What is performance art?

In the modern art landscape, performance art an increasingly central role, whether at large international art biennials or in intimate gallery spaces, on small stages, or in public spaces.

Joseph Beuys staged or performed a lot of performance art

For Cindy Sherman, it was already a performance when she dressed up, put on makeup and posed “Bus Riders” (1976) and “Untitled Film Stills”

Marina Abramović sustains a performance for 721 hours and demands (presumably for this reason) that performance art , as an intellectual work, must be protected beyond the end of the performance…

Many artists who are not explicitly classified as performance artists also repeatedly make headlines with performance actions: Bruce Nauman strutted through a narrow plywood corridor in his “Walk with Contrapposto” “Performance Corridor” in 1969 .

Natias Peter Günther Rudolpho Neutert not only writes poems and essays, but also enjoys performing as a one-man theater…

All art, all performance, with or without “superfluous props”, with or without discernible meaning, performance art very much relies on an increased performance of the imagination.

What exactly is Performance Art? A simple explanation

Performance art has evolved into one of the most dynamic forms of contemporary art. This art form is known for its ability to dissolve the traditional boundaries between artist and audience and is often at the center of intense discussions.

The meaning of this medium is difficult to define precisely, as it encompasses a wide variety of expressions and intentions. However, recent news and events offer valuable insights for developing a deeper understanding of this art form.

Performance art, often referred to as "action art" , is an art form in which the artist's performance or action itself constitutes the artwork. Unlike more traditional art forms such as painting or sculpture, where the artwork is a physical object, performance art is ephemeral and transient.

When it comes to the theory of art, i.e., what performance art actually is and how it is defined by art historians, the definition becomes more granular and multifaceted:

Performance Art: An Official Definition

Art historians have been studying performance art for many years (for a good 50 years, that's how long the development has been going on), and they have been successfully define performance art :

A performance is defined as a situation-based, action-oriented, and ephemeral artistic presentation by a performer or performance group.

The art form questions the separability of artist and work as well as the commodity form of traditional artworks (source: Wikipedia); in art historical literature, of course, there are many other, more complicated and simpler definitions, but here the focus was on general accessibility).

So, what does the definition tell us, piece by piece:

1. Artistic performance

What constitutes an artistic performance is not defined more precisely; therefore, it depends on who is entitled to judge whether it is an artistic performance. In a free, democratic society with fundamental rights, whose guiding principle is the autonomy of the individual, the decision naturally rests with the performing artist.

If someone stands up and announces that they are about to perform an artistic piece, an artistic piece will follow.

Even more self-evident points regarding the resulting “Is this art or can it be thrown away?” debate (which are not harmed by being almost constantly reminded of by the general public):

• In a free country, the person who creates the art determines what constitutes art.
• In a free country, what constitutes a car is determined by the person who produces the car.
• In a free country, the person who makes the chocolate determines what it is.

In a free society, people with diverse tastes don't necessarily like everything that's produced as chocolate. While quite a few people still enjoy chocolate with chili, hardly anyone likes chocolate with horseradish anymore; it's still chocolate, after all.

Since a free society is home to people with varying levels of risk tolerance and environmental responsibility, not everyone necessarily considers huge, heavy, polluting vehicles with a top speed of 230 km/h suitable city cars. While the high seating position might give a 1.70-meter-tall person a better view of the road, the drivers of such stinking, primal-intention vehicles contribute to particulate matter pollution and traffic congestion in our cities in a rather idiotic way; it's still a car, after all.

Since people with different opinions live in a free society, not everyone will necessarily like every work of art. While planting 7,000 oak trees might improve the air quality, incorporating Nazi symbols into a performance could easily lead the wrong people to think the wrong things; it's still art, though.

How far to?

If a chocolatier puts horseradish in chocolate, it demonstrates his bad taste, but it doesn't hurt anyone (only heartache at how such a wonderful product could be so ruined). If he puts Botox in chocolate to boost his career with this anti-wrinkle chocolate, it demonstrates even worse taste and perverse stupidity on the part of the chocolatier, and the potent poison botulinum toxin (which is what Botox is) can cause real pain, even death.

