Performance art hasn’t always been a core component of museums. In fact, there was a time when it was absolutely unheard of to have performance art in museums. Performance was barely regarded as ‘art’ in the literal sense of the word, especially because of its roots as a non-traditional means of expression.
Despite its relatively recent inclusion into the art scene, performance has been successful at ushering in a new wave of artists and enthusiasts seeking to redefine what it means to be an artist. Some museums are now making concerted efforts to include performance pieces in their exhibitions, creating a new category of visitors to the art scene.
Performance art has indeed come a long way since Meredith Monk presented the first part of her piece, Juice: A Theatre Cantata in 3 Installments, at the Guggenheim Museum in 1969. However, there is still some way to go in terms of understanding what it took to get performance to where it is today and how much more there is to do.
A Brief History of Performance Art
Performance art was created as a means of artistic expression that wasn’t confined to traditional ideals. It first emerged in 1916 as an offshoot of conceptual art. Tristan Tzara was one of the pioneers of the movement. It was a sort of parallel to Dadaism.
Constructivism and Futurism also had influences in the creation of performance art. Dada was especially important in the history of performance art because of their qualities which were starting to drift from conventionalism and futurism.
While it is true that performance art hasn’t always been accepted by museums, it is also important to highlight the fact that on the other hand, performance artists haven’t always necessarily wanted that acceptance. Artists like Hélio Oiticica Allan Kaprow in the 1960s were known for their incendiary comments about the mistrust of art institutions and the restrictions that could come with any such acceptance.
There have also been artists whose aims were to ‘disrupt’ the traditional means of exhibition at museums. Some of them were known for their unauthorized performances at museums, most notably Yayoi Kusama in the United States and Antonio Manuel in Brazil.
While some performance art pieces are still generally aimed at disrupting and dismantling art institutions, the fact is, both artists and museums have come a long way in terms of collaboration.
How is Performance Art Collected?
Part of the obstacles that have stood in the way of performance art is the reality that at its core, performance art is intangible. It can’t necessarily be ‘owned’ because it has more to do with curating an experience.
Although performances can be filmed or photographed, there have always been arguments as to whether these records fulfill the same purpose as a live performance.
After the initial museum performances of the 1960’s, performance art slowly became a part of museum exhibitions. However, there was some sort of restriction on how well it could be shared or experienced with viewers.
The only way most performance pieces could be viewed against were through:
- Photographs
- Moving images
- Installations.
Today, some of these practices are still being used to preserve and collect performance art.
However, there is still opposition as to the difference live performances could make as opposed to recorded performances. There are artists who do not allow their work to be recorded, preferring a more traditional, viewing approach. This, of course, is largely dependent on the nature of the performance.
Despite these challenges, 2005 was the year that marked the beginning of a change in the way performance artworks were collected and preserved. This change is owed in part to the creation of a unique approach to the idea of creation and preservation of performance art.
Art Historians like Clair Bishop made it clear the need to sacs and keep performance art in form of documentation. They highlighted the need to utilize documentation as a means of ensuring that performance art will and can survive.
For the most part, documentation at least ensures that museums possess a library of sorts of important performance art pieces for posterity to witness.
Performance Acquisition in Museums
In 2008, MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art, New York) created a Media and Performance Department dedicated towards collecting and sharing performance pieces. This effort led to a heady two year period where MoMA went about acquiring revolutionary pieces such as Tino Sehgal’s “Kiss”, Roman Ondak’s “Measuring the Universe”, and Michelangelo Pistoletto’s “Seventeen Less”.
This period of purchases included a new kind of acquisition, which allowed museums to reperform pieces they had purchased. This answers part of the question as to how exactly the experience can be shared with other viewers once not recorded. This idea is due in part to Kiss and Tom Sehgal’s revolutionary decision to sell the rights to his performance pieces.
Although somewhat controversial at the time, the practice of selling the rights to performance pieces greatly changed the way museums and audiences viewed the genre.
One of MoMA’s most notable performance pieces is the work of Marina Abramovic, which concluded its two year exhibition of performance pieces in 2010. Marina Abramovic’s work remains to date, the biggest performance art exhibition MoMA has ever had.
The exhibition included over twenty of Abramovic’s pieces, many of which she had previously performed between the 1960’s and 1980’s. Several younger artists of different races and nationalities were selected to aid in reactivation of the iconic pieces.
In one of such exhibitions, Abramovic performed The Artist is Present, a relatively daunting 726-hour, 30-minute static piece with no sound. This piece featured Abramovic sitting silently in one place within the museum’s atrium. During her performance, spectators were allowed to participate and take turns sitting directly in front of her.
The evening had previously been performed in 1970. In the older version, Abramovic sat for several days next to Ulay, who acted as her companion for the duration of the piece. The 2010 performance was an updated version of the performance.
The exhibition at the MoMa attracted widespread coverage and attention from celebrities such as Orlando Bloom, James Franco and Björk. This further contributed towards deepening public interest in viewing and interacting with performance art.
