ART + ARCHITECTURE had a pulse and was taken to the morgue , the New York economy was in the tank , and the go-go art sales of the ‘ 60s were a distant phenomenon . Artists fascinated with linguistics , dance , music , theater , social work , commercial media and visual art rented cheap storefront , industrial and loft spaces in SoHo . They experimented with every conceivable art form ( except painting ). The art market was at rock bottom , so artists had little to lose .
This eclectic group created layered performances addressing , both directly and obliquely , the politics of the day , the commercial and media landscape , and , of course , commentary on “ high ” art . Jay Sanders , the curator of the Whitney show , included notable performance artists such as Vito Acconci , Laurie Anderson , Mike Kelley and John Zorn , but he also brought on the artist Ralston Farina who has faded from memory due , in part , to the fact that he refused to allow his work to be photographed . Farina stated that his medium was time and thus his work was temporal and evanescent by its very nature — thereby defying documentation .
Admittedly , a lot of the art in this show looks as if it were culled from a garage sale or someone ’ s basement . Even so , the impact of much of the work has real visceral punch . It somehow leaves you wanting more .
If you “ get ” this show and find it intriguing , find a way to make it to ( 1 ) the Mike Kelley retrospective at MoMA ’ s P . S . 1 ; ( 2 ) Radical Presence : Black Performance in Contemporary Art at the Studio Museum in Harlem ; ( 3 ) “ Chris Burden : Extreme Measures ” at the New Museum ( the 5th floor of which has videos of many of Burden ’ s excruciating performances , including “ Shoot ” from 1971 where Burden purposefully took a bullet in his shoulder from a . 22 rifle . Insane , yes , but somehow the piece fits the dystopian era in which it was produced — reflecting the nation ’ s angst over Vietnam and echoing the plaintive futility of the 1968 assassinations ); and ( 4 ) Isaac Julien : Ten Thousand Waves , the immersive film installation presently on view in the 2nd floor atrium at MoMA .
If you simply cannot get enough performance art , make plans to attend the New York performance biennial Performa 15 in the fall 2015 . Performa 13 just wound down from its monthlong run in November .
OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2013 83