Because Our Bodies Are Temples
By Joanne Hinkel
Performance art remains somewhat in the margins
of the artworld. It seems that many people consciously shy away from
performance art, especially when it involves using the body as a site
for expression. They keep it at a distance, and consider it a foreign or
freakish practice.
Some find it strange that Keith Boadwee squirted streams of paint from
his anus ("Untitled [Purple Squirt]," 1995) to create a painting
parodying the abstract expressionists. Others have been terrified at
seeing photographs of Ana Mendieta's performance wherein she pulled down
her pants, painted her backside with blood, and leaned over a table
("Rape Scene," 1973). Most people spend their lives avoiding
uncomfortable situations and pain, and are forced to face their deepest
anxieties when viewing performance art that acts out and challenges
cultural taboos. This work not only includes viewers more immediately,
than, say, a painting, but also implicates them as voyeurs. For as long
as performance art has been practiced, it has had run-ins with the law - gallery performances abruptly stopped by police, naked artists
hand-cuffed and escorted to jail. Unlike so many artforms that have been
challenged by postmodern critics for their effectiveness, performance
art maintains its avant-garde character even though it has been
practiced for over 40 years. As early as 1918 Oskar Schlemmer had
claimed the body to be the new artistic medium, but it was 40 years
later in Austria that the Viennese Actionists truly started to explore
the idea through acts of self-mutilation, self-torture and
self-degradation. By acting out castrations, cutting themselves,
smearing feces over their skin and drinking their own urine, the
Viennese Actionists forced viewers to consider the absurd actions of a
barbaric, war-mongering human race, and to contemplate normal behavior
and identity as social constructions. In 1968 Gunter Brus fled Berlin in
order to avoid a six-month prison sentence for his piece "Art and
Revolution," for which the state had charged him with degrading state
symbols because he had masturbated in public while singing the Austrian
national anthem. In 1971 Marc Stelarch hung from meat hooks pierced into
his skin over a New York City street in order to experience the
sensation of flying. And in 1994, the National Endowment for the Arts
was criticized for granting funds to artist Ron Athey, whose performance
"4 Scenes in a Harsh Life" told the history of his depression and his
battle with AIDS through having his body pierced, scarred, cut and
jabbed with needles. Even though Athey was harming no one but himself,
and viewers could choose whether to participate or not, many people were
critical and scared of his harming himself, even as a means for
cathartic healing. A more drastic response came in the form of
censorship concerning Kerry Weber's performance at the 2001 SAIC 4-D
Extravaganza last December. While SAIC's responsibility as an
educational institution complicates the censorship, and it may very well
have been the result of a legitimate health or security concern, the
fact indelibly remains that the process of self-mutilation in body art
is still taboo. In our cynical, desensitized world there are few sights
or artworks that stop us short in our tracks and elicit such dramatic
responses as fascination or repulsion. Body art demands if not our
understanding, then at least our attention. Mention Orlan, the artist
who has her face and body surgically reconstructed according to female
beauty ideals established by master artists throughout history (e.g.,
Botticelli's "Venus," Leonardo's "Mona Lisa") and you will most likely
get an emphatic response of either complete respect or complete disgust.
Anyone who has seen but a few minutes of Bob Flanagan's sadomasochistic
performances, acted out as a means to control and overcome the pain of
cystic fibrosis, undoubtedly cringed when they saw him nail his penis to
a board, but felt overwhelmed with empathy at the same time. The issues
that body artists deal with have become increasingly varied since the
1960s, covering the spectrum - psychological, social, gender-related,
religious, and political - as have the methods of manipulation they
employ. There are too many to cover or even touch on in this space. But
throughout the history of performance and body art mutilation has played
a key role. Body art in the fine art context becomes more prevalent as
nonconformist practices like tattooing, piercing and scarification
become more commonplace. As more people are open about and acknowledging
of self-mutilation, self-torture and sadomasochism as means for
psychological control and physical catharsis in our increasingly numbing
modernized world, it is somewhat perplexing that Kerry Weber's piece
would be considered so problematic. Many critics over the years have
condemned body artists for being obscene, exploitative, graphic and
disturbing, but that discomfort is part of the point. Whether
self-mutilation is simulated, as in the work of many of the Viennese
Actionists (most famously in the castration performance of 1969 by
Rudolf Schwarzkogler), or if it is real, like when Chris Burden had a
friend shoot him in the arm in "Shoot" (1971), the act is shocking for
it violates a fundamental value-to not hurt oneself. But many such
artists, using their own bodies as sites for expression, are working in
metaphors. By hurting themselves physically they are acknowledging and
controlling what's much more painful - mental anguish. Tattoos,
piercings and cuts scab over and heal. The pain they cause is temporary,
but the anxiety of living in a world that often seems to not care about
you - that kind of pain is permanent.
|