When a car manufacturer puts environmentally toxic traffic obstacles on the road, city dwellers might die a little sooner; no one drops dead on the spot simply because the car drives by. However, in the hands of the not-so-hopeful offspring of bank director Walkpaul, raised on "The Fast and the Furious" films, the suboptimal urban polluter becomes a deadly projectile, causing the immediate death of innocent bystanders.

If a performance features swastikas and the Hitler salute, it certainly has the potential to be a serious insult, to hurt someone. If an artist sprays a beautiful graffiti on the turrets between the picket fences, he is indeed hurting someone, even if only the soul and property of citizens who cannot live without an idyllic Disney Alpine landscape behind picket fences with turrets – but even in a free country, one has a right to Disney Alpine landscapes and unharmed souls.

Whether it's chocolate, cars, or art – the free exercise or production of any artistic pursuit can obviously come into conflict with other positions and values ​​important to our society. When it comes to minor conflicts, these are resolved through media coverage (“Today in XY magazine: The most disgusting chocolates in the world”) or in civil courts (landowner sues artist because newly planted trees block his view).

The truly serious conflicts are generally regulated by law in such a way that the public prosecutor's office initiates investigations. The unpromising youngster goes to prison if he runs over innocent people; the aspiring graffiti artist is at least ordered to pay for the professional removal of the graffiti from the turrets; the public prosecutor's office investigated the Nazi symbols in the performance and then dropped the investigation because the action in this case was protected by artistic freedom – it has long been and sufficiently known that the artist involved, Jonathan Meese, is an opponent of all ideologies and certainly not a Nazi.

But one thing remains: Regardless of whether the result is media criticism, civil court proceedings or prison – chocolate, cars and art remain chocolate, cars and art in a free country because those involved have defined it that way.

If someone else defines it differently than the performer, it is no longer a free country, but a dictatorship; and since we certainly never want to live in such a place again, performance artists should be allowed to determine when a performance is performance art.

2. A performer or a performance group

At first glance, it's quite logical. Someone has to do it, and the person/people who do it is the performer or the performance group.

However, things can quickly become more complicated: If the performer's poodle also performs, from a purely epistemological point of view, it could be considered a performance by the performer using the poodle, or a performance by the poodle. The latter only applies if the person making the assessment believes that animals have their own personalities and are capable of artistic expression.

The question of the individual personality of animals, and the associated rights of animals, from the right to species-appropriate husbandry with the right to a pain- and suffering-free death to the fundamental right to life or the granting of their own consciousness, the ability to think independently, is currently being hotly debated.

The more research is conducted, and the closer the civilization/living environment of the researcher has come to the realization that man is not the center of the world (although Western civilization is certainly not among the most advanced in this respect), the more this question will be decided in favor of animals.

However, the fundamental uncertainty remains that the person making the judgment is a human. And when an animal intentionally delivers an artistic performance is something no researcher can definitively determine, even though the keepers are certain that chimpanzee Congo and elephant Boon Mee ( www.n-tv.de/wissen/Wenn-Tiere-malen-article5395041.html ) had something in mind when they painted.

It's not all so easy to define, especially since we're still a long way from demonstrations for the artistic freedom of poodles – which doesn't really mean much at the moment, because in some civilized societies, a powerful shift to the right is emerging, particularly in the wake of sweeping migration movements, and experience shows that more power for the corresponding parties tends to push demonstrations for any kind of freedom further into the future…

Furthermore: Are Chiara Schimmerlos, Kevin Knödelsang, Pauline Presswurst and Ruben Rauswurf also performance artists, and are their meager to annoying performances on a television casting show art?

A. Yes, of course, we've already established that anyone who says they make art is an artist. And anyway, "Every human being is an artist," as none other than the performance artist Joseph Beuys said. Furthermore, it's precisely these narcissistic apprentices, used as mere program-filling caricatures, who deserve to be able to console themselves after their elimination with the fact that they at least created five minutes of art in front of an audience (haven't they already had their famous fifteen minutes of fame? No, not really, that won't happen with performances like these).

B. No. The English word “perform” also means “to undertake” (a surgical procedure), “to exercise/perform” (a function), and other completely non-artistic activities; one could certainly ask some self-proclaimed “performers” whether they actually intended to perform a surgical procedure on the audience’s hearing or were aware of their function as intermission clowns.

