Performance Art
Performance Art
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According to
the Tate, Performance Art is ‘Artworks
that are created through actions performed by the artist or other participants,
which may be live or recorded, spontaneous or scripted’
Performance Art
involves:
- Costume
- Dance (Ballet, Contemporary)
- Use of Body
- Visuals
- Film/ Video/ Recordings
- Movement
- Social Media
- Improvisation or Spontaneity
Concrete Poetry is based on what the words look like on a page (the
size/ shape of the letters). It was influenced by Dada.
Movements that used or
encompassed Performance Art (Examples of
artists who were part of these movements)
- Dada
(Tristian Tzara)
- Bauhaus
- Fluxus 1960-65 (Voko Ono)
- Performance Art/ Happenings
- Surrealism (Duchamp)
- Installation
(Richard Serra)
The Legacy Tour 1970
This example of Performance Art was a way of breaking free from the restrictions
and limitations of art, mostly dance. The people involved wanted to push the
boundaries and experiment with looking at things in a different way. One of the
visual artists, who helped with things like costume, was Jasper Johns. In the
1950’s he was a Pop Artists but later did abstract paintings, before going into
costume design. The choreographer, Merce Cunningham, used the dancers from the
‘Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC). He created the dance before adding the
music by John Cage, as he didn’t want the music to guide the dance. This
resulted in the dance being out of time and tempo. He would also change the
narrative of his work so this were out of order to explore the idea of change.
There were many artists and movements involved in Performance
Art. One part of this idea was that it challenged society. Artists felt that
because things of this era clearly weren’t working and wars were breaking out
and tensions were rising, that they would look at everything in a different
way. When people were being logical and thinking, these bad things were still
happening, so artists like Merce Cunningham wanted to view and approach things
in an illogical way, like in dreams to see if this would have better outcomes.
Martha Graham
She trained as a ballerina but was the first person to
use props and incorporate them into her dance. Graham Used hoops to determine
shapes within her dance which was a radical shift from traditional ballet.
However, she wasn’t concerned about elegance or tradition as her art was
performance art, rather than just dance.
Serge Diaghilev
Serge Diaghilev was a Russian art critic who also led the
Ballet Russe. He worked on choreography with Igor Stravinsky and had Coco Chanel
help with costumes for the ‘Rite of Springs’ performance. This ballet was so
controversial and resulted in the audience throwing items at the performers and
rioting as it strongly opposed traditional ballet. Firstly, the music was very
broken and not smooth which was expected, and the dancers moved very quickly
which sharp sudden movements which also was not normally seen in ballet.