In “Re-creation” I’m dealing with the subject of body art in the context of visual arts. More specifically in relation to authors who (whose bodies) do not appear in their performances in the role of objects, so as to say they do not appear in the performances at all but they rather position others in the role of objects – performers who do not share the authorship of the piece. These artists are not questioning their position of 'exploiters' while using others, and are not pointing to the unequal distribution of power – implying their privileged position as natural or creating an ambivalent scenario leaving space for different interpretations.
2008 / 3 oil paintings on canvas + text
public presentations/exhibitions: SC Gallery Zagreb, O3on Gallery Belgrade
award: best thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb in the year 2007/08
2008 / 3 oil paintings on canvas + text
public presentations/exhibitions: SC Gallery Zagreb, O3on Gallery Belgrade
award: best thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb in the year 2007/08
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Since “Re-creation” was conceived in order to become my thesis work at the Academy of fine arts, it is the work in which I wanted to comment theoretical as well as ethical issues I was engaged with, but according to the occasion through the medium of painting (as I was about to graduate painting) as well as text. I was interested in debating questions that arose from conceptual practices with relatively traditionally painted figurative paintings of monumental size in order to stress this disproportion rarely developed in contemporary art. Therefore, this text is an integral part of the work whereby I compare three different artists as case studies considering their moral positions in the art world and their potential influence on the viewer and therefore the preceding development of art.
The consequences of using one owns body in artistic work
Amelia Jones defines body art as a „set of performative practices“ that appear during the 1960's in which artists use/exhibit their own bodies and thereby “through such intersubjective engagement, instantiate the dislocation or decentering of the Cartesian subject of modernism”. In other words because of the appearance of the artist’s body as part of the artwork, the author is positioning her/himself at the same time in the position of the subject (as a creator) and as an object (for s/he is presenting her/himself as an object onto which the viewers can inscribe meaning [1]). “This dislocation is” claims Amelia Jones, “the most profound transformation constitutive of what we have come to call postmodernism.” [2]
Jones refers to the personality of Jackson Pollock, not as an agent of this transformation or a consequence, but as an indicator of the transformation. By the modernist critics he was celebrated as an artist transcending his own body by recording his thoughts and feelings directly onto the surface of the canvas using the body as a tool – subjecting it to the mind. This thought matches the Cartesian [3] understanding of body and mind as two separate entities of which the body is, of course, subjected to the mind. In order to introduce the public with the ingenuity of the modernist artist it was required to introduce the interpreter. This interpreter is the modernist art – critic who is able to read the meaning of the artwork based on the sole formal characteristics of the work not affected by the context of its’ genesis. Clement Greenberg, one of the most influential theoreticians of high modernism, advertised the notion of disinterested judgment [4] as the proper way to analyze artworks. In accordance with this, the art critic was expected to demonstrate neutrality as well as a stance that the object of analysis can be classified because if not the competence of the art historian – critic would be brought to question, as that of an interested subject (the person who is led by her/his own desires when interpreting). In accordance with this interpretation of the artistic act the artist and the critic assumed a privileged position in society. In a way they positioned themselves within eternal (non contextual) universal categories (of quality). Hereby, in addition to the ingenious artist of Romanticism, we have the privileged interpreter of the modernism.
At the same time Pollock’s body appears in the photo documentation of the painterly act (performance) along with the magazine articles about his work and later also on film that appeared in specialized, as well as in popular media [5]. Although author’s appearance beside the article about his work was not a curiosity, in Pollock’s case it was specificity that the artist was photographed in the act of painting, emphasizing the process that was furthermore – theatrical. Boosted by the cold war propaganda of the time, Hans Namuth's photographs rapidly spread through the media and gained cult status. This document of the artistic act will be taken up by the next generation of authors that incorporated their bodies as one of, or the only means, used in their artistic work (what the public can see). This documentation therefore became an important reference to the younger generation of artists. Surfacing the artist’s body - the possible engagement of the interpreter, or to say art critic, is exposed. Therefore the critic loses the status of the disinterested translator whose duty is to unambiguously interpret the pictorial facts on display.