Around the same time when MoMA carried out its acquisitions, other museums such as the Contemporary Art Center in Queens and the Neuberger museum began showing pieces like 100 years and Tania Buguera respectively.
Some other museums currently involved in curating and displaying performance art include:
- Tate Modern, London, which has a performance art project to include these works in their collection.
- The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York regularly has performance art in their exhibitions.
- The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York which featured Meredith Monk’s performances.
- The Performance Space New York
Radical Approaches to Curating Viewer Experience with Performance Art
Since the gradual acceptance of performance art in the early 2000’s, many artists have started to find novel ways of including modern technologies into their work. Some of these innovations include the internet, webcams and even streaming media.
Some artists like Shu Lea Cheang and Coco Fusco performed pieces that radically drew the public eye to the effects of gender and race on how the body was perceived on the fast growing internet.
Some other artists radically used the evolving digital landscape to further drive home their point. Issues like capitalism were highlighted via innovations like hacktivism to bring forward the issue of consumerism. Critical Art Ensemble and Yes Men are some of the pioneers of the idea of digital technologies in, and as performance art.
The 2000s also ushered in the creation of computer-aided art. Generative art and robotic art and now staples of the performance art genre where the computer itself performs the art. The computer may also be controlled by the artist in the form of robots.
Performance as Exhibition
Performance art, at its core, has always been more centered towards sending a message. There have been points in history where it bordered on exhibitionism. Whatever the classification, performance art has always been a way for artists and groups to share unconventional outside, both within and outside established art institutions.
One of the most impactful performance pieces of the 2010’s was the piece by Emma Sulkowicz. Her performance piece is called ‘Carry That Weight’ or ‘the mattress performance’. Emma Sulkowicz performed the piece during her studies at Columbia University. The piece formed the basis of her thesis in visual arts.
Sulkowicz began the piece in September 2014 when she began to carry her own mattress around the university campus. She created the work as a way to denounce her rape which had occurred on that same mattress a few years before within her dormitory. She had reported the case but was not taken seriously by the university and so nothing was done.
She decided to carry the mattress around the University throughout the semester. She didn’t leave it for a single moment until she graduated in May 2015, even carrying the mattress with her to the ceremony. As expected, the piece was a very controversial one, sparking both support and opposition. However, she was supported by several friends and activists, some of whom aired her in carrying the mattress on multiple occasions. It was named one of the most important artworks of 2014 by Jerry Saltz, an art critic.
Modern Forays into Performance Art
Whether it considers itself as a part of institutional art or not, performance art has been understandably touched by the long arm of technology.
Artists and museums alike have started to incorporate modern technologies into their pieces, all in a bid to change the viewer experience and how we interact with performance art. Some of these efforts have been in a bid to increase viewer participation in museums and with art. One of such technologies is the use of Virtual Reality (VR) in performance art.
Virtual Reality has, in many ways, changed the way art lovers interact with museums by making it easier to engage and access art. VR offers virtual tours that allows viewers to engage with art from all over the world, removing the need to be physically present at a performance before they can participate in a piece. This has proven to be especially useful for those who have physical challenges that may impair them from travel.
However, if accessibility is the main aim of including virtual reality into art pieces, the technology may not be the option to fulfil that purpose. This is because one of the main limitations of VR is cost. VR equipment is very expensive, not to mention the cost of managing and creating VR programmes. Costs can quickly become unmanageable even despite the best intentions.
Many factors can contribute towards making VR inaccessible in terms of cost. Some of these factors include: paying designers and creators, acquiring and replacing headpieces. All of these can jack up the cost to attend performance art pieces. Some of the exhibitions may even run into unforeseen hardware issues.
These costs add up and increase the prices that potential viewers may have to pay for performance art pieces. An overly expensive art performance defeats the purpose of accessibility which VR was meant to solve in the first place.
There is also the issue of hygiene as many people may want to use these VR headsets within a day. Skin and grease could build up, making it very possible for infections to form and spread. Although in the grand scheme of things, this can be controlled much more easily with proper maintenance and hygiene practices.
Modern Performance Art Work in Museums
Despite the mixed opinions on how performance art should be acquired and distributed, our world today still features various performance artworks and artists. Joan Jonas is one of such revolutionary artists working to make sure performance art remains relevant.
Jonas’ work, ‘They Come to Us without a Word’, has been hosted at the U.S. Pavillion and the San Francisco Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. Her performances have earned her critical acclaim like the 2018 Kyoto Prize.
Some of the most influential performance artists and the pieces of this century are:
- Sun and Sea by Marina (2019)
- Constructed Situations by Tino Sehgal
- Temple by David Best
- Stop, Repair, Prepare by Alora and Calzadilla (2008 – present)
The Bottom Line
A major concern of performance artists is to ensure that conservation efforts do not remove from the authenticity of the work. While various schools of thought exist as to the veracity of conservation efforts, the most efficient way for performance art to become a staple in museums is through collaboration.
For performance artworks to survive the test of time, there needs to be a concerted effort at collaboration between artists, curators, museums and conservators.