Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974–2007

416 Pages·2010·11.636 MB·English

by  Suzanne Lacy

Leaving art

Leaving art
Writings on Performance,
Politics, and Publics,
1974–2007
Suzanne Lacy
Introduction by Moira Roth
Afterword by Kerstin Mey
Duke University Press
Durham and London 2010
© 2010 Duke univerSity PreSS “Suzanne Lacy: Three Decades of
All rights reserved Performing and Writing/Writing
Printed in the United States of and Performing” © Moira Roth.
America on acid- free paper ♾
Chapter 27, “Having It Good:
Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan
Reflections on Engaged Art
Typeset in Whitman by Tseng
and Engaged Buddhism,” was
Information Systems, Inc.
originally published in Buddha
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-
Mind in Contemporary Art, edited
Publication Data appear on the last
by Jacquelynn Baas and Mary
printed page of this book.
Jane Jacob. © 2004 Regents of the
Frontispiece and part title pages: University of California. Published
Suzanne Lacy with Sharon Allen, by the University of California Press.
Whisper, the Waves, the Wind, Reprinted with permission.
performance, San Diego, 1984.
Photographs by Edith Kodmur.
for allan Kaprow,
whose work and
spiritual practice
inspired my own

ContentS
Illustrations • ix
Preface • xiii
Acknowledgments • xv
Moira roth Introduction. Suzanne Lacy: Three Decades
of Performing and Writing/Writing and Performing • xvii
Part 1. Learning to Look: the Seventies
Introduction • 2
1. Prostitution Notes (1974) • 5
2. Falling Apart (1980) • 20
3. Body Contract (1974) • 30
Photo Essay. Learn Where the Meat Comes From (1976) • 43
4. Cinderella in a Dragster (1977) • 48
5. The Bag Lady: On Memory (1982) • 52
6. The Life and Times of Donaldina Cameron (with Linda
Palumbo and Kathleen Chang) (1978) • 57
7. In Mourning and In Rage (With Analysis Aforethought)
(1978) • 64
8. Learning to Look: The Relationship between Art and
Popular Culture Images (with Leslie Labowitz) (1979) • 72
9. Feminist Artists: Developing a Media Strategy for the
Movement (with Leslie Labowitz) (1981) • 83
10. Time, Bones, and Art: Anatomy of a Decade (1995) • 92
Part 2. Political Performance art: the eighties
Introduction • 108
11. Broomsticks and Banners: The Winds of Change
(1980) • 109
12. The Greening of California Performance: Art for Social
Change—A Case Study (1982) • 114
13. Made for TV: California Performance in Mass Media
(1982) • 120
14. Battle of New Orleans (1980) • 126
15. Beneath the Seams (1982) • 137
16. In the Shadows: An Analysis of The Dark Madonna
(1990) • 144
17. Political Performance Art: A Discussion by Suzanne Lacy
and Lucy R. Lippard (1985) • 151
Part 3. Debated territory: the nineties
Introduction • 160
18. The Name of the Game (1991) • 161
19. Debated Territory: Toward a Critical Language
for Public Art (1994) • 172
20. Affinities: Thoughts on an Incomplete History (1994) • 185
21. Love, Cancer, Memory: A Few Stories (1996) • 194
22. Cancer Notes (with Leslie Becker) (1995) • 211
23. What It Takes (with Ann Wettrich) (2002) • 222
Part 4. Leaving art: after 2000
Introduction • 236
24. The Skin of Memory/La Piel de la Memoria
(with Pilar Riaño- Alcalá) (2006) • 237
25. Seeking an American Identity (Working inward
from the Margins) (2003) • 250
26. Cop in the Head, Cop in the Street (2006) • 267
27. Having It Good: Reflections on Engaged Art
and Engaged Buddhism (2005) • 284
28. Hard Work in a Working- Class Town (2006) • 300