The normative body of the artist
Amelia Jones interprets the causes and consequences of concealing the artist’s body as a way of gaining and maintaining power. „The modernist genius must have a body that is visible as male, and yet this body must be naturalized (made invisible) in order for rhetoric of transcendentalism to do its work successfully: the artist as divinely inspired is effectively disembodied, and ostensibly de-sexed, in the art historical or critical text.[6]” The system that kept the artists' body concealed, and by doing so enabled just a small number of people to be regarded possible artists, was now collapsing. This subversive potential of the body is one of the reasons that so many artists, that according to some of their physical characteristics did not conform to the normative artists body of the time (as well as those that pertained to this norm and could profit from that position, but didn't want to) start to use their body as a part of their artistic practice.
Carolee Schneemann is exhibiting her body and therefore positioning herself as an object in front of the public (the role women most commonly had, as represented through art history) but this time as well as the author, that is, as the thinking subject pointing out her ability to create art while being a woman. For instance, in performance “I/Eye body”, Schnemann uses her own body as actual part of her art work, referring to 'action painting' – she spills color and various materials over her own body and her surrounding, but the result this time is not the painting but performance itself.
Vito Acconci, artist influenced amongst other things with feminist art and feminist art criticism emerging at the time, creates works that emphasizes the contingence of the subject in regards to viewers 'desires'. Concurrently with many feminist artists, he questions the prevailing imperative of the white male artist as normative, even though he himself was not endangered by it. In his work “Seedbed”, he directly approaches the ways art institutions conceal artists body so not to shatter the established system that determines who can and cannot partake in the production of high art. Acconci is hiding in the gallery underneath a ramp on which the visitors are walking and thus cannot see him. He reacts to the sounds of the footsteps by masturbating and the loud speakers are amplifying the sound of his heavy breathing around the room. The visitors directly affect the realization of his work, and therefore he accentuates his dependence on others in creation and interpretation of his work, questioning the authority of the genius as complete and autonomous creative subject.
Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist working in the US, stands naked in provocative pose in front of her paintings and through this act stresses her position as the double Other. She takes a role of a media star (the object of desires) but at the same time represents herself as the artist ('the master of intentionality')[7].
Body (as an) image – Image of the body
For the realization of my thesis I have chosen photo documentation of three art pieces – performances: “Anthropometries” by Yves Klein, “Sculture vivente” (Living sculptures) by Piero Manzoni and “VB35” by Vanessa Beecroft and transposed them into paintings. I have transferred the documentation with least deviation from the photographical template so I wouldn't modify the way the authors themselves envisioned visual presentation of their performances. Modifications that do occur do so only because of the transference of the medium. While painting, I was not trying to deny nor hide particularities of this medium, but I was not trying to emphasize them either. As I was using small reproductions as basis for the paintings (appropriated from books or the Internet and later magnified) the character of these photographs has prevailed over the photographical precision. The paintings are large in order to obtain a 'human scale', in comparison with the viewer, as well as to stress the difference between the paintings and the documentation which is commonly accessible in a small scale. I have retained the fidelity to documentation in the transference of colors as well. Two paintings are black and white because the works they are referring to are from the 1960’s (therefore the documentation was black and white as well) while the third one is in full color because it is depicting a more recent work that was documented with a color film. I decided to abide this difference, for it enables almost immediate recognition that the depicted scenes are coming from different (art) historic periods.
