Table Of ContentTHE METHUEN
DRAMA COMPANION TO
PERFORMANCE ART
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THE METHUEN
DRAMA COMPANION TO
PERFORMANCE ART
Edited by
Bertie Ferdman and Jovana Stokic
METHUEN DRAMA
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published in Great Britain 2020
Copyright © Bertie Ferdman, Jovana Stokic, and contributors, 2020
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Cover design: Louise Dugdale
Cover image: Alexandra Pirici, Threshold (2017), photograph by Liz Legon, courtesy of the artist
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CONTENTS
List of figures vii
AcknowLedgments ix
PART I Introduction
1.1 Squaring Performance Art 3
Bertie Ferdman and Jovana Stokic
PART II Issues and Problems: Future Directions in Performance
Art Research
2.1 Reruns or New Turns 19
Jovana Stokic
2.2 Cross-disciplinarity and Antitheatrical Historiographies of
Performance Art 26
Bertie Ferdman
PART III Essays
3.1 How Performance Art Makes History: Artists’ Auto-histories of
Happenings and Fluxus in the 1960s 37
Heike Roms
3.2 Queer Performativity: A Critical Genealogy of a Politics of Doing
in Art Practice 58
Amelia Jones
3.3 Taking Up Instructions for Becoming 81
Rebecca Schneider
3.4 Caring for Black Corporealities: Experimental Black Performance 93
Thomas F. DeFrantz
vi CONTENTS
3.5 Between Contemporary Art and Performance: Dramaturgy and Flow 104
Peter Eckersall
3.6 Acting Ethical: Performance Art Goes Public 120
Malik Gaines
3.7 Compassionate Acts: Performance as Radical Care 129
T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko
3.8 The Labor of the Artist, Feminist Practices, and Troubles with
Infrastructure 148
Bojana Kunst
3.9 Gestural Study 165
Sven Lütticken
3.10 Stomaching It: Testing Endurance in Black Performance Art 182
Danielle Bainbridge
3.11 Performative Bodies and Artists/Spectators: The Case of Radical
Latina and Latin American Women Artists in Exhibition 190
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
3.12 Framing Live Art 204
Lois Keidan
3.13 From the Institution of Performance to the Performance of Institutions 220
Jonah Westerman and Catherine Wood
3.14 Performance in the Age of the Technosphere 247
Chris Salter
PART IV Annotated Bibliography and Resources
Annotated Bibliography 267
Eylül Fidan Akıncı
Notes on Contributors 285
Index 290
FIGURES
FIGURES
3.1.1 George Maciunas, Fluxus (Its Historical Development and
Relationship to Avant-garde Movements), c. 1966 47
3.1.2 Wolf Vostell, Pre-Fluxus New York Avant 1962; Pre-Fluxus
Cologne Avant 1962; Fluxus Wiesbaden 1962 (n.d.) 50
3.1.3 Nam June Paik, Fluxus Island in Décollage Ocean, 1963 51
3.1.4 Mieko Shiomi, Spatial Poem No. 2, 1966 53
3.2.1 Fayette Hauser, photograph of the Cockettes performing,
1970 62
3.2.2 Nao Bustamante, Indigurrito, 1992 74
3.2.3 Zackary Drucker, The Inability to be Looked at and the Horror of
Nothing to See, 2008–9 75
3.3.1 and 3.3.2 Emilio Rojas, Instructions for Becoming (Indio Desnudo),
2019 82
3.3.3 and 3.3.4 Emilio Rojas, Heridas Abiertas (A Gloria) 84
3.3.5 Rebecca Belmore, Fringe, 2008 85
3.3.6 Soldier’s Arch, Brown University 88
3.4.1 Leroy Eldridge in Monèt Noelle Marshall’s “Buy My Soul and
Call It Art” 96
3.4.2 Shireen Dickson in “reVERSE-gesture-reVIEW” 101
3.5.1, 3.5.2, and 3.5.3 Complexity of Belonging 112
3.8.1 Else Tunmeyr, When We were Weary/The Loneliest Whale in the
World, 2017 149
3.8.2 Catalina Insignares, us as a useless duet, 2017 161
3.9.1 and 3.9.2 An early Laban pupil demonstrating a “well-shaped
body in expressive position,” combined with an effort graph 170
3.9.3 Alexandra Pirici, Aggregate (2017), at NBK 173
3.10.1 Albert Chong, “Natural Mystic,” 1982 183
FIGURES
viii FIGURES
3.11.1 Patssi Valdez, Limitations beyond My Control, 1975 194
3.11.2 Cecilia Vicuña, El Zen Surado, 1960s–2013, collage 195
3.11.3 Maria Evelia Marmolejo, 11 de marzo, 1981 198
3.12.1 La Pocha Nostra, Ex-Centris (A Living Diorama of
Fetish-ized Others), Live Culture, 2003 206
3.12.2 La Ribot, Panoramix, Live Culture, 2003 207
3.12.3 Sybille Peters, KAPUTT, 2017 211
3.12.4 Liberate Tate, Human Cost, 2011 215
3.13.1 Carlos Amorales, Amorales vs. Amorales, 2003 235
3.13.2 Tania Bruguera, Tatlin’s Whisper #5, 2008, performed as part
of UBS Openings: Live—The Living Currency 238
3.13.3 Boris Charmatz, Public Warm Up at Tate Modern, 2015,
part of BMW Tate Live: If Tate Modern Was Musée de la
danse? 239
3.14.1 Chris Salter and TeZ, Haptic Field, 2017 254
3.14.2 and 3.14.3 Kurt Hentschlager, Feed.X, 2018 256
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank Amelia Jones for sending this project in our direction and
to all the authors who contributed so much of their time and effort to this volume:
Eylül Fidan Akıncı, Danielle Bainbridge, T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko, Thomas F.
DeFrantz, Peter Eckersall, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Malik Gaines, Amelia Jones, Lois
Keidan, Bojana Kunst, Sven Lütticken, Heike Roms, Rebecca Schneider, Chris
Salter, Jonah Westerman, and Catherine Wood. We would also like to thank Claire
Bishop and Ana Janevski who, in the initial stages of this book, recommended
sources and contributors. We are extremely grateful to friends and colleagues
who gave us support, feedback, and conversation throughout this process: Peter
Eckersall, Naomi Lev, Jill Samuels, Erika Latta, and Andrew Weiner. Exchanges
with the following artists were especially inspiring: Anna Ostoya, Irena Haiduk, and
Alexandra Pirici, as well as panels about the book held at the following conferences:
IFTR Belgrade, CAA New York, and PSi Calgary. In particular, Jovana would like
to thank her students from the MFA Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts. All
these aforementioned exchanges helped us to shape our understanding of the field
of performance in art contexts today.
We would also like to thank Mark Dudgeon and Lara Bateman at Methuen
Drama for their invaluable help throughout all the stages of this project, as well as
the peer reviewer whose thorough feedback fostered productive revisions.
Finally, to our families and life partners, without whom this book would not
have been possible. Franck Lesbros: you are the vita activa to my vita contemplativa.
Julien Jourdes: tu es mon amour, ma vie. Paloma y Talia: siempre serán las luces de
mi vida.
