performance art

Fast Feminism

mandy — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Autonomedia has just published Fast Feminism, the latest book by the performance philosopher and associate professor in Political Science at York University, Shannon Bell. The book contains 198 pages, including thirty-one plates taken of Bell's genitalia during masturbation/ejaculation performances. It may appear unusual that an academic is involved in public displays with highly charged, erotic content; however, Bell has been conducting workshops on the female phallus and instructing women on the art of female ejaculation for the past two decades.

Bell’s oeuvre follows a long tradition in performance art that includes Vito Acconci's "Seedbed," in which he masturbated underneath a ramp at the Sonnabend Gallery, New York as people walked by above him; Valie Export's film Mann & Frau & Animal (1973) that shows her pleasuring herself in a bathtub; Annie Sprinkles' ritual magic masturbation performances; Elke Krystufek's 1994 masturbation performance at Vienna Kunsthalle; and a public performance in the mid-nineties by transgendered academic and performance artist Allucquere Rosanne Stone, who stimulated the palm of her hand to produce an organism. Moreover, Bell’s performance is "embedded in praxis," and "The 'I' of the text is a post-identity recognized by gait, movement and speed." Fast Feminism is a confessional and articulate text that straddles academic writing and colloquial language; it draws heavily on sexual expletives to stress the subcultural activity in which Bell's performance praxis operates.

Fast Feminism's text is definitely Deleuzian. One idea begins and is shattered, only to be taken up in the next already somewhere else, free-floating and circulating. Rather than "buggering" the texts and producing a bastard offspring, an activity Bell states as her intention throughout the book, Fast Feminism appears at least on the surface as homage to masculine writers. Texts by George Bataille and the Marquis de Sade collide and intersect with Emmanuel Levinas ethics of the other; the latter used in her chapter on the perverse aesthetics of the homosexual, pedophile, child pornographer, and writer, John Robin Sharpe. I must say that although I accept Sharpe's erotic writings are situated within an established and honored literary genre, I was uncomfortable with this section because I have raised a child and believe that children should be protected from those who may hurt or abuse them.

I was less interested in the practice of female ejaculation and Bell’s manual of how to achieve it (which forms much of the basis of chapter two), than the writing itself and the various references to philosophical theory, performance art, and politics of the body. When Fast Feminism is meditating at a wake for Horsey—a dog that died because he could not digest a bone, Bell asked one of the participants at the wake to reach inside her vagina and remove the package of money she'd placed there as a donation. This action evoked Carolee Schneemann's 1975 performance, "Interior Scroll," in which she slowly extracted rolled up paper from inside her vagina, whilst reading from a text that reflected the subject positions of both genders. Moreover, Fast Feminism draws attention to the relationship between currency, the female body, and the way is has been abused by others throughout human history. By branding her body Bell has created a living, breathing commodity.

It is clear from her photographs that Fast Feminism is not an everyday example of an aging female body. Having never borne a child, Bell does not posses drooping breasts, excess fat deposits, stretch marks, scars, sagging stomach muscles, or the like. But she does underscore the fact that in our youth obsessed society, bodies that are old, diseased, or less than "perfect" are generally encouraged to remain hidden from public view. Indeed, a strategy against the aging body and diseased organs is the development within biomedicine of tissue engineered replacement body parts. Riding on the intrigue and possibility for experimentation as well as the resulting rarefied aesthetic that tissue-engineering offer, a number of artists have been motivated to move into the realm of creating bio-artificial artifacts. Bell’s tissue-engineered phallus invites us to think about human evolution in relation to the construction of sexuality and the immense impact that various technologies do and will have on the way we perceive ourselves and others in real and imaginary domains.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fast Feminism and would recommend it to anyone interested in performance art, philosophy and sexuality.

Excerpted from Anything But Human

Written by: Julie Clarke, September 4th 2010

When Marina Abramović Dies

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By James Westcott

MIT Press

As someone with only one semester of art history under my belt, I find myself both interested and intimidated by the politics and practice of performance art. After reading this exhaustive biography of performing art legend Marina Abramović (who just wrapped up a stunning retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York), my intimidation has been replaced by a strong desire to see Abramović’s work.