With this work I was not trying to position painting within the framework of contemporary art, nor was I trying to raise issues about the legitimacy of creating images in contemporary world, the issues of quotations etc. I have chosen painting as the most appropriate medium for re – contextualization of the subject matter that is being addressed in these works made in other mediums; works that are themselves referring to painting, or, in Manzoni’s case, to sculpting [8]. The paintings function as indexes of the thought process I was developing trough creation of “Re-creation”. The recognition of motives can lead to a better understanding of the works and therefore those who are familiar with the works of mentioned artists are able to create their own connections and their own interpretation of my work. Those viewers that don’t recognize what the origins of the images are can probably recognize that they are some kind of media imagery – photo documentation and that the prevailing motif is the standard motif used throughout the art history – the female nude. By not clarifying what these paintings mean to me I am risking the reproduction of stereotypical views. Although I am referring to the works of specific authors, my intention wasn’t to communicate directly the reasons that have triggered me into creation of this work. I wanted to clarify my own reasons for confronting these works in critical interrelations through textual description.
Initially, I have been interested in the work of Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni who operated at the very beginnings of Body art – respectively at the period in which the body has entered the high art arena as the integral part of the artworks, although the theoretical discourse related to the use of body as part of the artwork was developed later. Hence these artists are most commonly referred to in relation to the beginnings of conceptual art – pre-conceptual practices.
Later I have decided to include the work of a contemporary artist Vanessa Beecroft what has led to a slight shift in focus. What I found most interesting was to employ a comparison of Klein and Beecroft because of a certain similarities in their art practices. Manzoni, whose artistic position I can relate to much more, serves as the reference point I return to while re – thinking the other two artists.
The medium in which the particular works of the mentioned artists have been developed is the medium of performance, what was itself an indicator of many shifts that have occurred throughout the 20th century. Klein and Manzoni were using performance in order to separate themselves from the traditional mediums that prevailed in visual arts at the time. In Vanessa Beecroft’s case it is not the matter of separating from the traditional artistic practices. Rather, she references painting through aesthetization of performances that evoke classical paintings, but the products alone are highly aesthestizied performances as well as their documentation that scores high monetary value on the art market.
People (subjects?) in the role of objects
Reacting to the photographs of Pollock in the act of painting, artists like Yves Klein inaugurate new attention to the performative possibilities within visual arts. By doing that they are disrupting the stable system of values attained by hiding the artists’ body, and in this way enabling participation to only few. In his “Anthropometries“. Klein is governing naked models avoiding the physical contact, evoking the method of Jackson Pollock (who as well avoided touching the surface of the canvas while painting) known from Hans Namuth's photographs. Klein is a creator and the models are his tools – brushes that, according to his instructions, apply color onto their bodies and „paint“ by pressing their naked bodies on the papers on the floor and the walls of the exhibition space. By doing this, Klein indicates that art is a thought (conceptual) process and not a physical one [9]. Klein substituted Pollock’s tools with female bodies, plain enamel with patented „YKB“, silence of the studio with an string orchestra playing the “Monotone Symphony”, working clothes with a suit (he requests the same of the audience just like Vanessa Beecroft will today). Thereby he refers to Pollock, but at the same time he distinguishes himself from the 'rugged' appearance of the worker – artist and takes a pose of an aristocrat 'dandy'.
Although he is working at the time the myth of a genius artist is being deconstructed - marked with the Body art itself and other performative practices - he is staging or performing himself as the one who transcends his body, and only by using his mind he can govern the matter – other bodies. In so doing Klein reproduces the image of a genius that was constructed through history and reaching its peak in the high modernism that re – postulates the Cartesian dualism of body and mind according to which the whole and unified “self” is located within the human mind or spirit while the body is an empty vessel carrying the mind. It is only “natural” that Klein uses the bodies of women that are in majority of dualistic systems presented as the “material”, hence the inferior element of the binary opposition [10]. Using the medium of performance, Klein is executing – performing his own body, presented as mind creating an allegory of the Cartesian world order in the very moment the medium he himself is using is pointing to the particularities of subject in the works of previously excluded artists that by some of their bodily characteristics (sex, race...) were not fit to perform the role of an artist. Putting himself on the stage, he himself becomes one of the objects for the audience, gaining the position not dissimilar to that he prescribed to his tools, even though he has clearly designated the hierarchy by positioning himself as the mind – the one who is leading and giving orders. The “Anthropometries”, because of its direct positioning of women as nameless objects and Klein as 'the mind' caused numerous critical reactions and therefore gave rise to the questioning of social positions – positions in art considering sex and gender.
