Arts & Culture Magazine - November/December 2007 - (Page 66)

Phenomenology is a philosophical system elaborated by the nineteenth century German philosopher Edmund Husserl. Through Husserl student Jean-Paul Sartre, phenomenology influenced French existentialism, a doctrine that emphasizes the contrast between human existence and the kind of existence possessed by natural objects. Men, endowed with will and consciousness, find themselves in an alien world of objects that have neither. Man in this view is a temporal being, conscious through his will of a future whose only certainty is death. To live authentically is to live in the light of this bleak and unrationalizable fact. In body art, a subset of performance art in which the body of the performer is the vehicle of expression, existentialism lives on as a source of ideas and inspiration. But the question remains, why do performance artists do what they do? A reflection on societal change is needed to understand and function in society. Part of that deliberation considers the complex metalanguage of gesture and behavioral norms inherited and continually elaborated upon. Performance art is literally a living art. Being somewhat anarchic and experimental, it plays a crucial role in infusing its audience with fresh perceptions of mankind outside mass media, which does not support or, up until recently, record it. The antecedents of performance art are many, but it is generally agreed that Emilio Marinetti, an Italian poet and writer and founder of the Futurist movement, is one of its theoretical authors. Dissatisfied with the “passivity” of literature, in 1912 he proposed a poetry of “free words” in which the text is freely disposed on the page. The Futurist movement laid the groundwork for the subsequent Dada movement. The Dada movement was an international “anti-art” movement originating circa 1916 in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, a nightspot named for the eighteenth century French philosopher and satirist. World War I produced a collapse in the culture of rationality, faith in government and progress. In response, each night at the Cabaret Voltaire, Dada artists and writers produced, as the sculptor Hans Arp wrote, “total pandemonium” on stage. Dada means “yes, yes” in Romanian, “rocking horse” and “hobby horse” in French. The Romanian artist and Dada performer Tristan Tzara described these performances as “explosions of elective imbecility.” This absurdist outlook soon spread to Berlin, Paris, New York and Tokyo. For all its nihilistic zaniness, the movement proved to be one of the most influential in Modern Art. The Dada attitude came alive again in New York during the 1960s. “Car Crash”, 1960, was a brief, sketchy happening performed by artists Jim Dine and Judy Tersch. In it, Dine appears to be acting out his personal obsessions. In California some years later, body artist Chris Burden created unforgettable dramas that were shocking in their literalness. In “Shoot”, 1971, Burden focused on the use of performance as a psychodrama on the power of art myth over social responsibility. He actually had a friend shoot him in the arm from a distance of 15 feet. Burden claimed that all those in the gallery were implicated in his act of self-inflicted violence through their failure to intervene. Here is art as a critique of social responsibility. 66 : : arts and culture magazine

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Arts & Culture Magazine - November/December 2007 Contents Extra! Extra! Modern Times Gallery Interview - Jopseph Caulkins Exhibitions Dodi Reifenberg and Bradley Wester Profiles Center Stage Carnevale Horse Feathers Grill & Lounge Dancing on the Stage of Life Gallery Guide Calendar of Events

Arts & Culture Magazine - November/December 2007

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