Why we’re doing this:
- To practice researching performance work
- To practice the act of creative interpretation
- To consider authorship – does your reprise create the sense that the viewer has taken in the original performance or your interpretation of the work? How does the nature of the performance affect the reprise (it might be very easy to reprise a durational work because of its didactic nature, whereas a more identity-based work could entail many political/conceptual obstacles)
- How does this reprise create opportunities to reflect on, reconsider, or extend your own work?
PROCESS:
In 2005, Marina Abramovíc performed Seven Easy Pieces at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Over the course of a week, she reenacted performance works by Bruce Nauman (Body Pressure 1974), Vito Acconci (Seedbed 1972), Valie Export (Action Pants: Genital Panic 1969), Gina Pane (The Conditioning 1973), Joseph Beuys (How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare 1965), in addition to her to her own Lips of Thomas (1975) and Entering the Other Side (2005). Beginning with the fact that little documentation exists of this early performance work, she “examines the possibility of redoing and preserving an art form that is, by nature ephemeral” (Guggenheim program). Her method for these performances was to interpret the works as “one would a musical score.” In 2010, several artists re-performed Abramovíc ‘s work as part of a retrospective of her career (and a new work) titled, The Artist is Present.
Your assignment for this performance is much the same. Choose a work created by another artist (work created by someone we have studied/seen during the semester, work created by someone we haven’t studied that interests you, or, perhaps, work created by someone in our course) to re-perform. Research the work by reading available texts, critical analyses, and reviews and taking in any video, audio, or other documentation of the work you can access. Based on this, create your own artist’s statement for the work, rehearse and/or otherwise create the piece, and prepare it for performance. Follow Abramovíc’s “musical score” method as you work, recognizing how musical scores require that you pay attention to the “original” while making the performance your own.
In addition to your performance, please prepare an artist’s statement for incorporation into, display alongside of, or distribution with your work. Your statement should consider the following questions:
- What is this work about? (This is the idea, theme, message, or concept for your piece. Think of this as the thesis statement for your work.)
- Why do you want to do this work? (This is your explanation of the importance of the work and what it means to you)
- How will you do this work? What do you need to execute it? (This is how you envision the performance happening—medium/a, actions, texts, audience/performer relationship, etc.)
- What do you want this work to do or accomplish? (This is the outcome or experience you anticipate for the work)
GRADING CRITERIA:
– artist statement
– completion of the performance
– self-analysis of elements/principles of design in the piece you performed (reflection writing after the performance)