Vanessa Beecroft also positions herself as the author who in place of her 'objects' positions mostly female models. They stand as still as possible in front of the audience for hours while Beecroft herself doesn't physically participate in her performances. When she chooses female models who will participate, she elects according to the physical resemblance to herself [11], which puts her in the context of body art because she is positioning herself through others [12].
Forty years after Klein, with the experience of feminist art and the legitimization of the feminist discourse, Beecroft keeps an ambivalent position open to opposing interpretation. This is, I believe, in current western liberal world possible only because this artiss from the 1960's and 1970's, which have used their own bodies in their work and therefore positioned themselves as subjects and objects (the author and the representation) at the same time.
Even though I base my thesis on one of her performances in which she is deploying people of female gender, I have to stress the fact that she as well sets performances in which people of male gender are performing (military men who are holding their still position without a flaw). Only when taking these performances into consideration the exaggeration of gender stereotypes that is integral to her practice becomes obvious. Exaggeration of stereotypes, just as in the work of Yves Klein, can put these stereotypes into question and can be read as an ironic comment on the popular culture for instance. In her work she is dealing with popular media and fashion obsessively reproducing the unattainable ideals. The performances that come out of these preoccupations, especially performances that include a number of semi – naked and naked women instead of emanating pleasure they have a very aggressive impact. What could be seen as a pleasing image in the media, in real life induces discomfort for both male and female viewers. Beecroft is not positioning herself in the field of contemporary art as a genius but as media – pop star. She has undoubtedly attained this status, among other things; trough the high monetary value her works attain in the art market. She profits from this ambivalent position she has assumed. On one side she is creating art works – performances which exaggerate the stereotypes adopted from the media, but at same time she is working for the advertising industry of luxurious goods where she uses the same strategies as in her artistic work. These strategies, which in artistic work, because of the change of context, can be read as subversion, in advertising industry are indeed standard.
In the performance “Sculture vivente” (Living sculptures), the documentation I am using as one of the images I am reproducing, Piero Manzoni is signing live people and their body parts turning them into art works – sculptures. He is not signing only women, but historical selection has made the choice that signing of naked women would be documented and more accessible in the media and literature. Viewing Manzoni's body of work in opposition to Klein’s, it is visible that there is a tendency of putting oneself to ironic scrutiny as the artist genius. His 'objects' are not tools, they are 'works of art' and in the value system of the given time they were at least as valuable as the artist himself. Manzoni is putting to irony his own position as an artist and the possibility that was given to him to claim something an art piece (which is very close to Duchamp's position – exhibiting mundane objects as ready-mades and witnessing their inauguration as art) which is especially stressed in his work Merde d'artista (Artist’s shit) Manzoni seems as a figure of a ‘kynic’ [13] who questions everything including himself.
A particular comparison of these two artists considering their attitude towards material goods I found interesting as well. Yves Klein is selling in his work “Volumes de sensibilite picturale immaterielle” (Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility) his 'immaterial pictorial sensibility' in exchange for a gold leaf. The buyer gets the ownership certificate of this 'sensibility' but since it is something that 'can not be bought nor sold' he throws the gold leaf into the Seine and asks the buyer to burn the certificate. This way he affirms his work will stay in the spiritual realm. On the contrary, in his work “Merd d' artista” (Artsist's shit) Piero Manzoni, as in other similar works, sells his feces, his breath, or even people he is signing and therefore turning them into original artworks for an established monetary value which he then keeps afterwards. He is not positioning himself above mundane values of everyday life but he is putting it to irony without the aristocratic cynicism.
