A Kiss For Luck

[Savonarola]

When I was my 20s I saw a movie called "Frozen" at the local art house.  It was set in the performance art community in China, where performance art is outlawed.  The director has a scene where a number of performance artists sit around, eat soap and then all start throwing up.  At that moment I finally understood the Great Gonzo.

I have a cousin who is a performance artist.  This past weekend my wife was talking to his mother at a wedding shower.  My aunt described, with a great deal of maternal pride, his latest piece.  He sat in a window in Midtown Manhattan and reduced a Chris-Craft down to shavings with handheld carving tools.  CB did her best to try to sound impressed, but asked me later "Why would you do such a thing?"

I told her it was New York, I saw a man do a choreographed ballet to the sound of a doorbell ringing when I was there.  Also I took it as that he was slowly reducing an object down to it's elements.  She seemed much happier with that explanation.

Here he is at his work:



He had to go through strength training for four months in order to have the strength and endurance to do that.  Here's the boat about midway through:



He's done now, the work finished in mid-August.  The introduction on his website is comically overwritten:

http://open-source-gallery.org/james-leonard-a-kiss-for-luck/

Unmoored from the heavy cynicism endemic to his generation, Leonard's work is both displaced in time and a displacement of time. "A Kiss For Luck" channels the rigorous discipline-object of a thorough contemporary performance work into a sly poetics of erosion all his own. Simultaneously mournful and transcendent, Leonard's inevitable, intimate annihilation of a wooden boat, taking place at the height of summer sweltering season, serves both as a long quiet moment of collective solitude and the fevered zenith of a clarion call. Possessing an earnestness rare and a simplicity exquisite, "A Kiss For Luck" delivers a heraldic gesture for a new age on a damaged planet.

Personally I think this is foolishness, and a profound artistic statement like the one above turns a moderately foolish task into a profoundly foolish one.  I'm sure there are people here who do appreciate performance art more than I do, and I'd be interested in what they have to say.  (I'm also sure that those who appreciate it less will also have something entertaining to say...)

[CountDeMoney]

Mimes need to be curb stomped.

[Berkut]

When do we get to the punchline?

[KRonn]

Mimes need to be curb stomped.

Mimes should be seen and not heard.   

[garbon]

I appreciate performance art but have nothing profound to say.

[merithyn]

I like the concept of performance art, but I've yet to see any that actually ... makes sense to me. I want to like it, but... yeah... not so much. 

[frunk]

The problem with performance art is that either what they are doing is self-explanatory, in which case it's just art (like music or dance), or it requires explication, in which case the explanation is more important than the performance.

[garbon]

The problem with performance art is that either what they are doing is self-explanatory, in which case it's just art (like music or dance), or it requires explication, in which case the explanation is more important than the performance.

Or they could be viewed as equally important or neither as particularly important.

Also, there are certainly performances that are clear to one audience that are not clear to other audiences.

[grumbler]

Mimes need to be curb stomped.

Mimes should be seen and not heard. 

Mimes should be obscene but not absurd.

[Savonarola]

The problem with performance art is that either what they are doing is self-explanatory, in which case it's just art (like music or dance), or it requires explication, in which case the explanation is more important than the performance.

I find that whenever a work of art requires an explanation I hate it.  In part it's because artistic statements are written in  an abominable style; but also I think that it indicates a shortcoming on the part of the work.  TS Eliot wrote that "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood," I think that applies to all art.  If it needs to be understood before it can communicate then it's not good.

[Razgovory]

See, if I were to do something like this, they would up my meds or make me stay in the hospital for a week or so.

[jimmy olsen]

Mimes should be seen and not heard. 

[garbon]

The problem with performance art is that either what they are doing is self-explanatory, in which case it's just art (like music or dance), or it requires explication, in which case the explanation is more important than the performance.

I find that whenever a work of art requires an explanation I hate it.  In part it's because artistic statements are written in  an abominable style; but also I think that it indicates a shortcoming on the part of the work.  TS Eliot wrote that "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood," I think that applies to all art.  If it needs to be understood before it can communicate then it's not good.

Maybe but as I said in my post - an artist can't/won't/shouldn't anticipate every audience, so it can't be guaranteed that everyone will understand.

I also, in many cases, think that if a work feels completely impenetrable, it is often the fault of the gallery/museum/displayers for not providing sufficient context.