When reading about an iconic figure such as Abramović, the private aspects of her otherwise very public life are the most interesting artifacts to glean. Through complete cooperation from Abramović and many of her friends and family members, James Westcott produces a marvelously comprehensive history of the artist's childhood in Yugoslavia and the beginning of the career that would revolutionize the use of the body as an artistic vehicle in the 1970s. The downside of writing about such an icon is that, while there is no shortage of fascinating material, one must organize it in such a way as to not overwhelm the reader. Westcott does just that, dividing Abramović’s life into three distinct parts: her early years, her work with fellow performance artist and former romantic partner Ulay, and her recent foray into solo performances.

For readers familiar with Abramović’s body of work, the book will most likely open your eyes to some of her earliest projects, and will offer interesting insight into her more famous pieces. One such example is her 1975 performance of Rhythm 0, where she laid out seventy-two items for museum patrons to use on her however they wished. These items included a loaded gun, which a man put in her hand and pointed at her neck. The author seamlessly weaves together interviews, archival photo footage, and factual information to make Abramović’s life as vibrant on the page as it is in reality.

Above all, Westcott proves to be an incredibly detailed biographer. Near the end of the book, readers understand where some of this attention to detail stems from; he recently served as a transcriptionist for some of Abramović’s marathon performances, writing hundreds of pages at her insistence to describe her hours of sitting or standing during certain pieces. The result of Westcott’s well-researched writing style and Abramović’s openness and commitment to storytelling and making art, When Marina Abramović Dies becomes an enthralling look at the world of performance art, a strong-willed and endlessly creative woman, and what happens when those two things collide for over forty years.

Written by: Alyssa Vincent, July 31st 2010

Feminist Art and the Maternal

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:36:00 +0000

By Andrea Liss

University Of Minnesota Press

As a teen, I imagined I would someday grow up to be an artist. As an eager feminist and first year university student, I took an art history course taught by an incredibly self-important professor. In all of his slide shows, I only remember two images being attributed to women artists. This experience did not encourage me to embark upon an artistic career.

In a world where feminism is often assumed to be irrelevant and the Guerilla Girls have purportedly bequeathed their archives to the Getty Research Institute, a book which showcases any form of feminist work is a welcome standout. Andrea Liss’s Feminist Art and the Maternal places feminist artwork front and center using the creations of contemporary visual and performance artists. In doing so she displays the many ways in which women artists have challenged individual and institutional attempts to define the scope of femininity and families, as well as the limits of women’s gendered work and status in society.

Feminist Art and the Maternal is a fairly accessible text, even for the non-artist or art history student like me. Using the work of women artists spanning the last thirty years, Liss systematically demonstrates how these women have used their experiences of maternal parenting and motherhood as the subject of their work to created pieces that challenge past and current definitions of appropriate gender roles. This happens in many ways, such as breaking down assumptions about family structures or conflating accepted stereotypical images of racialized women with visual statements on sexual orientation, nurturing, and motherhood.

Sentimental ideas of motherhood are challenged by explorations of the maternal focusing on sensuality or experiences of trauma and loss. Key methods of articulating these concepts and experiences are laid out by the author in each chapter and accompanied by the work of one artist or groups of artists which exemplify each particular method. Highly conceptual artwork—still images, performance pieces, film—and theoretical terminology are explained in great detail, making the social and historical context in which the work was created clear for the reader.

Like the artists whose work is contained in the book, Liss attempts to make a connection between the personal and political by incorporating her own experiences of motherhood into the book. These sections of writing are less successful in that they do not blend seamlessly with the remainder of the detailed text, but stand out in competition to the parallel experiences articulated by the artists in their work, and interrupt the overall flow of the book. While the many black and white images help to illustrate the work of the artists, a larger format complete with color images would have more effectively conveyed details of some of the pieces included in the body of the work.

Regardless, I wish that Feminist Art and the Maternal had been available at the beginning of my short-lived venture into the world of art to give me a broader perspective on art, women, women artists, and motherhood. This book and its subject matter broadens the scope of contemporary art through giving voice to both neglected subject matter in art and its creators.