Beuys didn't just "Every human being is an artist ," but this sentence, which is so often quoted out of context, reads in full:

Every person is an artist. I'm not saying anything about quality. I'm only saying something about the fundamental potential that exists in every person […] I define creativity as artistic expression, and that is my concept of art.”

( Artist portrait – Joseph Beuys ) – he wanted to encourage all artists to assess the problems of a modern society and to participate in solving them, and by no means to encourage all people to make bad art.

Andy Warhol's statement about "15 minutes of fame" is also commonly misquoted: With the saying " In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes," Warhol did not intend to call for "fame for everyone who claims it."

On the contrary, he wanted to acknowledge the power of the media, which, even in his time (the quote is from 1968), decided, despite often rather dubious competence, to whom fame should be attributed, instead of gallery owners and curators, art historians and the artistic community itself.

This was also the reason why Warhol called his Factory groupies (often self-appointed employees in his “art factory”) “superstars” – in the future, a mere 15 minutes would be the time left for fame because the media simply produced too many “stars”.

Simply choose one, otherwise, as usual, it's not quite that simple:

Whether a performance absolutely has to be performed by (its) performer is one of the major points of contention in performance art.

Since performance artist Marina Abramović re-enacted legendary performances by earlier performance artists and, as a result of these re-enactments, asserted that a performance has artistic value independent of its performer, the temporal and personal constraints of a work of art in performance art have been called into question; the discussion is not yet settled.

3. Situation-specific

Definition of situation?

According to www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Situation, the situation encompasses the conditions/circumstances in which someone is currently located, i.e., the current situation of a person; or the conditions/circumstances that characterize a general state, i.e., the general situation.

Huh? Does an artist act situationally in a performance if they act in relation to the situation they are in, or in relation to the situation the world is in?

How else can he act? Even if the artist announces that he will act detached from himself and far from this world – he is still in his body and in this world, the fakir as well as the trance artist.

In other words, a performance is always situation-related if it takes place in this world; and the longer definition in de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation , according to which a situation denotes a position or location, the dependence on circumstances or conditions, but also the nature and at the same time the effectiveness of a psychologically (purely mentally) defined region or area, doesn't seem to change that at first glance.

This definition, of course, changes everything, because the performance no longer has to relate to the real situation in which the artist and the world find themselves, but rather to the situation the artist imagines. However, this doesn't change much for the art viewer; the question, "What was the artist thinking?" is as old as art itself.

It is then difficult to answer the question of how and whether situational phobia, i.e., a pathological fear in certain situations, can affect the presence of the defining characteristics of a performance (is it still a performance if the artist runs away in between – or even before the start – because a few faces in the audience annoy/bore him, etc.).

4. Action-oriented

Indeed: Is it even a performance if the artist does not act in a situation, but sits silently like Marina Abramović in her performance “512 Hours” (2014, Serpentine Galleries, London)?

Probably so, logically this question already corresponds to the point about "artistic performance." This can admittedly also occur through inactivity; here, a similar concept of action applies as in criminal law, whereby one can be liable to prosecution (or engage in artistic activity) through action, but under certain conditions also through omission.

It is precisely these conditions that bring action into play, in criminal law sometimes in the “reverse form” of a duty to act, as in the case of “failure to render assistance”, or in the form of a preemptive action, for example, when someone deliberately gets drunk in order to summon the courage to engage in foul-mouthed provocation, arson, assault, or stabbing (insult, arson, bodily harm, manslaughter, murder).

In art, it's not much different; Marina Abramović had her 512 hours of sitting still take place after certain preparations in a certain environment. If she had lain unconscious for 512 hours or been tickled to reflexively giggle, hardly anyone would have classified that as art; instead, the question would rather arise as to the criminal liability of those who failed to call an ambulance or prevent the tickler from tickling her.

