The Originality of Performance and Other (Post)Modernist Myths

Re Re Re The Originality of Performance and Other (Post)Modernist Myths

Jennie Klein

BOOK REVIEWED: Perform, Repeat, Record, edited by Amelia Jones and Adrian Heathfield. Bristol, UK and Chicago: Live Art Development Agency/Intellect, 2012.

We are now at a juncture in which scholars, curators, and institutions representing the fields of theatre and art, and where appropriate, dance and film, should take the opportunity to enlarge their separate histories. Bonnie Marranca, “Being Here — PAJ at 100,” (2012)

he call for an interdisciplinary his- for an action or event to actually “be” tory of performance by Marranca a performance, an audience has to be Tinitially seems rather astonishing, there, the performance has to be unique, until one surveys the field. After all, and it has to take place just once. has not performance art/live art always engaged with transdisciplinary tactics Indeed, recent attempts to define what that utilize theatre, visual art, dance, and makes live art different from everything media culture without necessarily being else have resorted to suggesting what one thing or the other? Certainly PAJ has live art is not rather than what it is. In actively promoted the interrelationship keeping with the counter-cultural spirit of performance and visual art, bringing in which live art/performance art first together the work of theorists, theatre appeared in the late sixties and early critics, avant-garde artists, and play- seventies, the theorists/apologists for wrights in one journal, often in the same live art have embraced a definition of issue. And yet, live art/performance, in this work that emphasizes its resistance spite of claims to the contrary, insists on to reproduction and commodification a genealogy that is rooted in the visual along with its ability to challenge cultural arts, and, in spite of the art world’s and societal norms. Taking his cue from embrace of postmodern theory and the Lois Keidan, the founder, along with cult of (un)originality, makes claims for Catherine Ugwu, of the Live Art Devel- the ontological uniqueness of the per- opment Agency (LADA), who had sug- formance act. In the performance/live art gested in a strategy document written for mythos of the visual arts, the audience is Arts Council England in 1991 that “Live key to the meaning of the work. In order Art represents a challenge to received

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 ways of doing, thinking and seeing; a of becoming yet another commodity rejection of single art form practice; a spectacle emptied of meaning or sig- way of opening frontiers to any politi- nificance — an image, like many others, cal, social or cultural agenda,” Adrian designed to lull the masses into compla- Heathfield, co-editor with Amelia Jones cency while giving them the fiction of of Perform, Repeat, Record, has suggested viewing agency. Certainly, the canoniza- that live artists “take the spectator into tion of the artist Marina Abramovic; for conditions of immediacy where atten- Seven Easy Pieces (performed at the Gug- tion is heightened, the sensory relation genheim as part of Performa 2005) and charged, and the workings of thought the MoMA retrospective The Artist is agitated.”1 Present (2011), during which Abramovic; sat and interacted with museum visi- This definition of live art, promulgated tors while trained dancers and actors quite successfully by the London-based reperformed her work, suggest that the LADA (and publisher of this book) and claims for originality, transcendence, a number of academics, artists, and crit- immediacy, and affect that have been ics (including Heathfield), has served to made in the name of performance/live cement the notion of live art as singularly art need to be carefully unpacked. unique and unable to be reproduced, a challenge to contemporary cultural As the work of the Bristol UK-based norms of simulation and hyper-reality. Performance Re-enactment Society However, the rapidly growing trend for demonstrates, there is actually much to avant-garde performance reenactment be gained when returning to past per- suggests that the situation is otherwise. formances, whether it is a reconnection Performances premised upon audience with a Zeitgeist that is now past, a new participation, delegated performances connection made between the past per- such as those conceptualized by Tino formance, the contemporary performers, Sehgal, Vanessa Beecroft, and Francis and the audience, or an entirely new Alÿs, performances commissioned for work of art. The questions that concern the openings of art fairs and biennials, many artists and critics today is how and reenactments and reperformances of present and past performances construct canonical work from the seventies and meaning, point to a new economy of eighties by artists such as Allan Kaprow, reciprocal exchange between viewer Linda M. Montano, Carolee Schnee- and viewed, and challenge or tweak mann, and Yoko Ono belie the claims the everyday without falling into the made for performance’s originality. trap of becoming an empty capitalist spectacle in the service of the museum An entire industry of reenactments or institution. What is the nature of the and reperformances has developed, live event, and is it more authentic than particularly in the U.S., in conjunction the second-hand event disseminated with blockbuster museum exhibitions through the media? What sort of “gift” and gala performance events such as the can performance give others, and how biannual Performa organized by Roselee can performance/live art instantiate a Goldberg. Live art/performance (the meaningful exchange, or Begegnung, terms are used somewhat interchange- between the viewer(s) and the artist? ably), in such situations, is in danger