29. Tracing Allan Kaprow (2007) • 319
kerStin Mey Afterword: In | ter | ceptions and
In | tensions—Situating Suzanne Lacy’s Practice • 327
Appendix: Chronology and Selected Performances
and Installations • 339
Notes • 343
Index • 369
iLLuStrationS
1. Lucy Lippard, Moira Roth, Suzanne Lacy, and Larry Fink
in The Crystal Quilt, 1987 • xviii
2. Jan Oxenberg and Shawnee Wollenman in Ablutions,
1972 • xix
3. Lacy pushing a cart of garbage in The Bag Lady, 1977 • xxii
4. Evalina Newman and Suzanne Lacy in Evalina and I: Crime,
Quilts and Art, 1977 • xxiii
5. A performance exposing rape occurrences in Los Angeles,
Three Weeks in May, 1977 • xxv
6. Professional women discussing their lives in Freeze Frame:
Room for Living Room, 1982 • xxvii
7. Women over the age of sixty exploring aging in Whisper, the
Waves, the Wind, 1984 • xxviii
8. Older women applauding the audience at the conclusion of
The Crystal Quilt, 1987 • xxix
9. Youth and police officers discussing their differences in
Code 33, 1999 • xxxii
10. The museum installed in a school bus, in The Skin of
Memory/La Piel de la Memoria, 1999 • xxxiv
11. Riverfront Park, the centerpiece of the Blue Line Trail
created in Beneath Land and Water, 2000–2005 • xxxviii
12. A woman calling out to potential customers during Take
Back the Night, 1978 • 7
13. Drawing from Lacy’s research on prostitution, Prostitution
Notes, 1974 • 17
14–17. Photomontage featuring Lacy, Falling Apart (one of five),
from The Anatomy Lessons #3, 1976 • 21–28
18. Image from She Gave Her Heart Away, from Three Love
Stories, 1975 • 39
19.1–19.9. Lacy in photo series Learn Where the Meat Comes From,
1976 • 43–47
20. Lacy in Cinderella in a Dragster, 1977 • 49
21. Lacy in The Bag Lady, 1977 • 53
22. Kathleen Chang and Lacy on a schooner in their
performance The Life and Times of Donaldina Cameron,
1977 • 58
23. A performance on the media coverage of the Hillside
Strangler, In Mourning and In Rage, 1977 • 65
24. A newscaster reporting on the set of Leslie Labowitz’s
Record Companies Drag Their Feet, 1977 • 73
25. A Warner Bros. record album cover displayed in Record
Companies Drag Their Feet, 1977 • 76
26. Documentation of Darryl Sapien’s site- specific
performance, Crime in the Streets, 1978 • 77
27. Photo from “Le Monstre d’Hollywood,” reportage in the
magazine Paris Match, 1978 • 78
28. Pornography image • 81
29. Delegates from City Hall and nonprofit organizations at the
launch of Three Weeks in May, 1977 • 84
30. Four women performing in She Who Would Fly, from Three
Weeks in May, 1977 • 93
31. Jo Hanson at work on her project Secrets of the Street: Public
Disclosure, 1980 • 110
32. Leslie Labowitz performing in her installation Sproutime/
New York, 1981 • 115
33. Section of photomontage by Leslie Labowitz, Women’s View
of Mass Media, 1978–2008 • 121
34. Laverne Dunn and Lacy in New Orleans, calling attention
to a national Equal Rights Amendment boycott, Boycott
Performance, 1980 • 127
35. Jean Graff and friends posing in one of a series of tableaux,
Freeze Frame: Room for Living Room, 1982 • 138
36. Women posing in UCLA’s sculpture garden in The Dark
Madonna, 1986 • 145
37. Members of the steering committee rehearsing for Whisper,
the Waves, the Wind, 1984 • 152
38. The Cowgirl Commandos protesting an exhibition at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980 • 162
39. Judy Chicago posing for an exhibition advertisement, from
Artforum, 1971 • 167
x | Illustrations