Naming
the Rose as Rose:
On defining
Performance as art
Kankhowa’s Make Easy Guide Book: Learn
Performance Art in Just two Days
Majority of the high school and college students take help of some
cheap guide books to appear the examinations. They are cheap in all terms: in
market price, in availability at the second hand book stores, near Photostat
shops and also in the approach on what they are prepared. One can find similar
guide books for household recipes, to learn a new language in just ten days,
herbal medicinal treatments to become a family doctor at most ease and even to
have sex. Thousands of types are there like, 10 techniques to have sex, make
your sexual life healthy and enjoyable, physical benefits of having sex, lessen
your stress by having sex and so on. Make easy learner’s guidebooks are
available in all segments, for gardening, for cookery, for childcare, for
music, for yoga, for car driving, for pets, and yes, for a change of the
society also. In the days of our bachelors in literature, we consulted notes
from a much commercially popular writer named Ramji Lal, which were almost prohibited
in the classrooms. Most of the students took his notes but never uttered the
writer’s name. In Art History or History of Art, a book played similar role, by
Edith Tomory, what we called “laal book” as the cover was in ‘laal’ i.e.-red. A
similar book, which is cheap, which is guidebook for students and learners,
which is more direct and explained in the most easiest manner was in my mind
for the new comers in Performance Art.
 |
| Daumiere's Spectators |
The need can be realized easily as we all face almost similar
situations whenever we attend a performance art festival, workshop or public
art event where many young artists and practitioners as well as a large number
of diverged spectators assimilate. For many ‘it is boring’. Many speak out, ‘we
understood nothing’. ‘We got no clue what was it all about’, this is also a
common claim that we hear most frequently.
Despite of Performance, as a whole, being the oldest evidential
form(s), despite of many practical sprouting in last several decades, performance
as art or precisely Performance Art so to coin is still a newer
form. Perhaps among all the practices Performance Art is the only form of art
that is obligated to define itself every time in a new way.
Speaking again,
performance art is an area where the definition alters itself according to the
circumstance: the time and space demands a new definition. Among all other
disciplines performance as art is a unique one since it has to define itself at
every step, and each time the confrontation is novel and fresh. Somehow it
pretends with a symptom of forgetfulness towards history. Standing in front of
a painting hung upon a gallery wall a spectator keeps in mind that it has a
long history behind. But in case of a performance by an artist the same
spectator forgets the same might have a history, even much longer than that of
a painting. He or she forgets that an action under certain circumstance
signifies something. Exactly here tracing back of events in history becomes
important.
Where the Bottle Stops Spinning
On this very ground we are forced to re-assume that the primitive cave
paintings from which the visual history of artistic journey tends to begin were
not mere paintings as we know today by that term, but some remains of
performative events; may be some rituals. Richard Schechner also had to mention
the Paleolithic ‘art’ at the outset of his series on Performance Theory[1].
Tracing back is an essential task of a historian. It is same for a
research scholar, archivist or even for a sincere onlooker. Holding the
strongest history in all senses, ‘Performance Art’ still feels like an orphan:
as if it is very difficult to trace back in memory. In parts if it has some
certain definitions in formal aspects or in conceptual propositions but further
difficulties lie in conceptualizing it
as an independent discipline. In every phase of the performance art it
is looked as a new intervention in the history, where as it might not. It is
interesting when Lauri Anderson states her feelings in this regard: "As a
young artist in the '70s New York downtown scene, I was pretty sure that we
were doing everything for the first time, that we were inventing a new art
form. It even had a clumsy new-sounding name "Performance Art", and
critics and audiences struggled to define this "new" hybrid that
combined so many media and broke so many rules about what art was supposed to
be. So when RoseLee Goldberg's book Performance:
Live Art 1909 to the Present was first published in 1979, I was completely
amazed to find that what we were doing had a rich and complex history."[2]
Many people tried to trace back the history of performance art
differently. Joseph Jarman[3] says,"We were doing
performance art as far back as 1965, just not calling it that.” Likewise Jerry
Saltz[4] emphasizes the early 90s:
“… 'Untitled' is a time machine that can transport you to 1992, an edgy moment
when the art world was crumbling, money was scarce, and artists like Tiravanija
were in the nascent stages of combining Happenings, performance art, John Cage,
Joseph Beuys, and the do-it-yourself ethos of punk. Meanwhile, a new art world
was coming into being.”
