“UP TO AND INCLUDING HER LIMITS”: BODY LANGUAGE AND BODY POLITICS IN PERFORMANCE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI`I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE AUGUST 2012 By MarCia Roberts-Deutsch DissertAtion Committee Kathy Ferguson, Chairperson JonAthan Goldberg-Hiller Kathie Kane MiChael Shapiro Cynthia Franklin KeyWords: AbrAmović, feminist theories, MendietA, performanCe Art, SChneemann 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS AcknoWledgements . .3 AbstrACt . 4 Chapter I: MApping the Terrain . .5 Chapter II: WAlking through History . .10 Chapter III: Setting Theories in Motion . 38 Chapter IV: The Erotic Body: CArolee SChneemann (1939 - ) . 67 Chapter V: The Ecological Body: AnA MendietA (1948-1985) . .94 ChApter VI: The ExistentiAl Body: MArinA AbrAmović (1946 - ) . .119 Chapter VII: Moving Together . .148 Bibliography . 179 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS MoirA Roth, Trefethen Professor of Art History, Mills College, OAklAnd, CAliforniA, and author of The Amazing Decade: Women and Performance Art in America 1970- 1980, for her enCourAgement And vAlidAtion of the frAming of this reseArCh. The Getty ReseArCh Institute of The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CAliforniA for providing ACCess to the CArolee SChneemann pApers (1959-1994) As A stAck reader in the Special Collections ReAding Room. The DepArtment of PerformanCe Studies, Institute of Performing Arts, in the TisCh SChool of the Arts, NeW York University, for providing visiting sCholAr privileges And ACCess to the Elmer Holmes Bobst LibrAry And its Avery Fisher Center for Music And Media. 4 ABSTRACT The triAngulAtion of politiCAl And feminist theories, the ArC of modern Art history, And A post-CArtesiAn perspeCtive on the relAtionship of mind And body creates a conceptual space Within Which to consider a particular genre of Artmaking—performanCe Art. This dissertAtion seeks to explore And elAborAte thAt spAce through selected CAse studies of Works by three Artists engaged in performanCe: CArolee SChneemann, AnA MendietA, And MArinA AbrAmović. AcknoWledging and exploring the relationship between art and politics is essential to this enterprise. Just As the engAgement of politiCAl themes (e.g., CritiCAl AnAlysis of struCtures of poWer, or making visible the Assumptions underlying soCiAl stAtus) may Add An ACtivist dimension to the Content of Art-making, so politiCAl disCourse may be endoWed With An AesthetiC dimension, if thAt is understood As the just And purposeful shaping of assertions of visible presence and effective action in the world. Thus the larger intent of this projeCt is not simply to engAge in A hermeneutiC ApproACh to the Works in question, but to Consider hoW understAnding performanCe in the context of Art-making might open WAys to An understAnding of being And acting in a larger political arena. 5 CHAPTER I: MAPPING THE TERRAIN Imagine tWo images, brought side by side ACross the Centuries. On one side, an engraving of the torso of a sovereign, whose own body is not covered with chain mail, but Comprised, upon Closer inspeCtion, With the entWined forms of many bodies. On the other side, a photograph of bodies, unclothed and also entwined, CAught in A moment of sensuAl intensity. EACh image represents thAt entity “the body politiC.” This is more thAn An evoCAtive metAphor; it is A WAy of thinking about hoW the embodied Citizen, the embodied self, pArtiCipAtes in the ConversAtions thAt feed ContemporAry politiCAl disCourse. The first image is, one might reCognize, the frontispieCe for Hobbes’ Leviathan, published in 1651. It is, for its time, A remarkAble, even surreAl, image, CApturing in visuAl form the interdependenCe of the CorporeAl ColleCtive of the ruled And the ConsCious mind of the ruler. The seCond image, more ArCAne, is A still photogrAph from A film of the 1964 performanCe Meat Joy, A Work by performanCe Artist CArolee SChneemann. These images of bodies point to Another metAphor, Another operAtive prinCiple, thAt of “body lAnguAge.” If lAnguAge, As most reAdily understood, is An ArtifACt of mind or intelleCt, then WhAt is to be made of the expressive And CommuniCAtive CApACity of the body? If the body speAks, WhAt does it sAy, And hoW does it sAy it? If one body speAks, hoW might Another body reCeive And Attend to thAt messAge? This dissertAtion engAges these metAphors And Adds to them the infleCtions of gender As it informs A more generAl And post-CArtesiAn sense of embodiment, And 6 of performativity As it informs A more generAl sense of expressive CApACity thAt is not only aligned with but constitutive of personhood. These concerns coalesce in An exAminAtion of performanCe Art, WhiCh Arises most fully in mid-20th century but has some importAnt preCursors thAt either set the stAge or AntiCipAte defining conditions of the genre. The connection betWeen Art And politics has long been fraught With CompliCAtions, And this inquiry engAges in thAt ConversAtion With full reCognition of those