Dan Graham finally on Ubu web

Now you can watch Dan Graham’s Performer/Audience/Mirror on Ubu web.

Extra Credit Options

For those of you interested in extra credit, here are some guidelines:

I am open to extra credit options that allow for individual and unique experiences and demonstrate student initiative. From time to time I have and will announce and suggest some options–like creating a flyer for our gallery show in April (details forthcoming) or posting extra comments on Week 8’s Assignment Post. You are also welcome to design and propose your own extra credit ideas. The amount of credit possible will depend on the extent of the project you propose, how relevant it is to class, and how much it incorporates theories and issues we have read about. You can propose a small project or self-assignment, a series of small options for a larger cumulative effect, or one or two larger, extensive projects. Be creative and consider areas of our study that are most useful to you in your personal practice. You can email me your proposal idea or give me a write up in class, and then I will tell you how many points the project would be worth before you start.

Week 8 Assignment Post

Here is what you need to have done by class on March 31:

Email me your proposal for the Being Audience project; read pages 97-113, 177-194, and 203-224 in the Fusco book and section 8 in the library reserve binder: Actuals: A Look into Performance Theory by Richard Schechner; add four links to your del.icio.us site; and post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week (if you choose to post more than 2 comments and if they are well-reasoned, I will give you extra credit.)

Here are some considerations:

• Comment on the usefulness and functionality of some of the alternate labels for work (other than “performance art”) mentioned in the Ramos essay. How might some of these terms better describe your own work? How are they useful in the context of Venezuelan work, or do you find similar problems with all terms?
• Discuss the claim from the 1981 CADA work that “the work of improving the accepted standard of living is the only valid art form/the only exhibition/the only worthwhile works of art.” Pay attention to specific implications of words and how they translate for you and your experience, i.e., if this statement is assumed to be valid, what is really meant by “form” and “exhibition”?
• Are you persuaded by Lotty Rosenfeld’s discussion of her work? Why or why not?
• What are the implications of Felipe Ehrenberg’s designation of the street happenings between the two galleries as art? If these are pieces, is he the artist of the piece because he identified them as such? Or do the pieces have unwitting artists, or no creating artist at all?
• Concerning Schechner’s use of the term “actuals:” what are the implications for performance art specifically? What examples can you think of that fit within/outside of his parameters?
• What examples can you cite relevant to artistic practice that bear out his categories of contemporary (or modern) movements: “wholeness,” “process and organic growth,” “concreteness,” and “religious transcendental experience”?
• Concerning ritual, are you aware of rituals that are examinable and explainable following his model? Elaborate.

For those of you especially concerned with issues of documentation, consider this JSTOR essay: “Presence” in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation” by Amelia Jones.

Enjoy your Spring Break!

Week 7 Assignment Post

Here is what you need to do by class on Monday:

Read pages 59-96 in the Fusco book; read the Nick Zangwill article, Art and Audience (follow the link to JSTOR); post four links on your del.icio.us page; REMEMBER THAT CLASS MEETS IN THE DANCE STUDIO ON MONDAY; post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings; and if you are feeling sassy, peruse some of the other audience-relevant articles with links below.

Here are some considerations:

• What is your response to Jesusa Rodriguez’s theories of humor, and do you see these claims translated into her work?
• How do you think Tito Vasconcelos’ characters, especially Tatiana Illhuicamina, translate differently to an American audience than to his community?
• Distill Zangwill’s main thesis and detail your reaction to it, i.e., are you persuaded by his argument, do you accept his grounding claims, and so forth. Why or why not?

Other writings on audience:

Shaping Belief: The Role of Audience in Visual Communication, by Ann C. Tyler

Casting the Audience, by Natalie Crohn Schmitt

Week 6 Assignment Post

Here is what you need to do before class on Monday:

Read pages 133-173 in the Fusco book, have your Social Intervention projects ready to perform/present, add four links to your del.icio.us site, and make at least two considered comments on the reading. Here are some considerations:

• Respond to and critique one specific work by Mendieta, Clark, or Oiticica. Given that your experience of this work is solely description in an essay and possibly documentary photographs, what elements of your response do you think are owed to this written perspective?
• Consider the end notes–what information contained here is provacative to you? Why was this not contained in the body of the main article in your opinion? How does it elucidate the information primarily presented?

Week 5 Assignment Post

Here is what you need to do before class on Monday:

Read pages 225-265 in the Fusco book; read these selections from the Interventionists book (follow this link (3.8 MB)) and inSite 05 (links below); listen to the Bad at Sports interview with the Center for Tactical Magic; make at least two thoughtful comments here regarding the readings; post four links to your del.icio.us page; write a working proposal for your Social Intervention project (please email this to me if possible).

Here are the links to intervention projects from inSite 05:

Paul Ramírez-Jonas

Måns Wrange and here

Judi Werthein

João Louro

Here are some considerations:

• How is a figure like Alejandro Jodorowsky especially pertinent to current students of art, and more particularly to students like you in programs like VaPA?