Jerry Saltz
So when Performance Art was started in India? There might not be any
definitive answer. There could be a satisfaction if we find out exactly when
and who used the term 'Performance Art’ for the first time, but being a term
borrowed from western world it also remained obscure. Thus this becomes a spin
the bottle game, spin the bottle and point out the evidence where the bottle
stops spinning.
Then there comes another inevitable term that is
"Performativity" which would make the situation even blurred. There
might me many situations and circumstances that were performative, if not
performance. Sometimes a performance is a Performance Art because it is named
so, and it is named so because it involves the subject of an individual
artist or for it is situated in certain 'art-space'. In that way the
performance of a roadside juggler differs from that of a performance artist.
Now tracing
the term 'performativity', again a rather subjective coining, one can find it
anywhere and everywhere. If saying about performance art we go back to the
action painting of Jackson Pollock then in Indian context we could go to
Ramkinkar Baij. Coming out of the studios and placing the larger than life
forms in environment and creating them in a process of throwing the concrete
creating a rough tactile surface was nothing but a performance. If Goldberg
recalls photographer Richard Avedon saying about performativity of Rambrandt's
portraiture[5]
then it might give us liberty to go back to Raja Ravi Verma in India, in the
same context and looking at the Actorly presence of all the figures
under a dramatic set up.
[1] … I looked into pre-written history,
drawn to Paleolithic “cave art” of southwestern France and northern Spain. I
studies similar phenomena from Africa, the Americas, and Asia. I soon saw that
this was not illustrative art; that the caves were not galleries for the
exhibition of visual arts but theaters, sites of ritual enactments. I assumed
that these rituals were not only efficacious, but that they also gave pleasure
to the performers (and, if there were any, the spectators). Of course, I could
not listen to the music or witness the dances or storytelling enactments that
may have taken place in the Paleolithic sites. These were silenced centuries
ago. But I believed that these sites could only be understood performatively.
[Richard Schechner, “Preface to the Routledge Classic Edition”, Performance
Theory, p. X]
[2] Roselee Goldberg,
‘forewords’, Performance: Live art since the 60s, Thames & Hudson,
p. 6
[3] Joseph Jarman, see John Bloner,
Jr."Art Ensemble of Chicago",
http://www.2ndfirstlook.com/2013/01/art-ensemble-of-chicago.html
[4] Jerry Saltz, "Ask an
Art Critic", New York magazine, also available in:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/ask-an-art-critic3-15-11.asp
[5] "According to photographer
Richard Avedon who insisted that “all portraiture is performance," even
Rembrandt, "must have been acting when he made his own self-portraits.... Not
just making faces, but always, throughout his life, working in the full
tradition of performance."
Roselee Goldberg, Performance: Live
art since the 60s, Thames & Hudson, p. 10
 |
| Santhal Family, Ramkinkar |
 |
| M F Hussain |
 |
| Somnath Hore, Engraving, Tebhaga Series |
It is apparent to imagine Rambrandt enacting himself while making his
self portraits: an actorly Rambrandt at action. Other than the action painting
events and the ‘action’s of the Dadaists, coming down to the modernist period
of Indian art, it was definitely a performative gesture when Ramkinkar Baij
brought out the larger than life forms to the outdoor environments from the
studios. Additional to this bringing out, the throwing of kangkar, small
stone pieces and concrete to an armature in the making of the classic
sculptures like “Call of the Mill” or “Santhal Family”, the action of throwing,
the aspect of making the red-earth-stone a part of the sculptural body,
exaggerating of the bodily movements and forms, certainly indicates some
performance. More than the sketches by Somenath Hore in his “Tebhaga’s Diary”,
the act of sketching while the peasant’s movement in Tebhaga was going on,
could be understood as performances. A man walking barefoot, holding a long
brush like a walking stick with long beard, M F Hussain, was constantly into an
action: into nothing but a performance.
