The first one I remembered clearly was Shigeko Kubota with her Vagina Painting. Now I actually did not like this one very much but I understood what she was trying to accomplish. Part of my difficulty with it is that it is so shocking and somewhat crude to be drawing with what is, in my opinion, a very private part of yourself. I was raised to respect my body for what it is, yes, but also to cherish it and keep it private from the general population. This artist made me uncomfortable in what she did with that part of her body but I can understand that she wanted to make an impact with her viewers about how women are represented in this world. What I did like about her idea was that there was lingering evidence of her statement, there was a physical remainder to ask questions about, to prompt questions like "What is that?", "Why was it made?" and so on. I wonder where they put the painting she made, where it is today.
The next artist that I looked into a little more was Yoko Ono and her piece Painting to Hammer a Nail (1961). This instructed the audience to hammer a nail into the canvas that was available and wrap a piece of hair around it. Not only was the artist present in her presentation of the canvas but the audience is now permanently a part of the work. They've left a bit of themselves on the canvas just like most artists do with their work and they can call themselves a part of something bigger. It was fascinating imagining what the reaction was like and even though it wasn't technically making a mark on the paper, it was still cool to examine her unconventional thinking.
I also looked at Yves Klein and Carolee Schneeman with their respective works
Anthropométrie sans titre (1961) which consisted of models being used as brushes to paint with their bodies and Up to and Including Her Limits (1973-1976) which includes Carolee herself being dragged across a large piece of paper for hours recording her kinetic energy. Both of these artists pushed the boundaries of unconventional mark-making. I especially loved Carolee's piece as it brought a kind of attractive helplessness to the piece as she couldn't control her movement but just had to have her body recorded on paper.
It was really Heather Hansen that pushed me to do my performance piece. I've admired Heather since freshman year when I took this class on the intro level. She does a performance on large pieces of paper with charcoal and her body and records her kinetic energy in a type of dance. This is what inspired me to do something similar. Though I don't dance, I think there's something valuable in recording the grace and clumsiness in our movements. We think they're so ordinary and take them for granted but there is beauty in each move from the grip of the pencil to the leap of a dancer. To be able to record movement permanently on paper is a beautiful thing.
"Make circles with your body"
Heather Hansen
Carol Schneeman
Yves Klein
Yoko Ono
Shigeko Kubota
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