diffiCulties, primary Among them the feAr thAt in the enCounter Art Will be reduCed to propAgAndA, the ideologiCAl hAndmaiden of politiCs. It is hoped that through this engAgement, An understAnding of Art Will emerge With A greAter sense of its trAnsformative poWer, And An understAnding of politiCs Will emerge With A greAter sense of the importAnCe of the AesthetiCs or the shAping prACtiCes of its discourse. ChApter II inCludes A brief history of A very Complex And multi-faceted genre. While the foCus is on performanCe As it hAs Come to be defined And manifested sinCe the mid-20th Century, it is instruCtive to begin Almost tWo Centuries eArlier, With sightings of social behavior—the Dandy and the flâneur--thAt might be Considered proto-performative— preCursors to ContemporAry manifestAtions. This ChApter Will Also provide A Context for the individuAl CAse studies or performative profiles of three Women Artists with a long-term engAgement in the genre of performanCe Art. ChApter III engAges severAl theoretiCAl perspeCtives thAt inform, And Are informed by, the speCifiC manifestAtions And multi-faceted or hybrid nature of performanCe Art. Questions rAised by the linguistiC resonAnCe of the metAphoriC 7 constructions “body politic” and “body language” find credible ground in J. L. Austin’s theories of linguistiC effiCACy. Given thAt bodies Are most evidently gendered (though not constrained by a gender binary), the work of Judith Butler And in pArtiCulAr her ConCept of performativity, WhiCh oWes muCh to Austin, provides A CritiCAl Context in WhiCh to Consider the doing (As distinCt from the being) of personhood. Michel Foucault’s discussion of parrhesia, in consonance With Butler’s frAming of “exCitAble speeCh,” vAlidAtes the soCiAl And politiCAl signifiCAnCe of speaking out, of speech that Works Against the grain of convention And constraint. Together they Also provide insight into the role of personal Agency in shaping social performanCe As A malleAble prACtiCe. Given thAt performanCe Art most often tAkes place in a space that is redefined or realigned for that purpose, the socio-spAtial impliCAtions of performanCe Are Also informed by the Work of JACques RAnCière And others. Chapters IV through VI Are devoted to individuAl studies of the Works of three performanCe Artists in the Context of the historiCAl And theoretiCAl frAmeWorks previously established. Given the extraordinarily diverse range of artists associated With this genre, Any seleCtion of exAmples is, of neCessity, ArbitrAry even if instructive—the seleCtion of some Artists, some themes, hAs led if not to the exClusion then to the deferrAl of others; so for exAmple, markers of rACe, ClAss, And sexuAl orientAtion have not been the focus here, Although they have figured in other performanCe Works by other Artists. While ContemporAry performanCe prACtiCes emerged in the seCond hAlf of the 20th century in Europe (e.g., the Situationists) and in AsiA (e.g., the Gutai group in post-war Japan) this researCh has foCused on artists 8 Working in the United StAtes And more speCifiCAlly in NeW York City, ACknoWledged As A major (if not primary) Center of the Art-world during this period. These artists have developed extensive And sustAined bodies of Work, WhiCh exAmines And illuminAtes different AspeCts of gender politiCs. For the most pArt, this Work is independent of text or speech, so that the Actions of the body per se Are pArAmount. ThAt they Are Women is, As Will be made CleAr, CritiCAl to An exAminAtion of gender politics within, and beyond the art world, which has long over-enCoded the female body As objeCt, While marginAlizing the Woman As subjeCt And prACtitioner. CArolee SChneemann, one of the eArliest to develop performanCe Works in the shifting mid- 20th Century terrAin, to Whom homage is pAid in the title of this dissertAtion, WAs instrumentAl in shifting the disCourse from female sexuAlity to A more nuAnCed AWAreness of sensuAlity As A profoundly human Attribute. CubAn-born AnA MendietA, like SChneemann, provided A disCourse to engAge And CompliCAte An essentiAlist perspeCtive, And explored one of the most venerAble Alignments—that of Woman And eArth—in WAys that Anticipated What Would lAter be expressed in eCofeminism. MArinA AbrAmović, from the former YugoslAviA, instrumentAl in moving performanCe Art from margin to mainstreAm, hAs CreAted Works thAt explore AspeCts of human behAvior—quotidian, ritualized, banal, profound—that invite ContemplAtion of WhAt it meAns to be embodied And—as a consequence— mortAl. WhAt makes performanCe Art politiCAl? WhAt might it tell us, through embodied expression, About the body politiC in WhiCh We Are All entWined? SinCe the research for this dissertAtion begAn, the genre of performanCe hAs gAined 9 substAntiAl visibility. At the sAme time We Continue to live in A soCiopolitiCAl environment in WhiCh bodies And lives Are AlWAys on the line: vulnerAble to fresh assaults of physical violence on the one hand, altered by the transformations of teChnology on the other.