Written by: Ruth Cameron, June 6th 2009

Feminist and Queer Performance: Critical Strategies

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:35:00 +0000

By Sue-Ellen Case

Palgrave MacMillan

Feminist and Queer Performance is a collection of eleven previously published essays by Sue-Ellen Case, a Professor of Theatre and Critical Studies at UCLA. Exploring topics as diverse as butch-femme aesthetics, cyber-minstrelsy, W.O.W. Café, and performance artists Kate Bornstein, Annie Sprinkle, and Split Britches; Feminist and Queer Performance illustrates the history and breadth of Case’s scholarship and sustained engagement with feminist politics and lesbian cultures. In her introduction Case describes the intellectual and political “climate changes” that influenced her thinking about identity and performance. This personal narrative also functions as a history lesson, tracing the evolution of Case’s writing from 1989-2007—when the essays were originally published in various journals and anthologies—and her emerging interest in self-representation, bodily knowledge, and new technologies.

Case is invested in methodological forms that challenge the “objective” and universalizing voice of history–such as performative language and identificatory speech (“I” statements). She argues for writing practices that disrupt the unmarked, patriarchal voice of research, and embarks on a journey to find a “lesbian voice.” In fact, Case compares writing lesbian theory to hanging out in lesbian bars. In “Making Butch: An Historical Memoir of the 1970s,” she evokes the first-person to produce a campy critique of masculinity. Case foregrounds “everyday” performances like bar culture, clothing, and attitude to theorize lesbian culture and identity, especially butch-femme aesthetics.

The voice of Feminist and Queer Performance is an inviting one–curious, self-reflexive, and hopeful. Case is no doubt committed to bridging the divide between theoretical language and political praxis, and easily mixes anecdote and activism into her scholarship. Although not exactly “jargon” free, Feminist and Queer Performance is accessible to a diverse readership. It’s essential reading for burlesque dancers, radical cheerleaders, drag kings, and anyone else interested in the performance of feminist and queer politics.

Written by: Jeanne Vaccaro, April 30th 2009

Throws Like a Girl Rocks! (2/8-2/24/2007)

admin — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 01:53:00 +0000

By Rude Mechanicals

Austin, Texas

The Austin Rude Mechanicals (or Rude Mechs) presented its fourth “Throws Like a Girl” (TLAG) series this year from February 8-24 at the Austin Off Center. Originally produced in conjunction with the University of Texas Theater and Dance Department, Rude Mechs has made the TLAG series a fixture in Austin’s theater scene since 2000. Designed to showcase stellar women performance artists with the likes of Carmelita Tropicana and Peggy Shaw, the TLAG series for this year focused on performance artists who straddle the genres of performance art, theater and music: lesbian rock legend of Two Nice Girls, Gretchen Phillips; author of Godspeed and Tribe 8 front wo/man, Lynnee Breedlove; and formerly of queercore band Bitch and Animal (“Drag King Bar,” anyone?), Bitch.

TLAG offered a strong formal consistency while also presenting diverse stylistic material. The three performances all drew from first person accounts, as solo shows often do. They also shared a common lineage—all converging at the Michigan Womyn’s one time or another. But the performative structures and lineage is where the similarities end.

While Phillips’s “Don’t Stop Believing” had a casual, conversational style using rock, gospel and country as musical influences, Breedlove’s “One Freak Show: Less Rock, More Hilarity” was more of a standup routine with punk and hip-hop music solos mixed in. Still Bitch’s “Bitch” drew from tap dancing, classical violin performance, and a sound that revealed Bitch’s strong affiliation with Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records label.

Phillips’s Austin fame delivered quite handsomely to a standing-room-only house. Phillips began her show telling the audience that the show is about “Sex and My Parents” and then proceeded to play a cover of Britney Spears’s “Baby One More Time”—much to the delight of the sing-along audience. Interspersing comical anecdotes about, yes, sex and her parents, with covers and Phillips favorites such as “Swimming Pool” and “Reluctant Butch.” Phillips’s performance style, while informal, is disarmingly vulnerable—something that probably helped catapult her and her old band, Two Nice Girls, to queer music sainthood.

Breedlove’s performance did continue along the agit-prop queerpunk vain that Tribe 8 became known for. When discussing the politics of “passing” as male, Breedlove narrated strategies of bathroom politics, culminating in hir urinating into a bucket using a small contraption stowed in hir pocket. S/he also shared the many ways of chest binding, where s/he managed to show us hir bare chest multiple times. Despite Breedlove covering what seemed to be overly done trans-boy/butch/genderqueer topics, hir sidesplitting humor and acute narrative style shed new light on these subjects.

