What (in heaven's name) is Performance Art?
What (in heaven's name) is Performance Art?
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, November 15, 1986
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Ancient cultural sources are deeply rooted in performance-related ceremonies and rituals
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ROBERT Rauschenberg's memorable performance piece "Pelican," staged for a live audience in 1963, is still everyone's favorite case in point. Originally conceived as an extension of that artist's work as a painter, it now holds a place of prominence in the historical annals of the dance and dramatic arts. A painter had thus created historically-significant dance and theater, while nevertheless contending that he had set out to create a mobile painting. That Rauschenberg himself played the lead role in the live presentation, only served to confuse things even further. Neither painter, actor, nor dancer in the conventional sense, Rauschenberg had become the Performance Artist.
Art Performances have always seemed to thrive in the absence of definition. For instance, non-music has always existed in principle, but only as a musical nonentity. The renowned avant-garde composer John Cage has taken total silence and has made it into historic music. The theoretical implications of "silent music" are themselves staggering, but Cage's own live performance of his silent score is exceedingly more outrageous. Imagine an audience that sits in a concert hall to hear nothing. In John Cage's musical vacuum, it is the situation, and not the structure of notes and cadences, that is performed outright.
It seems quite obvious that there is, as yet, no strict criteria for Art Performances in general - which is probably their greatest attraction to cultural adventurists of different persuasions. Structure, form, duration, are all defined by each work on a case-to-case basis. Well-known conceptual artist James Lee Byars had one celebrated work for which the audience was made to sit in wait for an intolerable period of time. Two hooded figures then made their momentary appearance from opposite directions, meeting briefly at centerstage to exchange secret messages in folded sheets of paper. They disappeared just as quickly as they came, leaving the audience in a kind-of suspended animation both infinitely frustrating and sublime.
The quickie and the marathon being two sides of the same coin, the notorious American artist Vito Acconci is said to have performances of interminable length, literally living in the gallery for the duration of each work. For his 1974 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Acconci lay naked for the viewers' close scrutiny, a performance he occasionally punctuated with audible groans and other forms of suggestive behavior. Acconci has likewise been known to engage his audience in violent situations, sometimes attacking them with clubs and lead pipes. (This very same artist has also been rumored to have sank his teeth into the late Leonidas Benesa - dean of Philippine art criticism - during the course of a performance that Benesa had chanced to attend on one of his journeys abroad.)
Many Art Performances continue to emanate directly from painterly concerns, albeit of a decidedly unconventional nature. Gustav Metzger's "acid-on-nylon" paintings fall squarely within the realm of performance, with the artist brushing on generous amounts of hydrochloric acid instead of paint, a method which rapidly causes the surface of his canvass to disintegrate. The whole process takes only minutes before the "painting" has completely destroyed itself, and can only be observed and appreciated by a live audience during its fleeting lifespan.
Still others see Performance Art within a theatrical context altogether, arousing the ire of many a stage veteran. The noted Filipino artist David Cortez Medalla, for example, displays an almost operatic sense of blocking and delivery techniques, approaching freeform dance and drama with synchronized musical scoring. Medalla has often been bandied by the local press as the most gifted artist of his time, and while this is certainly a point to ponder, his recent work might seem a bit archaic when compared to our new wave of homegrown performers like Ronnie Lazaro, Alan Rivera, Ed Manalo, Ige Ramos, Joey Macalino and Dindo Angeles.
For in fact, there is every reason to believe that the Filipino may yet be the most attuned to the infinite possibilities still open to Performance Art. It has become an increasingly popular viewpoint that our most ancient cultural sources are deeply rooted in performance-related ceremonies and rituals. If this is indeed so, then nothing could be more indigenous to the Filipino spirit than Performance Art. Lacking height and heft, the Filipino vainly attempts to excel in basketball. Perhaps similarly lacking a tradition in painting and the graphic arts, he may yet excel in performance.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “What (in heaven’s name) is Performance Art?” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, November 15, 1986