5. Ephemeral (transient)

Let's be clear once again: Even if 30-hour performances like the live performance "the long now" and 168-hour performances like "Approximations" no longer surprise anyone, and even if 8760-hour performances like "Das Leben im Schaukasten" (Life in the Showcase) took place a few decades ago – the thing (the performance) eventually comes to an end, even if an artist redefines their life as a long-term performance; then the thing simply ends when the artist ends. But long is in; many performance artists don't do anything less than hundreds of hours; and the performance also becomes beautifully long when you simply declare the entire exhibition a long-term performance, as DADO does.

• “the long now” : March 28 to March 29, 2016, 6:00 PM to midnight, Berlin Kraftwerk
• “Approximations” : October 29 to November 1, 2015, House of Hungarian Culture Berlin
• “Life in a Showcase” : Manon, 1975/76, Galerie Pablo Stähli, Zurich
• DADO : 17.10. – 27.10.2013, Kunstraum Teiggi Kriens, Switzerland

On the other hand, all these performances already shatter the definition if ephemeral is considered on an equal footing with “transient”: The collectible ephemera (from the Greek) becomes a collectible precisely because it is intended for only a single and very short use; the mayfly from the genus Ephemera because it lives for only one day (and the Norwegian all-female pop band Ephemera probably gave itself this name in exaggerated pessimism; it certainly existed from 1996 to 2004, according to their website “Ephemera is here to stay” ).

Furthermore: If a performance artist is allowed to re-enact the performances of other artists, or actually does so (even the copyright holder can never prevent this in all parts of the world, but can at most demand compensation afterwards), the end of a performance becomes a mere interruption and the performance transforms from an ephemeral to an “Aeternicon” , an eternal art.

This very discussion was initiated by Marina Abramović, already mentioned in section 2, when she “Seven Easy Pieces” , featuring re-enactments of long-past performances. She also plans to create a “living archive” of historical performances through re-enactments at her newly founded “Marina Abramović Institute” (MAI), alongside the development of new performance art.

6. This art form questions the separability of artist and work

See above, points 2 and 5; today, this is no longer necessarily denied

However, if the "ironclad rule" that a performance is tied to the person of the performer(s) and cannot be repeated is abandoned, then performances with repeatability and re-performance could "sink" into a state of arbitrariness. This is because it would then no longer be essential that the re-performance be carried out by a performance artist.

Simone Fortis's "Huddle" from 1961, the groundbreaking dance for the development of performance art, and potentially a death-defying dance for the participants of this cuddle, instead of boring office gymnastics? Why not? A few New Yorkers already rehearsed it on the High Line in 2012; you can see what it looked like here:

7. This art form questions the commodity form of traditional artworks

The question of “questioning” is long gone and has now been decided: art no longer needs to manifest itself in an object, since the first performers began to perform in the 1960s and the first conceptual artists declared the pure concept to be art at around the same time.

Actually, even much earlier, when the first Dadaists performed their first sound poems in very special costumes in 1916, the disguises devised for the performances and the onomatopoeic delights concocted were certainly not suitable as merchandise, even if someone had come up with such an idea.

This is what it looked like: The legs were encased in a column-like structure of glossy blue cardboard, which reached slenderly to the hips, making the wearer resemble an obelisk. Over this was a huge cloak collar, lined with scarlet on the inside and covered in gold on the outside, fastened at the neck in such a way that it could be moved like wings by raising and lowering the elbows. A tall, cylindrical shaman's hat with white and blue stripes completed the ensemble.

And this is roughly what it sounded like:

jolifanto bambla o falli bambla
grossiga m'pfa habla horem
egiga goramen
higo bloiko russula huju
hollaka hollala
anlogo bung
blago bung
blago bung
bosso fataka
ü üü ü
schampa wulla wussa olobo
hej tatta gorem
eschige Zunbada
wulubu ssubudu uluw ssubudu
tumba ba- umf
kusagauma
ba – umf

(Caravan, by Hugo Ball 1917, one of the few recorded sound poems)

When is washing dishes performance art and when is it just washing dishes?

If one considers the characteristics of the most common definition of performance art just discussed individually, washing dishes has “a good chance of being a work of art”.

Washing dishes is situational: The definition doesn't require that the person facing a huge pile of dirty dishes welcomes the circumstances they are currently in. This person acts according to the situation, hopefully, otherwise the dishes will start to stink (which could still become a performance, but only with some fanfare, not by simply letting them stink).