Bitch was a surprise, perhaps because her performance persona is not “bitchy” at all. She discussed ideas of childhood, violence, and the fact that she spent most of her early years almost legally blind—before someone had the wisdom to buy her a pair of glasses. Particularly interesting was Bitch’s portrayals of her British mother, which showed her performative virtuosity. When Bitch would enact a solo dialogue with her “mother,” not only was her British accent spot on, but also her body language and facial mannerisms evoked Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria.

Overall, TLAG delivered yet another excellent series, highlighting what seems to be a developing trend of rock/pop/punk and theatrical genres blending and blurring into each other. Any of the performers would be a treat to see, but presented as a series, it was truly a force with which to reckoned.

Written by: k. terumi shorb, April 12th 2007

The Sex Workers' Art Show (3/1/2007)

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:07:00 +0000

Abbey Pub

Chicago, Illinois

The Sex Workers' Art Show performed its last show of the season to a full crowd at Chicago's Abbey Pub on March 1, 2007. The performances I experienced were gorgeous, funny, embarrassing, heart-breaking, hopeful, offensive and affirming. And all in a good way. The burlesque teacher who performed at least 12,000 table dances to work her way through college and grad school taught a woman from the audience to perform a striptease and twirl her tassles. Amber Dawn, the retired prostitute, read another of her short stories based on her experiences. There was a song that explored black masculinities. Annie Oakley, the show's founder, promoter, organizer and den mother, is a gracious host. The Abbey was packed, but she made it feel like a chill house party. Even when she asked the audience to please put their video cameras away already and f**k off, she still came across as laid-back.

In addition to being beautiful and trendy in a sex-radical way, this was a taboo-busting show. One piece in particular stands out for me in its power and horror. A woman wears a scarf on her head with a red cross. She rolls a condom onto a dildo attached to a gun handle and performs fellatio while the Ave Maria plays in the background. Afterwards she strips – doesn't tease – and, when the floor and balcony are silent (the only point in the entire show in which this would happen), she speaks into the microphone: "I will suck your cock all you want if that will end the war." I feel ashamed. I don't know why. In her introduction to the show, Annie Oakley noted that we are a porn consuming – porn glutted – culture, but we prefer that the objects/subjects of our consumption remain silent. This show breaks that taboo, generally. In the performance I just described, it is horrifically apparent that there can be negative aspects to sex work even in a sex-radical appreciation and that enjoying sex does not diminish the danger and pain that accompanies sex and sex work for so many women (and men).

As dangerous and alienating as sex work can be, the performance described above is infused with agency and critique. Annie Oakley pointed out the deep criticism of war, capitalist production, cultural and sexual imperialism at work in this piece. When C. Snatch Z. (the performer of this piece) offers her body for sexual service, Annie Oakely reads this as both a signal of the futility of responses to the war machine as well as a well-aimed jab at the “male ego and need that drive war.” Though not advertised as a necessarily feminist show, these performances provide a level of critique and support that volumes of academic feminist theory cannot so easily and immediately convey.

In our email interview, Annie Oakley asserts that she has been a feminist since she knew the meaning of the term, and this feminism infuses all of her work; she has always been a feminist sex worker, and she defies anyone to challenge that. Further, her relationship to sex work incorporates a capitalist critique that is often overlooked or undertheorized even from within feminism. She reminds me that “In a capitalist system, ALL work is economic coercion.” From there, she explored ways of making sex work less oppressively exploitative for sex workers, and then critiqued the proliferation of pro-pleasure language that too often enters feminist debates about sex work. Sex work is just that, “work” and sex workers do not work for their pleasure, they work for the pay. When the feminist debate surrounding sex work is characterized as a polarity between censorship and pleasure, it cannot accurately account for sex workers’ experiences of the sex industry. There is more "work" in sex work than many feminists recognize, and a capitalist analysis might be more beneficial than one of pleasure.

Both the show and Annie Oakley’s detailed analyses (shared with me by personal communication) were deeply challenging for both feminists and non-feminists and the Sex Workers’ Art Show offers an intellectually engaging, non-‘academic’ perspective vital to discussions of sex, work and sex work itself.

Written by: kristina grob, April 10th 2007