Our present cultural status seems to be marked by a sense of dismay, especially in gender roles but also in many other areas. Media information streams into our public and private spaces, saturating our collective consciousness with stories of old and new catastrophes. Some seem surf through the myriad of problems while others fixate on one of these calamities. We will be doing just that. These works will challenge and enhance the stereotypes associated with gender roles and more specifically the roles of gender in performances. What makes a performance a “gender performance?” this is a question for you to answer while watching and exploring these videos.
These artist are using their bodies in extreme and seemingly “different” ways to investigate gender while using the element of endurance. Endurance is used in these videos by the artists and how they pushed themselves beyond things that others may see and weird or unusual. As stated by William Faulkner …man will not merely endure. He will prevail… because he has a soul, a spirit capable of sacrifice and endurance.” These artist use there bodies as prop to their political, social or personal endeavors.
One thing we must take into consideration is the fact that the bodies of the artists are being used as props. In Serra’s performance he could be viewed as showing male strength or dominance with the depiction of his hand (the prop) grabbing these pieces of lead out of mid air. In another performance Pipilotti Rist is shown rubbing her face, quite violently against a clear panel. She is wearing extensive amounts of make-up, which is being worn off of her lips, cheeks and eyes. Her face is the entity that is holding this “icon” of the media and she is smearing it and rubbing it off in such a way that is rebelling against the social/popular norms.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Ulrike Rosenbach - Sorry Mister
http://catalogue.montevideo.nl/art_play.php?id=417
"In “Sorry Mister” 1974, Rosenbach is in half profile, and all that is visible are Ulrike Rosenbach’s thighs. Accompanied by Brenda Lee’s pop song of the same title "Sorry, Mister", the artist is beating the time on her right thigh with her hand. As Lee is singing of refused love and of a man leaving, the artist, unmoved, keeps on striking the same spot on her leg until there is first a red mark and then a dark bruise. This beating of the artist’s body also is fitting into the endurance theme of pain and how they are pushing through the pain to portray a larger issue. The rhythm of the song is reinforced, painfully, by the loud smacking of her hand on her bare skin. By this controlled yet aggressive rhythmic beating, Rosenbach contrasts the gentle and sentimental sound of the singer’s voice.
The combination of psychological and physical injury allows both the suggestion of emotional pain that it is trying to illustrate, and the idea that the self-aggression expressed in the act of beating has found an outlet in parallel with Brenda Lee’s self-accusation. Her "I am sorry, so sorry" requires a dramatic component and reveals at the same time how the separation is played down in pop music which also covers up and softens the normal feelings of anger, rage, or mutual actual hurt through its blues-type calmness.
As this video goes on the meaning becomes clear. A society bred in a consumer world and in consumer goods. The body of the woman is condensed exclusively in to this single detail of the thighs which can be perceived as erotic. This frontal view can frustrate the expectation of the viewer in a way that the camera doesn’t act like an extension of the viewers eye that would freely wander all over the body." (Lilian Haberer)
Pipilotti Rist - Nice to be me
Elizabeth Charlotte Rist better known as (Pipilotti Rist) studied at “The School of Design” in Basel. Her works generally deal with issues related to gender, sexuality, and the human body. In “Nice to be me, Flatten’. She is dealing with ideal that can be warped by the media and to and extent she is toying with endurance in how she is pressing her face, quite hardly against this panel and stretching her skin and lips. This endurance she is engaged in could portray the youth that are being affected by this media purge, of being beautiful and how this must be obtained by the use of make-up and being beautiful, and their fight with these popular myths.
In this video of Pipilotti Rist, she is engaging the viewer in a playful and provocative manner. She is rubbing her face, which is covered in make-up against this piece of glass that we can see through. She is distorting her face and sculpting different forms with each varying movement. As she moves her face seemingly a layer of make-up is coming off and she is reveling her “true” self.
The affect of today’s media can be quite powerful on women in today’s society. Pipilotti is resisting that push by the media in a way that is abstract and differing from other art forms. Some outsiders try to argue, and bring up the never ending battle of “what is art?” or just stating that this is not art. This is in Rist’s favor because with each argument being made she is extending her horizons and ideas.