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 These are the questions that Perform, live art in art history, authored by Jones Repeat, Record sets out to answer. An specifically for this book. ambitious and lengthy collection of essays, the volume is not about reinstat- Jones’s timeline, placed about two-thirds ing the romantic approach to perfor- of the way through the book with the mance in which the body of the artist somewhat unwieldy title “Timeline of is re-contained through an aesthetic Ideas: Live art in (Art) History, A Pri- sleight of hand into a sign of transcen- marily European-US-based Trajectory dence. Rather, it is about undermining, of Debates and Exhibitions Relating once and for all, the romantic mythos to Performance Documents and Re- of totality, originality, and teleological Enactments,” serves as a concise eight- development that has obscured a more page summation of the raison d’être for nuanced understanding of what perfor- this book: namely, that live art is always mance art might mean in relationship already mediated in that the audience/ to contemporary culture while permit- viewer/participant and artist know that ting the more egregious performance/ the body performing is also a sign of spectacle excesses of artists such as something else, that often the documen- Beecroft, Fraser, and Koons. Neverthe- tation of live art is as important as the less, both editors view performance, act itself, that the viewer’s engagement in all its manifestations, as having the through this documentation can be as potential to open up new avenues of fruitful as actually seeing the act unfold, thought and undermine the relentless and finally, that the interest in reenact- commodity culture of post-capitalism. ment can be viewed as a productive As Jones writes, “at its best, the return engagement with pasts and futures. As to the live via complex modes of re- Jones has written elsewhere, “in prac- enactment, re-staging, reiteration, might tice the now is both always and never be seen to be sparked by (and eliciting graspable — the artist is always already of) openness and hope, by way of pre- thinking of pasts and futures in moving senting new possibilities of intervention her or his body through space, gathering and by activating fresh ways of thinking, and repositioning objects and images, making, being in the world.” A collection reworking pasts for present futures.”2 of essays, performance documents and interviews that engage with the debates The “Timeline of Ideas” stands in con- over live art/performance, reenactment, trast, as it was no doubt meant to, with reperformance, and performance docu- Roselee Goldberg’s more extensive, yet ments, Perform, Repeat, Record addresses less informative, hagiographic histories the potentialities of live art from a of performance, histories that adhere to variety of positions and points of view. the New York-centric bias of most histo- The amount of material in this text, ries of art, histories which telescope ear- which counting the index is 652 pages, lier avant-garde movements (and artists) is unusual for an academic text. The such as Dada and Futurism into a linear book includes a wide range of offerings: trajectory that ends (as all history must) academic articles, “scripts,” photographic with the New York School. Jones’s time- documentation, interviews, manifestos, line, on the other hand, includes impor- artist’s statements, and even a timeline of tant publications such as J. L. Austin’s

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 How to Do Things With Words, major well as attended the MoMA retrospective exhibitions and festivals concerned with The Artist is Present (it has subsequently live art, such as the 2008 exhibition Re- become the subject of a 2012 filmThe Enactments, organized by John Zepppe- Artist is Present, directed by Matthew telli at DHC-Art Foundation in Montreal, Akers and Jeff Dupre). In response, Jones Canada, institutions devoted to live art argued that the supposedly unmediated such as LADA, and of course work by encounter with Abramovic ; at MoMA individual artists. Jones’s timeline is not was little more than a simulation of rela- the only timeline included in the book tional exchange. Meanwhile, the reen- either; the first section — “Theories and actments — and the original event — are Histories” — concludes with a timeline reliant on the extensive documentation of Eastern European art, authored of the event.4 by Angela Harutyunyan with Vardan Azatyan, Tevž Logar, Vesna Madžoski, Perform, Repeat, Record hinges on the Joanna Sokłowska, and Eszter Lázár. idea of reenactment, with Abramovic; These timelines compliment the articles, taking center stage. Indeed, a photo- documents, and interviews in the book, graph of a reenactment by the artists placing the work of artists in the con- group Janez Janša (a Slovenian group text of the literary and critical Zeitgeist. of three artists named after a right- Beginning just after World War II, the wing politician) of Imponderabilia, the timelines re-insert the messy bodies of 1977 gallery entrance performance by avant-garde artists into the sterilized Abramovic ; and Ulay, graces the front and disinterested narrative of art history. and back cover, with Abramovic ;and Ulay replaced by two pregnant women (front Those familiar with Jones’s writing on cover) and the two women holding their performance, modernity, postmodernity, babies (back cover). In each case the and art history will no doubt already be narrowness of the doorway forces a man familiar with many of these arguments, to squeeze between them, just as the as they have been rehearsed in other original gallery visitors had to squeeze publications, beginning with Jones’s between Ulay and Abramovic.; The book important 1997 article “‘Presence’ in includes an interview with Abramovic; absencia: Experiencing Performance As conducted by Jones, as well as an excel- Documentation.”3 Jones has long argued lent article by Mechtild Widrich, “Can that the live act/performance marks the Photographs Make It So? Repeated body as representational, and that the Outbreaks of VALIE EXPORT’S Genital live act can be experienced equally from Panic since 1969,” which demonstrates documentation. More recently, Jones that Abramovic’s; recreation of the has addressed the issue of reenactment performance for Seven Easy Pieces was vis-à-vis the work of Marina Abramovic,; based on the documentation after the whose work she encountered when fact, rather than the performance in the Manchester University’s Whitworth Art cinema (which might or might not have Gallery mounted Marina Abramovic; happened). Presents in 2009. Jones participated in the performance events organized in Most of the articles in the “Theories and conjunction with the 2009 exhibition, as Histories” problematize the relationship

