What is Performance Art?

...ALL ABOUT TAKING RISKS...

Mark McGowan gave us our first lesson on performance art and I will admit i became immediately sceptical of the whole thing and why the hell i was doing it! I mean his art (if you can call it that) seemed a bit pointless to me, for example eating a corgi in a protest against cruelty to animals or leaving a tap running for a year apparently creating an awareness of water wastage. I liked the guy, I enjoyed the lesson purely from being thrown into something i knew absolutely nothing about and being entertained by the randomness of the situation.

Mark made some interesting points that day anyway, things that have stuck in my mind. Like the idea of embarrassment. He asked whether any of us would feel comfortable getting up and dancing to know music in the middle of the room. Only two people said they could do it so up they got. It was funny to see that everyone else in the room found it really hard to watch, I will admit I was cringing and I don't even know why. They certainly weren't embarrassed to be dancing so why did we struggle to look at them? I found this an interesting concept to think about and left my first elective lesson feeling positive. 

"the power of performance lies in it not really being there" - Peggy Phelan

This is an important quote Mark McGowan enlightened us with. I think it means that the events exist purely on the story that gets told about it.

This lead us onto the conclusion that what you tell people about the events isn't nearly the same as what actually happened. Exaggeration is key apparently and is sometimes what turns the event into a piece of art in the first place ----

    "real is of no significance to man whatsoever"

This highlights the point that it the stories told after the event that create the art. Maybe that why Mark McGowan covers himself in peanut butter and cycles around areas of London on a kids tricycle..... he knows it is likely that people will at least talk about it whether they like it or not doesn't seem to matter.

Performance art is about taking risks. Using live art in a way to communicate an idea. But then i simply wonder if half of it is about being able to shock people. Or even to just entertain them. I have never been that much of a deep thinker, so i found a lot of what mark showed us just plain funny. Or curious. 

For example, he showed us the work of Alexander Brener. No I wasn't impressed by it but it I did want to watch it.  His works involved having sex on city streets, vandalizing artwork and taking a shit at an art lecture. His most famous performance took place when he sprayed a green dollar sign Kazimir Malevich's painting Suprematisme which he ended up going to prison for. Here's him smashing up some gallery. This seems so pointless but i suppose it got a few laughs so maybe it serves a purpose in that respect.