These are evidences in and around the ‘art world’ known to us. Other
than that, the women protesting Nude against the Indian Army in Manipur might
be the strongest striking performance in the century. Ashutosh Poddar quite
rightly said, ‘one can call Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March a performance art’[1]. But as today’s common
understanding those are not Performance Art as such. Why they are not, we shall
come up with two sets of mode, primary and secondary, to answer this question. Here
is the first set of Primary Modes:
[1] Ashutosh Potdar,
"Performance Art and Body: Inder Salim & the politics of his
performance", http://indersalim.livejournal.com/, http://artkaravan.wordpress.com/category/inder-salim/
 |
| Dharitri Boro giving a hair-cut at public |
 |
| Dharitri Boro giving a hair-cut at public |
Intervention as an indispensable mode
Performance art always comes up with a sense of intervention or interference.
To understand this let us compare a roadside juggler juggling and a performance
artist doing the same. We study and analyze all the aspects of a traditional
juggler juggling roadside, let us assume the roadside is a traditional space
for him, and among the aspects actually we speak of everything related to a
performance: the form, the sensibility, the management of time and space, the
artistic skill, and of course about spectatorship. But at the end of the day it
is not performance art. It might sound vague or ridiculous but somehow
true that it is performance but not performance art because it is not done by
an ‘Artist’: an artist by self proclamation, or by some institutional
recognition system. It is performance but not considered under that specific
category what we frequently call as ‘performance art’ today because it is still
a part of certain convention or tradition. But when the same thing is done by
an ‘artist’, who is not a part of that tradition by nature the gesture is read
as an intervention. So the matter of intervention is an essential element in
performance art. Thus a vegetable vendor shouting in an artificially produced
vocal sound and roaming around the corners of the colony might bear some of the
performative characteristics, but they are not performance art. Further on, if
someone, being in a traditional space doing his regular job, tries to extend
the practice in a certain direction and pushes a beyond-the-boundary sense or
meaning to the action it proclaims the potential of being a performance art.
But unfortunately it remains non-art in most of the cases and here lies some
debates what we shall raise later on.
 |
| Pratul Dash at R. A. P. E. 2012, Zoo, Guwahat |
Artist be(com)ing the subject
The intervention happens when the artist stands within the time-space
as a ‘subject’. The artist is not a role-player of some ‘other’ but of the
‘self’. In fact ‘speaking of own’, the tendency of it is the prime insist
behind performance art practices. The persistence of resounding own voice
remained the core element in performance art. Exactly here lies the reason why
performance art never occurs as a mere formalistic practice. We tried to
explain the formal aspects of the art but the explanation stops at the
questions of the artist’s subjectivity.
 |
| the Disposable Theatre troupe of Kankhowa, mapping site at Kathmandu |
This segment is a combined notion of the above mentioned two
characteristics. Firstly a piece of performance art intervenes by negating the
traditional or conventional receptivity, by destroying the customary
predictability; secondly the performance artist intervenes with his subjective
assertions. Thus here is a collapse of space and re-construction of an
atmosphere. It tends to become a part of a certain discipline defined by none
but itself. By its very existence within certain disciplinary thought process,
being reflective in certain transactions it claims itself as a performance
art.
 |
| Inder Salim at Harkat, at MATI, Lado Sarai |
Negation is a common tendency amongst the performance artists. This
negation or denial is seen in multiple things. A performance artist works in
unconformity: mostly s/he denies entering the gallery space, denies making a
ticketed show, refuses to role-play or to create a make-belief game and very precisely,
refuses to perform. Here onwards the performance artist has a problem with the
performing art traditions and claims it to be fake[1]. A performance artist clearly states that it
is not theatre or like any other performance with showmanship. Here onwards the
performance artist has problem with all sort of object-making, thus the object
hood of a concept is negated. On the same extension, the product-quality that
the commercial consideration defines is questioned and rejected.
[1] In this
stretch we can remember what Marina Abramović, the self-proclaimed
"grandmother of performance art", says about her hatred towards
theatre. While promoting a retrospective of her work that was going to take
place in New York's Museum of Modern Art she says, "To be a performance
artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake: there is a black box, you
pay for a ticket, and you sit in the dark and see somebody playing somebody
else's life. The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are
not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is
real, and the emotions are real. It's a very different concept. It's about true
reality."
Body as a primary tool
The body of the performer is another key area where the definition of
performance art is dependent upon. They use the body as a primary tool[1]. Though many props or
elements may occur in the act but the body remains central. Perhaps it happened
in the 70s in western world and remained the most sustainable aspect in the
tradition(s).