My thesis work is conceived as an approach to certain aspects of the works of these well-recognized artists who, as far as I know, were not used as basis of an analysis that would serve to question and compare works of the mentioned artists. Relationship to the other in one's own performances, even though mentioned in regard of these artists individually, has not motivated somebody to confront them on behalf of the mentioned stance. This is what I have tried to do through this text.
[1] In my work, comparing the works of Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni and Vanessa Beecroft, I have concentrated on works that do not exactly fit to this concept of body art.
[2] Amelia Jones: “Body Art / Performing the Subject” University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis / London 1998.
[3] According to Rene Decartes the subject or the 'I' is turning everybody else into objects of his gaze which has manifested in visual arts trough hiding of the artists body that granted him transcendence.
[4] According to Immanuel Kant: „The experience of beauty is based on disinterested judgment of forms of art work, not coming out of its content that is its ethical, political or patriotic idea. Form is what makes art being art. And on this field Kant has stressed the role of the creating subject.” Boris Kalin “Povijest filozofije” (History of Philosophy), Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 2003
[5] In 1950. Hans Namuth photographs, and later that year, records Pollock performing the act of painting on film.
[6] Amelia Jones: “Body Art / Performing the Subject”
[7] “The body artists of the late 1960s and early 1970s speak themselves and are spoken as their work; their actions open and even exacerbate the circuits of desire between the artistic subject (here as the work itself) and receptive subject that conditions and inflects the meanings determined for the work.“ Amelia Jones “Body Art / Performing the Subject”
[8] The artists I am referring to have evidently through their work or through the explanation of their work stated that they are referring to mentioned traditional mediums.
[9] “At my direction, the flesh itself applied the color to the surface, and with perfect exactness. I could continue to maintain a precise distance from my creation and still dominate its execution. In this way, I stayed clean. I no longer dirtied myself with colour, not even the tips of my fingers. The work finished itself there in front of me with the complete collaboration of the model. And I could salute its birth into the tangible world in a fitting manner, in evening dress.” Yves Klein from Amelia Jones “Body Art / Performing the Subject”
[10] “According to these views it is not peculiar that shape is compared to the traditional virtues of the male sex and the color with the seductiveness of the female sex. According to Charles Blanc: unification of line and color is necessary to create an image, just as unification of a man and a woman is inevitable to create mankind, but the line must keep its dominance over color as otherwise painting will be doomed because of color just as mankind perished because of Eve“ Rudolf Arnheim “Umetnost i vizualno opažanje” (Art and Visual Perception), Univerzitet umetnosti u Beogradu i Studentski kulturni centar, Beograd, 1998.
[11] “As I have suggested, narcissism – the exploration of and fixation on the self – inexorably leads to an exploration of and implication in the other: the self turns itself inside out, as it were, projecting its internal structures of identification and desire outward. Thus, narcissism interconnects the internal and external self as well as the self as other. (...) This is what Lacan, in a formulation that derives its theoretical force from
Linguistics and Freudian psychoanalysis but also from phenomenology, describes as the phenomenology of the transference by which the self is located in the other.“ Amelia Jones “Body Art Performing the Self”
[12] In a similar way Amelia Jones interprets the photographic document, the video recording, the body’s imprint in some material and bodily excerpts (as in case of Piero Manzoni) as Body art practices.
[13] “Greek philosophy of imprudence – kynicism: Diogenes has as a reaction to Platonic idealism made himself a medium of his teachings. His weapon is not as much analysis as it is ridicule (…) But when the ones in power start to think kynically – when they know the truth about them and 'proceed' regardless of what they know than they are completely fulfilling the modern definition of cynicism.” Peter Sloterdijk “Kritika ciničnog uma” (Critique of Cynical Reason), Globus nakladni zavod, Zagreb, 1992.