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 between documentation, reperformance, acknowledges that the nature of “being and canonical performances. This section there” is critically slippery for both the includes Rebecca Schneider’s “Perfor - spectator and critic. Not surprisingly, mance Remains,” rewritten for publica- Heathfield authored the introductions tion in this volume, André Lepecki’s for the “repeat” and “record” sections discussion of re-presenting Allan of the book, the former devoted to Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts for live art documentation and the latter Performa 2007, and a critique, authored comprised of interviews with artists by Hannah Higgins, on the reduction of and practitioners. An advocate of the Fluxus to Maciunas and his manifestos. radical potential and indeterminacy of As acknowledged in the title of Jones’s performance à la Peggy Phelan whose timeline, the book still lists towards the essay he included in the Live anthology, west, albeit a “west” that includes Mex- Heathfield writes that the“multiple lives ico, Brazil, and Eastern Europe. And yet, of performance . . . suggest that one there are some very interesting artists of performance’s most consistent and and festivals that originate in Asia. For recurring conditions is transformation. ” this reason, the most compelling article included in the first section was Meiling For Heathfield,Perform, Repeat, Record Cheng’s “The Prosthetic Present Tense: constitutes an archive of sorts, albeit one Documenting Chinese Time-Based Art.” that is willfully partial and incomplete, Writing about the work of Chinese not to mention subjective and interested. artists Qiu Zhijie, Yang Zhichao, Wang Indeed, one of the biggest strengths of Chuyu, and Wang Hong, Cheng argues this book (and in some cases weak- that in the case of these three artists, nesses) is the manner in which it reflects documentation, which would seem to the interests of the editors — the theo- come after the live event, in the West retical premise of this anthology certainly can function as prosthesis, but here is reflects Jones’s work more so than that indistinguishable from the performance of Heathfield. So too does the inclu- itself. In China, Cheng suggests, “the use sion of artists from southern California of documentation in these artists’ perfor- who were aligned with the feminist art mance work reflect a post-Tiananmen movement or have been associated with tactic in response to the heightened identity politics. On the other hand, the political tension and official proscription extensive nature of the documentation/ regarding avant-garde art . . . .” archives that comprise two thirds of the book, the emphasis on interviews Cheng’s rereading of the significance of and in some cases the inclusion of UK- documentation is reflected in Heath- based artists who are not well known field’s approach to the material, which outside of the UK, suggest Heathfield’s parts company to some degree with that influence, hence the inclusion of artists of Jones, making for an interesting ten- such as Hayley Newman, Tim Etchells, sion throughout this book. Heathfield, and Franko B. a curator and critic who is immersed in the contemporary and very vibrant What is also a bit surprising is what live art scene of the United Kingdom, is was not included in this book, especially not quite ready to cede his belief in the since it was published by LADA, an efficacy of live performance, even as he organization that has actively promoted

