In all honesty I did not know about performance art before I went to college. When I was first introduced to the idea of it, I was very confused. I can’t say I enjoyed it. Even now I find the ideas more interesting than the performances most times. As time went on my idea on what is art changed as well as how I felt about performance art. I think performance is important despite how unusual it usually is. Perhaps it more important for that strangeness that distracts, attracts, confuses, repulses, or even allures us. Performance art often violates the “norms,” and I think, in most cases, that it should violate those “norms” if nothing else, then to draw attention to the absurd idea of “norms.” In the video The Case for Performance Art | The Art Assignment by PBS Digital Studios, they concluded by saying,
“Performance art can give you room to think about who you are where you are and how you relate to those who are not you it can allow us to contemplate the rules written and unwritten of any given space or place performance can make you uncomfortable because that’s what it’s supposed to do it’s designed to do don’t leave the room stay be uncomfortable revel in the mystery of what may or may not occur think about why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling invite the discomfort invite the unknown you an artist and art will be better for it” – https://youtu.be/EmMTKdUAokM
I think that brings in the importance to how these performance artists make one uncomfortable in order to get their message across. It really depends on the subject for what should be private and the message behind it. Of course I still think the boundaries I mentioned in an earlier blog continue to apply. There’s some things that should not be done; however, In Vito Acconci’s Following Piece, I think the boundaries of public and private are what is being drawn to, and I don’t he was crossing lines as he never followed them into their homes. Not following in itself was key that idea of the idea of privacy.
As for documenting performance art as in the case of Vito Acconci’s Following Piece, all the documentations becames works themselves and ironically fall to the same system that performance had once sought to go against. Despite that I do think it is important to document the performances anyway. In many cases, the art still portrays the message in documentation. Not documenting a performance may lead it to never spread beyond those who did witness it. In that mind set, how could one ever prove it happened without documentation. I could see some instances where that idea that there was a whole piece that only a select few ever witnessed. It makes the performances special. There is also the fact that their retelling would all differ. Without documentation we could say it never happened or make up elaborate stories, Or even in the case of Rudolf Schwarzkogler where a performance was fabricated entirely with supposed documentation. With those situations in mind, they show that documentation is a part of the work, and the message can determine whether one should document it.