Rainer, and Michael Snow.
Her early work was mostly conceptual. Like “ Sixteen permutations on a planar Analysis of a Square” and “Meat into Meat”, she was disinterested art work that incorporated overt social content. It wasn’t until the 1970’s and the political upheavals that rippled thought the country at this time. The Vietnam War, US invasion of Cambodia, the Black and Women’s movements and the Kent State killings all had a serious impact on her work.
She found she could no longer play the mind games of minimalist and conceptual art with an art world that actively discriminated against both black and female artists. Her first movement away from eh art world was through performance which she often did unannounced and sometimes only for her own advantage. One of her most well known figured is the Mythic Being, a young black man who cruises white women and mugs young white men in public. Adrian Piper still continues to create works still with overt racial, and social subject matter. She has produced work using multimedia as well.
Her later works were all influenced by the political and social climate of the times and a lot of her work is charged with gender and racial connotations. many of her performances were impromptu and completely random
How affective can politically charged performances be if they are not announced, or in other words, can a point be driven across to an audience if the audience is unaware that they are in fact observing a performance piece?How do you think you would react if you observed a performance than involved "The Mythic Man" where it seemed as though someone was being physically assaulted on the street?
8 comments:
I believe that if the audience is not aware that they are observing a performance piece, they are more likely to have a natural reaction to it, and it is that natural reaction that teaches the viewer. However, this depends on how believable the performance piece is. When the audience is not aware of the artist's intentions, the effect a piece can on the viewer is probably much more intense. Although the viewer may not realize what ACTUALLY occurred, they are still able to interpret their reaction to the performance, most likely after sufficient time had passed and they were able to analyze the situation. The extent to which the performance is taken also plays a significant role. If the viewer truly believes the assault to be of malicious intent, Adrian may have just reconfirmed the stereotype that many people have. But because Adrian is small and “feminine” looking, even in costume, I feel like the thought process would be provoked, and viewers would think about the incident. If I were to see a performance by Adrian Piper as “The Mythic Man”, I feel that my reaction would be one of confusion, which would lead me to wonder what had just happened and why. I don’t feel like her performance would result in actual stereotyping, but it would make me aware of the fact that it happens all too often.
I like that Adrian Piper decided to purposefully deviate from popular forms and found new ways to express herself. The calling cards are genius. The work is humorous but completely gets the point across to the viewer. For the performances, I am not entirely convinced that they were effective. If there were videos of the performances instead of photos it would be more helpful to determine 'how believable the performance piece was.' I read about a performance artist who had someone kick and beat him down stairs. So without witness statements about the piece or a video it is hard to determine whether the assaults looked posed of malicious. I feel like a later viewing of her work (through the photographs) is easier for the viewer to understand. All of these questions are important because the political message has the purpose of enlightening the viewer.
I agree with Tarrany, Adrian Piper probably knew that most would not fully grasp the meaning or message of her performances, but that's not necessarily the point of performance art. I think that the important thing is that the performance is witnessed, and can be interpreted in many different ways according to the viewer, as with any art form. In a way, the performances that Adrian Piper did weren't for the viewer to understand but maybe only for those involved in the performance, giving them a unique perspective of the people observing the performance and their reactions to it.
In one of my classes yesterday we had a very long and philosophical discussion on "What is art?" I think that this question pertains directly to the arguement here. Is it art if no one knows it is supposed to be? Yesterday, I chose to define art as follows; "Art is in the eye of the beholder. It is the appreciation or color, shape, texture, action, feeling, or meaning in anything you so choose to examine or think about. My question is not what is art, but what isn't." While I admit I was playing somewhat of a devil's advocate for my class I do truely believe that the viewer decides what is art and what isn't. Otherwise, what would be the point of critiques and juried art shows? I also think, that in the case of Adrian Piper, the fact that people were unaware that the act of violence was a preformance made them react much more stongly to it. If I were to witness a mugging I would be upset, however, if I knew it were staged, I would see it as a form of entertainment, and would feel no danger or fear. I think the reaction of the viewer is what makes art, art. And in this case I think she was spot on in evoking an emotion and making the viewer "part of the show" by not allowing them to see the script... if that makes sense?
reading Alex's comment, an incident came to mind that happened just the other day to my friend who was filming a movie down in Granville. he was in front of the stores and had someone jump out of a car that was idle and run to a woman lying on the sidewalk who was acting like she had been struck by the car for the movie. After doing a few takes for the movie, The GPD got many calls from people saying that someone had been hit by a car, so they responded by bringing an ambulance and were flustered to have found that it was actually not real and in the name of art. Needless to say they were very upset and almost arrested them for inciting a riot.
I think this could have also happened to Adrian Piper while doing her performance piece in the park, in which case the police wouldn't consider art, art, until she told them otherwise. Depending on how real it looked I probably would have done the same thing and gone over to help the man.
Also, if the piece was very realistic and if I or anyone else watching had not gone over to help but instead watched from a distance, as in the case of some people I'm sure, the artwork would just be reinforcing the stereotype that black males are more likely to attack someone on the street than other races, genders, etc. And thus I see her work doing more harm than good.
~ben
I agree with Lindsey in that the calling cards were a brilliant idea. As for her performances I am not sure that I would call them effective. Although, now that I just said that, I am thinking about how I am a viewer-- years later, learning about her work and thinking about the racial stereotypes in our society that existed then and that STILL exist today and it makes me think otherwise, that the work is effective. Similar to what Ben said (and because I was a volunteer firefighter for a little while freshman year, it makes me upset that the ambulance was called when it wasn't really needed) but back to the point, I would agree that I too would try to help the victim and would probably stereotype the situation and the perpetrator... thus making the art not effective. However, as I mentioned above, learning about it at this time it is effective to me because I am discussing it and thinking about all of the negative stereotypes and the problems that still exist in society today and also on Denison's campus. And to touch on what Alex was talking about, If I were in the situation I wouldn't consider it art but now learning about it and thinking about the performance I would call it art.
Adrian Pipers work reminded me of Allan Kaprow's happenings. With her performances she sends this piece of artwork out into the world and people are not even aware they are involved in it, but they are. It's an interesting contrast to how work is typically viewed...the viewer goes and places themselves in a situation to view art. I think that because of the nature of the performance, it removes the subjectivity from an artwork while still evoking a reaction to it.
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