It’s Best To Keep Busy
Yes, dear readers. It’s time to revisit the mental dumpster fire that is performance art. Specifically, the unliftable talents of Ms Sandrine Schaefer, whose piece Wandering with the Horizon – No. 1, Acclimating to Horizontal Movement was created for the 2015 Foster Prize Exhibition at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and performed in April of this year. During this six-hour performance, Ms Schaefer “investigates notions of liminality, human scale, and the impact that the external environment has on the body.” As I’m sure will become clear in this, sadly brief, video of edited highlights.
Readers left craving more of Ms Schaefer’s insights can here behold the artist standing inside some tyres, thereby inspiring deep thought on many, many levels. And here we see Ms Schaefer celebrating her weight loss (and her artistic immensity) by attempting to squeeze through a cat flap. Those with a yearning for art of an even higher intellectual gear can marvel at a piece from 2014, in which our fearless transgressor of norms “questions the role memory plays within experiential art mediums, how actions are read on different bodies, and current discource [sic] around documentation, re-performance, and authorship.” By gnawing at a lettuce while sprawling in her underpants.
Ms Schaefer’s prize-winning artistic innovations have of course thrilled us previously.
My daughter of 3 years also performs such marvels of artistic prowess. Although she is generally more clad. And appears to have more fun.
Are batteries included?
Um, did you say this is “No. 1?”. There will be more?
Sh*t.
You know, right at the beginning of that carpet roll highlight reel, I had a funny premonition it’d have something to do with taking her clothes off in public. I guess she wanted to make that pretty clear, what with there being no other reason to keep watching other than to find out if she’s bangable.
Marginal, as it turns out, if she didn’t start yapping.
But they always do.
Try this one
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/when-is-being-vegan-no-longer-about-ethical-living-20151216-glp44t.html
While this may resonate with American readers more than British, I find a lot of our Host’s dryly rendered such posts on The Arts all the more impactful when read in Jeremy Clarkson’s voice.
She’s ruined my Cleopatra fantasies.
She’s ruined my Cleopatra fantasies.
Based on what we’ve seen of it over the years, maybe that’s the point of performance art. Perhaps it’s meant to leave you feeling robbed, cheated, in some small way diminished.
Sadly, Ms Schaefer has blocked embedding of her videos on this blog. Apparently, and despite craving attention, her work isn’t meant to be seen by the likes of you. However, readers can still be aesthetically engorged by Ms Schaefer’s attempt to astrally project and achieve higher consciousness while reclining in a wheelbarrow full of sand.
Reggie Bunthorne in G&S “Patience” … “It is a wild, weird, fleshy thing; yet very tender, very yearning, very precious. It is called, “Oh, Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!””
Cheers
Apparently, and despite craving attention, her work isn’t meant to be seen by the likes of you.
Well, that’s because she hasn’t paid me enough to watch, not because of any blocking that’s been done . . . .
Instead of bothering with any narcissistic posturing, I’ve just finished a review of the original—all six—Star Wars movies, and have my ticket for a viewing on Friday to see what Abrams is inflicting . . . I have noted entertainment headlines claiming all sorts of wonderful things, I also did see what J.J. “Thomas Kincaid” Abrams has claimed should be considered a Star Trek movie . . . . and as I’ve noted before, with that dismal a track record, I rather am half expecting we’re still going to wind up with Darth Jar-Jar . . . .
No Darth Jar-Jar this time. Abrams has shocked everyone by remaking A New Hope, but this time with more SJWs. And by shocked I mean it was totally expected by anyone who has half a brain and has seen what he did to Star Trek…
During this six-hour performance, Ms Schaefer “investigates notions of liminality, human scale, and the impact that the external environment has on the body.”
All that just from rolling about in a carpet. So what did she find out?
Ah, yes, “Kinkade”. Someone had to invoke “Kinkade” didn’t they?
http://main.nc.us/books/books.cgi?acriticalreviewoftheartofthomaskinkade
<<.....Upon close examination, Kinkade's rural dystopias appear to possess the following common themes: 1) Hellish glow seen emanating from every closed window to every sealed-up cottage, clocktower, inn, horse barn, church, etc. All of Kinkade's structures seem consumed from within by raging infernos. What might be laughed off as artistic excess suddenly trickles icily down your spine when you realize that Kinkade's rustic incinerators are operating at full tilt regardless of the time of day, prevailing weather conditions, and the particular season depicted in the painting!.....>>
The horror! The horror!
So what did she find out?
Like practically all of her fellow hustlers, Ms Schaefer tells us that she “investigates” and “questions” things, generally things that are grandiose and not entirely coherent. I’d imagine she “interrogates” things too. Though despite her supposedly relentless curiosity, I very much doubt she ever finds anything out or relays any new insight or profundity to her audience, such as it is. And the comical mismatch of grand rhetoric and low-grade pissing about is something you’re not supposed to notice or pass comment on. Those are the tacit rules of pretend artists making pretend art.
