Hush, Art is Happening
The contemporary performance artist is, as we’ve seen, a supremely political creature, forever troubled by acute socio-political sensitivities, with insights and perceptions far beyond the ken of mortal beings. Should any of you dare to question that sensitivity, I steer you to the ever-twitching antennae of the performance artist and educator Marilyn Arsem, specifically her description of her own immensely subtle piece, U.S. Domestic Policy II:
My performance was on November 3rd 2010, the day after the elections that brought back a majority of Republicans to the Congress. While the news was not unexpected, it nevertheless gave me a sinking feeling when I awoke that morning to read the election results in the newspaper. I couldn’t help but do a performance called U.S. Domestic Policy as a result.
But of course. What other response could there possibly be?
With the help of an intern, I purchased quantities of beautiful ripe fruit – plums, oranges, kiwi, and a bag of red peppers, as well as a hammer and a water glass.
At this point you may have some inkling of where this is going.
The performance was a systematic act of destruction. I sat at the table and first raised a line of red peppers into the air. Then I methodically destroyed the tableful of fresh ripe fruit.
Uncanny, isn’t it? You must have the gift of mentalism.
I started with the hammer, but quickly began using only my bare hands. It took a surprising amount of time to crush each piece.
Juice spread over the table, and the smell of oranges permeated the room. I continually swept the detritus to the floor as the pile of fruit was reduced, until only a tall glass of water remained on the table. After taking a long sip of water, I carefully set the glass down, and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, inched the glass of water across to the far side of the table, where it hovered for several moments half off the edge, before finally crashing to the floor.
That sound you hear is your mind being expanded as political consciousness rushes in to fill the void.
Tragically, I was unable to find video documentation of this staggering achievement, now lost to the ages. I have, however, unearthed a more recent and not entirely dissimilar piece, Edge, originally lasting a mere seven hours – edited highlights of which can be savoured below. Ms Arsem describes herself as wanting to “have a low environmental impact” but a “high impact on the psyche,” and Edge has been acclaimed for “vibrating with possibility” and “making use of space, time and physicality to explore and present endless concepts.” At risk of spoiling things for y0u and robbing the performance of its no doubt colossal drama, the two glasses of water eventually fall off the table.
If that mighty work still hasn’t satisfied your artistic yearnings, there’s also this intensely cerebral performance from 2012, in which Ms Arsem spends three hours lying face down in a gallery window while a handful of dutiful friends look on, chatting distractedly, and passers-by pass by, somehow ungripped by the profundity of the work. Regarding the piece and her art in general, Ms Arsem says, “It is a conversation, a process of discovery… I remind myself that I am not obligated to entertain the viewers.”
Update, via the comments:
Eager to impress with her intellectual gravitas, Ms Arsem says,
I consider art making as both a place and a process. It affords the opportunity to engage in embodied thinking, to challenge my assumptions, to examine ideas through different lenses, to experiment with processes whose outcomes I can’t always predict, and to take risks in a context that is framed and contained within real life.
We can, therefore, suppose that “examining ideas” and “challenging one’s assumptions” is, for her, exemplified by equating an insufficiently leftist election outcome with “a systematic act of destruction.” Specifically, the squishing of fruit. And that sharing that glib and flimsy notion with an audience that is overwhelmingly leftist in its pretensions – just like her – is the yardstick of “taking risks.” Ms Arsem tells us she graduated from Boston University in 1975 as a Batchelor of Fine Arts and has spent the intervening years being subsidised across several continents, with numerous grants and academic residencies, including here in the UK. She’s currently the Head and Graduate Advisor of the Performance Art Department at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, where she teaches performance art.
Being so good at it herself.
Oh look, a button. I wonder what it does.
a little disappointed when they don’t just take a dump on stage and call it a day already.
It’s been done.
Re: Catcalling racist misogynist homophobic transphobic video
I’m reminded again of the ouroboros of left-wing thought. It’s an apt symbolism.
http://economia.ie/ec/2014/the-oppression-ouroboros-intersectionality-will-eat-itself/0125/
http://ricochet.com/archives/liberalism-eating/
There used to be some camp comedian who had “Oooh I could crush a grape” as his catchphrase.
Googlemancy reports some fellow named Stu Francis.
Re: Catcalling video /article
The only solution, she says, is to remake the video with a “universalizing cast” : the camera centering on,”say, a black trans woman.”
Could that be guaranteed to produce unproblematic results?
And, if not, would they have to remake the remake?
I guess problematic results would be grist for the mill. Just think of all the potential intersections of oppression that could be milked for maximum righteous indignation. I mean, I think this was the point of the original video – to spur outrage.
I think, at this point, they need to engineer only the ‘correct’ sort of outrage. The kind that will prove whatever their favoured ‘narrative’ is.
Has anyone noticed how many instances there are in Ms Arsin’s write-up of “I”, “my”, “me” etc, while there are none at all to any audience or appreciators of performance art who might, or more likely might not, have been present. One might easily conclude that Ms Arser is excessively devoted to the solitary vice, and even needs an intern to help her with that. Similarly the overwhelming theme of her little work and diatribe is all about destruction, leaving one to wonder what, if any, creative talents she may have. I did not wonder for long.
In any case, David’s publishing of this revelatory material is timely, as just tomorrow, the US Federal mid-term elections will be held, and a strong swing to the Republicans is expected. It can be followed live on the web at any number of sites. Just what Ms Arse’s artistic response to a Republican landslide will be is anyone’s guess. I only hope David will have the common decency to spare us it.
There was a “thing” going on, a couple years or so ago, called “planking” – dunno, maybe it’s still happening some places, ’round the planet – primarily consisted of taking up a position, in some public location, on one’s belly, arms down at the sides, body more-or-less held in a “stiffened” position, as horizontal as achievable, mostly whilst looking straight ahead, and having someone take a pic of the “act”…
It strikes me that, realistically, anyone doing that sort of essentially silly-assed, extensively pointless “thing” for an interval of only five seconds or more, has just accomplished profoundly more “art” than that pretentious-without-reason ditz named Arsem has managed, in toto, in approximately the last four decades…or appears likely to ever achieve, on balance, if she continues to exist for another half-century or more.
Re: Ms. Arsem’s potential response to the US midterms
It could be very alarming.
Although, she may find consolation (if required ) from the NYT, which has declared that the midterms should be cancelled – due to redundancy / irrelevancy. Interesting timing for this observation , on their part.
Re the catcalling video, there’s more here.
It’s like someone looked at WWF wresting and wondered how far they could go in the other direction…