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 work by minority artists. In addition to book, in spite of her popularity in the aggressively supporting live art by UK- United Kingdom and her frequent based artists, LADA has also facilitated appearance in the pages of Artforum.6 a number of international exchanges such as the 2005–2006 project China For that matter, neither were any of the Live, a collaboration between Live Art other critics who have recently written UK, Chinese Arts Centre, LADA and extensively on participation: Grant Kes- Shu Yang of the DaDao Arts Festival.5 tor, Gregory Sholette, Blake Stimson, and As a supplement to the Euro-American Nato Thompson. Similarly, Allan Kaprow timelines, timelines of Asian, Canadian, (Happenings) and the artists associated and South American live art, theories, with Fluxus, including Dick Higgins and and reenactments would have been Allison Knowles, premised their prac- very welcome. In light of Heathfield’s tices on audience participation. In the editorial role, the selective inclusion of case of the Fluxus artists, performances some UK-based artists and writers at were scored so that other artists could the expense of others seemed rather reenact the work. Both Kaprow and arbitrary, especially in light of the fact Fluxus are included in Perform, Repeat, that many of these artists, writers, and Record but only by way of a discussion artists groups have been concerned of the nature of reenacting Kaprow’s with reenactment and questioning the 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (André Lepecki) originality of performance long before or a discussion of how the emphasis it became fashionable. on Maciunas has obscured the manner in which Fluxus practice anticipated There was not, for example, a contribu- relational aesthetics (Hannah Higgins). tion from Paul Clarke or the Performance Re-enactment Society. Deirdre Heddon, No book, even one as dense as Perform, whose book 2008 book Autobiography Repeat, Record can include everything. and Performance addressed the chasm And while it can be argued that Bishop, between the performer, her/his auto- Thompson, et al represent a tangen- biography, and the representation/sign tial and not entirely related discourse of identity is also absent. Heike Roms, regarding performance, it would have who has done extensive archival work been interesting to have considered on Welsh performance artists, was not the implications of participatory/social included. Nor was there any discussion art on authenticity, reenactment and of the work of Trace Collective and André documentation, particularly as it relates Stitt, particularly their durational perfor- to theatre, which as Bonnie Marranca mances which are painstakingly archived pointed out, has been all but ignored (often by Roms) while they occur. Finally, by art historians. This is unfortunate, as it is striking that Claire Bishop, who has much of the best writing and work on been extremely critical of the allegedly performance has originated in theatre, transgressive and authentic nature of while reenactment is inherently theatri- performance with her writing on audi- cal. In fact, the line between avant-garde ence participation and more recently on theatre and performance/live art, which the relationship between commissioned was never very clear cut, has become performances, capitalism, and spectacle, almost non-existent. Trained actors was not included or even cited in this and dancers reenacted Abramovic’s;

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 canonical performances for The Artist the performance document has drifted is Present. The Slovenian-based Eastern towards the theatrical. Auslander writes: European theatrical group Via Negativa has reenacted canonical theatre, dance, It may well be that our sense and performance work with the goal of of the presence, power, and eliminating theatrical illusion.7 In 2007, authenticity of these pieces the artist and activist Paul Chan orga- derives not from treating the nized Waiting for Godot in New Orleans. document as an indexical access As with previous performances of the point to a past event but from play in politically charged environments perceiving the document itself (it was directed by Susan Sontag in as a performance that directly Sarajevo in 1993), Chan’s version was reflects an artist’s aesthetic proj- designed to both activate the community ect or sensibility and for which and highlight the government inaction we are the present audience.8 that prevented the rebuilding of a city occupied by people with little money In his book Liveness: Performance in a and political power. Mediatized Culture, Auslander argued that the idea of liveness was not an Waiting for Godot in New Orleans was ontological condition but was instead sponsored by Creative Capital. As direc- historically mediated and dependent tor of Creative Capital, Nato Thompson upon contextual circumstances. Aus- organized and produced the event. lander’s book, first published in 1999, Subsequently, the documentation of the caused something of a sensation when making and producing of the play has he refuted Peggy Phelan’s claims for been organized into a book and a 2010 the ontological specificity of perfor- exhibition at MoMA. An event such as mance, which, according to Phelan, this, in which the artist/activist is neither resisted the economy of reproduction the primary actor or creator in a perfor- and consumption.9 The previous year, mance with which he is credited raises Jones had published Body Art, an expan- many of the same issues that were raised sion of her arguments in “‘Presence’ in in Perform, Repeat, Record, particularly absencia: Experiencing Performance As as regards the role of documentation, Documentation.” Perform, Repeat, Record, which until quite recently has been compiled in response to the trend for used to make a distinction between reenactments, elaborates upon these avant-garde performance and theatre. arguments. And while theatre continues However, as Phillip Auslander argued to be given short shrift, there are at least in “The Performativity of Performance two selections, both interview/dialogues, Documentation,” (included in this book which point to the problematics engen- but originally published in PAJ 84 in dered by the blurring of the meaning 2006) documentation has become per- of theatre, live art, documentation, and formative in and of itself. For Auslander, reenactment. The first, an interview who draws a distinction between what with Tilda Swinton, Joanna Scalan and he calls the documentary and the theatri- Amelia Jones entitled “The Maybe: cal, with the former providing a record of Modes of Performance and the ‘Live’” a previous event and the latter a perfor- exposed the willful degree of art-world mance/display of the event, the role of blindness to avant-garde performance