Washing up is an activity, hopefully again; the dishes don't clean themselves and the person still has a lot to do afterwards.

Washing up is transient because the clean dishes are no longer the dirty dishes. And washing up is ephemeral because, no matter how hard you try, nobody will manage to pile the exact same dirty dishes into the exact same huge pile around the sink.

Washing up regularly questions the separability of artist and work; always from the perspective of the person who has just been chosen to do the washing up and doesn't feel like doing it.

And washing up questions the commodity form, because, to his regret, this person has never managed to resell the washing up.

However, washing up does not yet call into question the commodity form of a traditional work of art; it only becomes one when the last two characteristics of the definition are fulfilled: washing up as an artistic performance by a performer or a performance group.

However, since, as explained above, performers or performance groups themselves decide what and what they perform, it is one of the easier tasks in the world to approach washing dishes as a performance artist and turn washing dishes into an artistic performance…

Scientifically useless, only good for independent thinking.

If you now believe that you have mastered performance art with the characteristics of the most common definition and happily set about transforming every everyday activity into art – life might be more fun, but you won't necessarily become a recognized artist as a result.

The entire definition of performance art above neglects to mention that an art performance always depends on the viewer agreeing with and following that particular definition of art. You might already be lacking in such viewership when washing dishes. Although, the performance would probably still have to be art even if no one came to watch; you should, in principle, be free to celebrate every washing-up as performance art from now on.

If there are onlookers present, it might happen that they don't admire your artistic practice, but are instead, without any thought of art, happy that you've done the dishes again… This is a situational dissonance: you are “making art”, and the rest of the crew is drinking wine and “relaxing” and is glad to have found the same sucker to do the dishes again.

You might experience no less dissonance if you discuss the definition of performance art with art historians. For example, if an art historian writes: “Performance art is always present when an artist acts in front of an audience and claims that these actions are art, regardless of how often the performance is repeated,” you can agree or take a contrary or different view (which the art historian is unlikely to take seriously if it comes from a non-art historian).

He can't, he already has enough to do with other art historians: experts in conceptual art speak up and object that this definition clearly yields conceptual art artworks, theatre scholars see a theatre play defined, which they are also right about, if in performance art an artistic event may never be repeated in the same way (whereas the proponents of re-performanceability and performance for eternity have a lot to say).

The definition of performance art can clash with the definition of body art, happenings, and Fluxus; there are overlaps with action art and neo-Dadaism ; however, these urgently want to differentiate themselves, even if some of their live art performances , action art spectacles , interventions , or maneuvers meet a narrow definition of performance art.

The art historian therefore does not simply write “Performance art exists when…”, but devotes several hundred pages to defining performance art, e.g. in the works:

Marvin Carlson: Performance: A Critical Introduction

Erika Fischer-Lichte: Aesthetics of the Performative. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-518-12373-4, 300 pages

There are many definitions of performance art – but no definitive one ( www.zeit.de/2012/11/Ausstellung-ZKM-Karlsruhe/seite-2 ); in this sense, have fun with your next – active or passive – performance.

The step-by-step examination of one of the definitions of performance art, as demonstrated above, could give you entirely different suggestions: You are always free to think for yourself, to break down any scientific definition into its individual parts and question it.

In art and in other areas of life, where someone tries to convince you that you have to do something a certain way because the currently accepted scientific definition leaves no other possibilities open…

And if you were just making fun of the concrete example of washing up, because nowadays everyone owns a dishwasher, perhaps you could generally question your attitude towards the consumer world.

Because there is actually no reason to fill up the often already limited living space with a large appliance that uses aggressive chemicals (have you ever smelled your dishwasher tablets?) and considerable energy (especially for intensive wash cycles to really clean the stinking, growing collection of dishes) to perform everyday tasks that could be done faster without the appliance (the dishwasher has to be loaded) – while normal washing up in a smaller household can be done by hand with water and mild detergents without any special or other problems (95% is done by soaking).

If you're not currently in the mood for the topic of tableware: Many articles in the Kunstplaza magazine encourage you to think for yourself and/or to become creative yourself.

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