While in NYC with the art league any time we did something weird or unusual we’d just laugh and say “It’s a performance piece.” The funny thing about that is that it basically was a performance piece. We as artists were interacting with the world around us in new and different ways as we learned about ourselves and our environment. Performance art can be that simple. Often it’s much more complex and thought out than the antics of nine creative types set loose on the big city, but sometimes it can be that pure.
When I think about performance art I often think it’s less about the artist, and more about the audience and involving them in the piece. How can the artist engage the audience? Is the engagement simply including them as onlookers to something truly unexpected like Chris Burden being shot? Is the engagement a personal emotional connection between the artist and the audience like Marina Abramovic staring deeply into the eyes of an individual onlooker seated across from her? Or is it physical contact like Valie Export as she allows the audience to touch her bare chest inside her cardboard box shirt? They’re all very different involvements, and they’re all performance art. Unlike the physical limitations of art media like paint, film, and pencils performance art seeks to break out of the expected art forms and find something new and different.
There is an argument that when you begin to document these performance pieces it degrades some of their meaning. Taking them out of their live content and context and placing them inside the traditional mediums like photography, film, or even documentation about the performance piece and how it’s done seems to reduce the impact of performance art for some onlookers. While I agree that these pieces are obviously different when documented versus being viewed live as they happen, I disagree that it ruins the art itself. As artists we should strive to learn from each other, see what other artists are doing, explore ideas and avenues that we may not have known about without witnessing or reading about the art others are producing. The art is changed by recording, but its value and message can still be preserved for future artists. As long as the audience is still able to engage in the piece it’s still valid.
What about those pieces of performance art that cross the line between public and private like Vito Acconci’s Following Piece? That’s where I get a bit iffy. On one hand the idea of the artist having no control over where they go next and giving up control to mirror the actions of a stranger is really interesting to me. I can understand the psychology behind the freedom of willingly surrendering control. However, the person being followed was not a willing participant, and may have been disturbed by or felt unsafe due to being followed by Acconci.
Following strangers is absolutely a violation of social norms. In fact someone I knew in high school would regularly make a point to follow and match pace with anyone that cut them off on the interstate. More than once they bragged about how the person they followed would hastily get off at the next exit once they figured out that all their lane changes and speed changes were being mirrored by another car. I always thought this was incredibly dangerous and that my friend was lucky to have never gotten shot by a hot head with road rage. Following and copying people without their consent makes people incredibly uncomfortable. It assumes a level of familiarity that most individuals find very uncomfortable. Where I would have no issues with a friend or family member following behind me as I drive or walk somewhere, I would be incredibly uncomfortable and feel quite unsafe if a stranger did the same thing.