhistory,sothatwecanall also focusedoneducatingcuratorsandwriterstolookat these changesandshiftsinscale,aesthetic,content.We’re Performa providesthecriticalcontextforexamining the museumsandgalleriesnowpresentingperformance, in aworkbyDaveMcKenzieforPerforma09.Evenwithall as Harlem, in bench a on passerby a with conversation simple a conceptual: scale, in small minimal, be also can r r r r G: G: G: G: : : : :

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