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 originating from someone other than In his introduction, Heathfield suggests an artist. Swinton, a well-known actress, that “for much of its life throughout conceived and executed the piece The the twentieth century, the presence Maybe, during which she reposed in a of performance art (of the performer) glass box. After conceiving the piece, has been both the proposed source of Swinton invited the artist Cornelia its cultural appeal and value, and the Parker to design an installation around cause of its suspicion, marginalization, her performance — subsequently the and denigration within many critical piece was attributed to Parker, and not and institutional contexts. Presence, Swinton. The second, “Do it Again, Do it as it turns out, is both a philosophical Again (Turn Around, Go Back),” an inter- and a theatrical notion, one in which view between Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard, literally ‘being there’ coincides with an and Andrew Renton, dealt with Forsyth’s event that plays out in real time.” At and Pollard’s recreation of “tribute band” the conclusion of “Being Here,” cited at concerts. By its very definition, a tribute the beginning of this review, Marranca band cannot possibly be authentic, suggests that reperformance calls for a and yet surprisingly the experience of new understanding of performance his- those who attended the “live” events tory, one that incorporates both avant- very closely replicated the experience of garde theatre and performance/live art, attending a concert by the actual artist. one that utilizes new modes of critical discourse. Perform, Repeat, Record wasn’t The work of Pollard and Forsyth demon- conceived with the idea of re-presenting strates Auslander’s contention that the performance history, or even present- concepts of authenticity and liveness are ing an inclusive narrative of contem- historically mutable. The tribute band porary performance. Nevertheless, in re-creations of canonical rock and roll its exhaustive presentation of different moments represent an active engage- types of performances, documentation, ment with the rock and roll archives, and critical approaches, it suggests a along the lines of the Civil War reenact- way of reading performance that is no ments discussed by Rebecca Schneider. longer beholden to modernist notions If in fact documentation can become or of transgression, transformation, and substitute for the live performance, what the avant-garde. drives the audience to seek out the actual performer or someone who is once NOTES removed from the actual performer? Why are tribute band concerts staged in 1. Adrian Heathfield,“Alive,” in Adrian art galleries and Civil War reenactments Heathfield, ed.,Live (New York and London: Routledge, 2004). so popular? Why did so many people go to sit across from Abramovic ; in what was 2. Amelia Jones, “Performance, Live or so clearly a staged encounter? How is Dead,” Art Journal 70, no. 3 (Fall 2011): 35. it possible that we are taking seriously 3. Amelia Jones, “‘Presence’ in absencia: Marco Anelli’s photographs of visitors Experiencing Performance As Documenta- to this event entitled Marina Abramovic; tion,” Art Journal 56, no. 4 (Winter 1997): Made Me Cry? 11–18.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_r_00150 by guest on 01 October 2021 4. Amelia Jones, “‘The Artist is Present’: critique of delegated performance in October Artistic Re-enactments and the Impossibility 140 (Spring 2012): 91–112. of Presence,” TDR: The Drama Review 55, no. 7. http://vntheatre.com/en/about-via-neg 1 (Spring 2011): 16–45. ativa/the-project/ 5. For more information on China Live, 8. Philip Auslander, “The Performativity of see http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/projects Performance Documentation,” PAJ: A Journal /lauk/china_live.html, accessed 12/15/2012. of Performance and Art 28, no. 3 (September 6. Bishop’s book, Artificial Hells (London: 2006): 1–10. Verso, 2012), is a critique, developed from 9. Philip Auslander, Liveness: Performance her earlier Artforum article “The Social Turn: in a Mediatized Culture 2nd Edition (London: Collaboration and Its Discontents” (February, Routledge, 2008). Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: 2006), of socially engaged, participatory art. The Politics of Performance (New York and More recently, Bishop published “Delegating London: Routledge, 1993). Performance: Outsourcing Authenticity,” a

JENNIE KLEIN is an associate professor of art history at Ohio University. Her most recent project is the co-edited book, along with Deirdre Heddon, Histories and Practices of Live Art.

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