I think my favourite example is Millie Brown, who allegedly “explores the relationship between music and performance art via self-induced vomiting.” Though again, the fruits of all this exploring and investigating remain somewhat unobvious and conveniently undisclosed.
Was that a Cleopatra reference? No? oh. Well. carry on, I guess.
@Doug
I don’t begrudge people their affection for Kinkade, but I note he was somewhat of a dick. At one point, he took the position that he deserved a cut of sales of his prints on the secondary market and started hassling resale galleries for displaying and selling his prints. IIRC, (this was 25 years ago when I represented a gallery owner) his position was that an original purchaser of one of his prints merely bought a non-transferable license to display his work, not the actual, physical print itself. Thus, any transfer of the print required payment for a new license by the transferee.
That said, the people who turn their noses up at Kinkade and his patrons are the same people who think that watching some chick roll around on the carpet entitles them to a seat at the “cool kids'” lunch table.
“Perhaps it’s meant to leave you feeling robbed, cheated, in some small way diminished.”
I think that’s exactly what it is; sort of an in-your-face ‘look-at-what-I-get-paid-your-money-to-do, sucker’ designed to generate disillusionment, despair and discouragement in the remaining productive, independant and thinking individuals.
Operating on the assumption that Miss Schaefer is financed via funds forcibly extracted from the citizenry, I can’t describe the situation better than the Dean of Science Fiction did many moons ago.
“Support for the arts — merde! A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Oh. Another idiot narcissist. Word, I’m embarrassed to be the same sex.
That said, the people who turn their noses up at Kinkade and his patrons are the same people who think that watching some chick roll around on the carpet entitles them to a seat at the “cool kids'” lunch table.
Nah. I’d state that describes two different clusters of the same general sort . . .
Just so you know we’re doing our bit on this side of the Pond:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/feds-fund-plays-about-food-stamps-gun-control-activist-lesbians/
Ms Schaefer following Ms Binkowitz has depleted that tank in my humour reservoir reserved for government-funded narcissists. It must be the time of year. Now for a restorative glass of decent claret.
“Visual, olfactory, and auditory traces from each action accumulate in the Founders Gallery, …”
Olfactory?
What exactly is she doing in that carpet?
Can I just say that I won’t be going to see the new Star Wars, but I would be grateful for any scathing comments from anyone who is. Thanks in advance.
I think dicentra was going to see it.
Even if the new Star Wars is awful (and early reviews seem to indicate otherwise) it should not be forgotten that there will be about a hundred times as much creativity crammed into every frame of the film stock than Sandrine Schaefer has managed to muster in her entire, sad, parasitic existence.
That tire thing…that’s something rednecks do when they’re bored.
Fosters, according to old advertising campaign, is Australian for lager. And also apparently Australian for pretentious twaddle.
OTOH, while I may not know much about art, I do know that I like seeing good looking women without any clothes on.
Wow. Six hours. And people sat around all that time watching? The other strip clubs in Boston must really suck. Is it any wonder so many of those folks are down here in Florida?
Six hours. And people sat around all that time watching?
Few, if any, sat through the whole thing, I should think. What usually happens with these “durational” performances is that people hang around for a few minutes then lose interest and bugger off to do something more rewarding. Which rather defeats the premise. But given the thin gruel on offer, it’s perfectly understandable. Necessary, in fact. Though there’s sometimes an amusing awkwardness when people are bored and want to leave but are too pretentious and insecure to make the first move.
Can I just say that I won’t be going to see the new Star Wars
The bit about Kirk telling Picard I am your great-uncle really just didn’t work.
In other news, either someone tied Abrams to his chair or otherwise ran the cameras instead, given that the result actually looked like a movie instead of a random and thoroughly awful fireworks display . . . .
On an other hand, the costuming kept crashing through the fourth wall with my reaction of C’mon, these are supposed to be heroes, not hipsters . . .
And for all the apparent cheering reviews—which I’ll now get to in a bit . . . I predict the second and third looks at the storyline are going to get rather a few rounds of Um . . No, we’ve been here before, and waitaminnit, how was That supposed to make sense?!?!?!?
Well, David, I’m just glad you’re paying for it an not me.
Oh, no! You mean I am paying for it? You tricked me.
No Darth Jar-Jar this time
This story has fascinated me, not least because had Lucas thought of this originally – as the rumor goes – it would have been one of the most astonishing reveals in cinema history. Lucas would do well to confirm this if it is true, because otherwise he’s going to have to suffer the shame of having a fan coming up with a storyline that would have blown audiences away while he produced the dross that made the final cut.
Below the video of the lass in question waiting for the Genovese mob to carry her off and bury her in her carpet came he terse statement: “Comments are disabled.”
Are we quite sure they didn’t mean the “Artist” instead?