Hannah Wilke - Gestures
Hannah Wilke’s piece “Gestures,” which was made in 1974, is a "series of performance-based works in which she faces the camera in an extreme close up and performs repetitive physical actions" (eai) that take up the duration of a thirty minute period. The length of this video is much longer than the other and due to this fact the now common theme of endurance is in play again. With the artist having to poke and prod her face for a half an hour the element is with out question present but with out the pain involved the endurance could be seen as just performing for the incredible length of the video.
This piece and Bruce Nauman’s are quite similar on the surface, because she is "kneading and pulling her skin as if it were a sculptural material. Often her “gestures” of rubbing her hands over her face, smiling so hard that she appears to be in pain, and sticking out her tongue can take on a loaded meaning when seen in the context of gender performance." (eai, electronic arts intermix)
This is one of the main separators of Nauman’s piece and Wilke’s. The fact that she is a woman therefore makes it a “gender performance.” You may ask why is it not a “gender performance” when a man performs? This question goes back to the beginning when the artists were all male and women were the subject matter not able to make art. So with our society not keen on the fact that when anyone performs they are performing their gender we will still see works by women labeled as “gender performances.”
Bruce Nauman - Pinch Neck
This video “Pinch Neck” 1968, by Bruce Nauman, "features close-cropped images of Bruce Nauman's face framed by bridge of his nose to his Adam's apple by the width of his face. Within this frame Nauman, using his fingers, pinches his lips; pulls his lower lip; pinches his cheeks, pulls his neck; and pulls his lips" (http://www.mellart.com). This framing is something that can make the viewer discouraged over the two minutes and will make them want to see the whole body and not a cropped form. This however is playing into the meaning of the video.
"Nauman is attempting to maintain a kind of abstraction while playing in certain kinds of tangible and commonplace subject matter, such as the referents of the statistics found so much in conceptualism" (http://www.mellart.com). Nauman could be seen as using his body as a prop. In the Willoughby Sharp article “Body Works,” it is stated that “The body as a prop is related to the use of the body as a backdrop in that the body is presented in relation to other physical objects. But here the body exists in an identifiable field, as one particular among other particulars.” Nauman is using his face as the prop and is using his hands as the other “particulars” in a way to create and stretch his body in to the afore mentioned abstract forms. This stretching, pulling and wrenching of the skin could be viewed as possibly painful and curious. The Element of endurance is once again up for debate.
Richard Serra - Hand Catching Lead
Richard Serra - "Hand catching lead"
Uploaded by arginati22. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.
The Film of Richard Serra, “Hand Catching Lead,” which was filmed in "1968 and first presented in 1969 shows a hand in the center of the field of view and uniformly, leaves of lead fall into the frame, while the artist’s hand is out stretched and trying to catch the falling pieces. As the first pieces are starting to fall the initial movement of the video is revealed. The transverse hand of the artist gives the viewer a point of emphasis" (http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ENS-mouvement_images/ENS-mouvement-images.htm). The nature of Serra’s hand is almost robotic in its functioning and juxtaposed with that is the inability to catch the falling pieces of lead. When he does catch the lead you can see the mark the lead makes each time and his hand becomes a canvas to the successes and failures in catching the lead. His hand as the video goes on is portrayed more and more as a “manly” hand with the appearance of calluses and dirty. This stereotype/perception is formed by the media and past/historical view of what a man’s hand would and should look like and the same for a woman’s. As the three minutes of video passes you can see the artists had starting to twitch and struggle to keep catching these descending pieces of lead.
Repetition is a reverberating constant throughout the piece. In videos usually a sidekick to extensive repetition is endurance. Endurance in a main focus in this piece, especially as time continues to go by. You can see the struggle in the artists had and how he is visibly pushing himself beyond the point of just catching a few pieces of lead and calling it. As Stated in Oishi’s “Interview with Patty Chang,” “Endurance is just something that lasts a little too long. The Line between comfort and discomfort is slight, and the point is to balance right on it.”
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