Naming the Rose as Rose
Noteworthy that, all the aforementioned modes or characteristics could
be found, either in whole or in bits and pieces, in conformist practices. But
they are not recognized as performance art in contemporary terms. It is an
invisible custom that to receive the recognition there is a declaration either
by the artist(s) or by the organizing or patronizing agency or even by a
bystander spectator. In this way we can say a rose is a rose only when you name
it. Marina Abramovic[1] states it right when she
says, “If you're a baker, making bread, you're a baker. If you make the best
bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you bake the bread in the
gallery, you're an artist. So the context makes the difference”. Perhaps that
is why the Long March by Gandhi or the women’s protest in Manipur remained
non-art as performance.
[1] Conversation: Marina
Abramovic, BY JEFFREY BROWN April 8,
2011 at 2:06 PM EDT.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/conversation-marina-abramovi/ also see: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/marina-abramovic-the-artist-is-present-sundance/#_
 |
| Gandhi at Long March |
This way, several aspects can be explored in judging a performance art
and thus some ways of articulation what performance art is can be put forward.
In all the cases a sense of breakthrough is felt and that is why a fixed
definition is difficult. The form denies itself for a fixation of definition.
It remains ‘new’ and ‘fresh’ every time. Under this consideration it is really
difficult to define a pedagogical method to teach or train performance art
under some disciplinary space. Instead of making and definition and then seeing
a piece of work, that is why, it is always, available as a method, and also
reasonable to see the piece first and then appreciate it. In the methods of
appreciation some facets might occur that are feasible enough to construct a
definition within the work of art. A model for pedagogy could be developed in
the notion that only a space should be provided to the practitioners to
explore: to speak aloud, to come up with some action with subjectivity. A
granted space for anarchy is sought within the discipline(s).
Samudra Kajal Saikia
New Delhi
Email: Kankhowa@gmail.com
Mobile: +91-9811375594
[1] … I looked into pre-written history,
drawn to Paleolithic “cave art” of southwestern France and northern Spain. I
studies similar phenomena from Africa, the Americas, and Asia. I soon saw that
this was not illustrative art; that the caves were not galleries for the
exhibition of visual arts but theaters, sites of ritual enactments. I assumed
that these rituals were not only efficacious, but that they also gave pleasure
to the performers (and, if there were any, the spectators). Of course, I could
not listen to the music or witness the dances or storytelling enactments that
may have taken place in the Paleolithic sites. These were silenced centuries
ago. But I believed that these sites could only be understood performatively.
[Richard Schechner, “Preface to the Routledge Classic Edition”, Performance
Theory, p. X]
[2] Roselee Goldberg,
‘forewords’, Performance: Live art since the 60s, Thames & Hudson,
p. 6
[3] Joseph Jarman, see John Bloner,
Jr."Art Ensemble of Chicago", http://www.2ndfirstlook.com/2013/01/art-ensemble-of-chicago.html
[4] Jerry Saltz, "Ask an
Art Critic", New York magazine, also available in: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/saltz/ask-an-art-critic3-15-11.asp
[5] "According to photographer
Richard Avedon who insisted that “all portraiture is performance," even
Rembrandt, "must have been acting when he made his own self-portraits....
Not just making faces, but always, throughout his life, working in the full
tradition of performance."
Roselee Goldberg, Performance: Live
art since the 60s, Thames & Hudson, p. 10
[6] Ashutosh Potdar,
"Performance Art and Body: Inder Salim & the politics of his
performance", http://indersalim.livejournal.com/,
http://artkaravan.wordpress.com/category/inder-salim/
[7] In this
stretch we can remember what Marina Abramović, the self-proclaimed
"grandmother of performance art", says about her hatred towards
theatre. While promoting a retrospective of her work that was going to take
place in New York's Museum of Modern Art she says, "To be a performance
artist, you have to hate theatre. Theatre is fake: there is a black box, you
pay for a ticket, and you sit in the dark and see somebody playing somebody
else's life. The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are
not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is
real, and the emotions are real. It's a very different concept. It's about true
reality."
[9] Conversation: Marina
Abramovic, BY JEFFREY BROWN April 8,
2011 at 2:06 PM EDT.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/conversation-marina-abramovi/ also see: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/marina-abramovic-the-artist-is-present-sundance/#_