• Respond to Bustamante’s contention that the group movement in Mexico ended with the 1983 MAM exhibition. What other “institutionalizations” are you aware of and what effect do you think such recognition or inclusion has on artists and art forms/trends that were previously uncannonized?

• Link or trace the use of the term “tactics,” especially in the Thompson essay and the Chavoya essay. How does this term function and how is this useful in your efforts to construct an intervention proposal?

• Respond to the direct dealing with situation, concept, space, community, and issue in Asco’s work. Does this account of some of their projects help you in concieving your own piece? (What direct issues are you involved in/aware of and do they seem like subjects for art work to you?)

Week 4 Assignment Post

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 152-226 in the Goldberg book; Performance Art: (Some) Theory and (Selected) Practice at the End of This Century by Martha Wilson (JSTOR); and section one in the library reserve binder, chapter 5 in Performance: A Critical Introduction by Marvin Carlson.

Here are some considerations:

• After the descriptions of performance art as a genre in these two readings (and almost one month in class), locate/delineate your understanding of the nature of performance art.
• How do the discussions in these readings of some of the artists you are already familiar with clarify, expand, or change your understanding of these artists’ works?
• For those of you with a background in theatre, respond to references to theatre as the antecedent and discussions of theatre’s relationship to performance art.
• Select an artist from the Goldberg section and do some independent research on them. Post what you discover.

Remember your del.icio.us posts as well for this week. In class we will first complete the two performances from this past week, and then we will hopefully jaunt over to the dance studio for some exercises.

Week 3 Assignment Post

Please post at least two thoughtful comments on the readings for this week: pages 97-151 in the Goldberg book. You will also need to have your Performing the Self project ready to perform in class and have posted 4 links to your del.icio.us site.

Here are some considerations:

• Suggest a theoretical happening based on the tenants of the Bauhaus (descriptions of Bauhaus festivities and Schlemmer’s conceptual assertions might be a starting point.)

• What concerns of the period influenced the aesthetic investigations of the Bauhaus (re: interest in technology, etc.) and what parallel concerns of contemporary life might likewise influence your aesthetics?

• How do accounts of and artists statements regarding some of the early happenings in the 1950s-early 1960s fit in to class discussion regarding the need or lack of need for artist intent and responsibility? (ex., Alan Kaprow’s statement regarding 18 Happenings in 6 Parts: “the actions will mean nothing clearly formulable so far as the artist is concerned.”)

• Discuss and react to the social implications of the work of Klein, Manzoni, and Beuys; or defend the assertion that Joseph Beuys is the best artist ever.

Critique Guidelines

Here are the guidelines for critiques that we will be using in this class starting on Monday. We will discuss the method at the beginning of class before we start your performances, but you can read over them now to get a preview:

There are a few key steps in critiquing artwork. These steps can apply to other specialties and fields, but we will only discuss them in terms of visual art.

1. Description: The description of the object(s) is a matter-of-fact listing of what you are actually looking at. What is it? If you are looking at the Mona Lisa, you may say that it is an oil painting on wood, approximately 30″ x 20″, hung at such-and-such a height, the paint is applied in a delicate manner to depict a seated woman before a pastoral landscape. Other details may come out about the painted background and the way her hands are situated, but there is to be no interpretation or evaluation during the description process. Only hard facts about the physicality of the object are to be discussed – not history, context, or intent. It may seem redundant to describe work that everyone is standing before, but different people notice different things and it is helpful to point out those details. Describing the object(s) also sets the groundwork for the rest of the discussion as the following steps depend upon what is pointed out in the description phase.
2. Interpretation: Now you may take what was discussed in the description phase and talk about how those factors come together and what it means. Do not discuss artist’s intention during interpretation, however you may bring in historical and environmental context.
3. Evaluation: At this point you should be able to articulately evaluate the work based upon how well the work operates between what it is and what it is doing/trying to do. This should be the culmination and combination of the description and interpretation to result in well-stated judgments and opinion. If a work seems to be attempting humor, but the materials take themselves to seriously, you may raise that point. A work may succeed because what it is and how it operates are in accord. The artist’s intentions should still be left out of this phase. As a matter of fact, the artist’s intentions should almost always be left out of critiques. Artists rarely know what they are talking about in relation to their work.

Week 2 Assignment Post

For class this coming week, you will need to have read the Goldberg chapters on Dada and Surrealism, made at least two comments on this post, added 4 links to your del.icio.us site, posted images of your Beuys project to Flickr, and have your proposal for the performing the process project ready (I prefer it if you email this to me).

 Here are some things to consider regarding the readings:

• What might the perceived use of writing and publishing manifestos have been for the artist groups you have read about? What do you think the actual results were at the time? How is this different from the results over time, i.e., how have the manifestos affected the transition of these movements from practice to history?
• Respond to the insight into artists’ practice that their involvement to whatever degree in these movements has  provided to your understanding of their work and their place in cultural history (ex.: Picasso’s costumes for Parade, Satie’s infamy, etc.).
• Given your personal area of  focus (visual art, music, theater, etc.), does this history of artistic cross-pollination lend insight into your understanding of the current state of your specialty area? How does it inform your participation in an interdisciplinary degree?