Advanced Life Drawing : Performance piece: Angelic

Jade Smith

Blog #3

November 6, 2017

“Angelic”

I found inspiration for my charcoal work entitled “Angelic” while exploring performance art and fluxus movement. I wasn’t familiar with the fluxus movement that began in the late 1950s until this project. It was interesting to learn that this conceptual art emerged as a means of refuting what museums determined valuable art. Fluxus artists didn’t believe you needed a formal education to create art. I’ve decided to use my body along with pink and black charcoal for my performance artwork. I’ve chosen pink charcoal because it symbolizes the playful and feminine side of me while the black charcoal represents the mysterious and powerful side. We all have so many sides to our personalities. In Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm 10 (1973) - Performed at a festival in Edinburgh, she uses a sequence of 20 knives to swiftly stab at the spaces between her spread-out fingers. Each time she punctures her skin, she picks another knife from the selection she has laid out in front of her. Halfway through the hour-long performance, she plays a recording of the first half while she uses the rhythm of the knives striking the floor and her hand, to repeat the same movement, cutting herself at the same time. This work represents to the artist the synchronicity between the mistakes of the past and the present. In Joseph Beuys Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me (1974) - Performed at Rene Block Gallery, New York NY, Beuys enclosed himself in a gallery for three days with a wild coyote as a representation of the American ideas both “wild and tamed.” The Wall Street Journal was delivered each day and was used as a toilet by the coyote as a way of showing that America is the coyote’s territory. Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit Buenos Aires (1992) - - Performed at Columbus Plaza, Madrid, Spain, and performed in various international venues until 1994, involved both artists dressing in absurd costume, eating bananas, while performing stereotypical “native” jobs while enclosed in a cage. They were even led to the bathroom on leashes. This performance tackled the practice of human displays and was organized to make fun of Columbus Day. Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh’s Art/Life: One Year Performance (a.k.a. Rope Piece) (4 July 1983 - 3 July 1984) - Performed in New York City, was a year long piece, which involved both artists being tied to each other by an 8-foot rope. They never touched because the idea was that the rope portrayed the conflict humans have with one another and their difficulties with social and physical connection. Chris Burden’s Shoot (1971) - - Performed at F Space, Santa Ana, California, required Burden to stand in front of a wall while his friend shot him in the arm with a .22 long rifle. His other friend caught it all on camera. It was performed in front of a small private audience. Burden used this performance piece to highlight gun control issues in relation to the Vietnam War.

movement-performance-art-artworks.htm

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-performance-art.htm

Fluxus Score:

- Step one: In sitting position – with knees bent

- Step two: With arms in front of body make two large circles close together using – right arm clockwise, left arm counterclockwise – stop.

- Step three: With fingers spread make two circles inside original circles – spread fingers – stop.

- Step four: Repeat circles below original circles - stop

- Step five: With pink charcoal on hands – press firmly within circles - stop

See photos below …