Drama360/The Neo-Avant-Garde 1952-1969 (Fluxus, Happenings, Situationists) ***

INITIAL RESPONSE: JINGYI CHEN

1.	Goldberg, Roselee. “American and European Performance from c. 1933: The Live Art.” Performance: Live Art 1909 to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, 1979. [PAGES: 79-96]

2.	Klein, Yves. "Anthropometries of the Blue Period and Fire Paintings: Two Performances." 1960. (8 Minutes) http://www.ubu.com/film/klein.html

First part of article mainly introduces how live art develops in America from 1933. Typical development place and people include Black Mountain College, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Allan Kaprow, Wolf Vostell, Robert Rauschenberg, Dancers’ Workshop Company, the Judson Dance Group and Yvonne Rainer. A common point of all these is that they are the place or people pursue improvised, indeterminate art but not regular, wooden performance.

At the beginning of development, Black Mountain College attracted large number of innovative students from all disciplines, “tackled prevailing concepts and phenomena from different viewpoints, creating stage representations expressing them”. Meanwhile, John Cage and Merce Cunningham, a musician and a dancer, used their own idea to interpret their understanding of art. They captured details of life and expressed them using music and art. They believed everything in life was art and could be performed on stage.

John Cage abandoned the idea that music was made my instruments. Instead he proposed that the noises we hear everyday could be used to compose music. Thing like soup bowls, beer bottles, brake drums and other everyday items. After successfully using regular objects to create music Cage then started to explore making music with preset scores for the musicians to use. In other words the piece would have a general shape, but the details would differ each time it was performed. He also experimented with the music of silence. One of his pieces was a man sitting at a piano for four minute and thirty three seconds and moving his arms slightly three times. Cage commented that it was "My favorite piece is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet" (82) In the fall of 1959, Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, audiences were not just spectators but involved in the event. Each participant moved following instrument and intervals and movement sequence were planned and controlled. The whole event was seemed meaningless, but “ it was intended to indicate ‘something spontaneous, something that just happens to happen’”. Soon after, Fluxus, which emphasizes on freedom from pressure, authority and there is no difference between art and life, developed from early sixties and deeply influenced artists. Like what Wolf Vostell explained YOU that “absurd and repugnant scenes of horror to awaken consciousness….. What is important is what the public itself takes away as a result of my images and the Happening.” When Yvonne Rainer presented Terrain IN 1963, it has combined a lot of elements of Happenings and Fluxus..

Second part of article mainly introduces how live art develops in Europe after war. Key people are Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni and Joseph Beuys. Yves Klein used monochromes and canvases to express his art. The famous art of him are Anthropometries of the Blue Period and Fire Painting. The Anthropometries of the Blue Period, Klein let nude model spread blue painting materials on their bodies and randomly drew on canvas using their bodies. The Fire Painting, he used nude models, chemical material and fire to make flaming effect on canvas. Different from Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni made works without canvas. Joseph Beuys believed all revolution should be started from human thoughts.

Response: Yoko Ono Lennon (Ono Yoko 小野洋子), the legendary Beatles member John Lennon’s wife, the female Neo-Avant-Garde leader, as well the Asian beauty figure that influenced how currently Europeans and Americans dim as Asian dream girl. She represents perfectly what is Fluxus and Happenings. Fluxus to me is not an Art form of Avant-Garde, but a movement of Avant-Garde freedom. The reason I argue this is because unlike Surrealism and Happenings, Fluxus is more like Dadaism, there is neither constitutions nor specific guidelines that directs Fluxus. Instead, lots and lots of artists created their own idea of Fluxus art, some representations are John Cage’s 4’33’’ (silence for 4’33’’, indicating that everything we do is music), Joe Jones’s Rhythmic music machines, La Monte Young’s Minimalism, Carolee Schneemann’s Interior Scroll, Ono Yoko's Cut Piece and on and on. Every sincere piece of art created in the movement of Fluxus tells a different message. Maybe one might argue that Cage and other Neo-Dada and Neo-Avant-Garde artists are all trying to stop “The Art Forms”. But no matter Fluxus or Happenings, those “Happenings” from our undecorated lives still need to be expressed through the performing artists themselves as the interacting media. So maybe Fluxus and Happenings do not wish the end to art forms at all, neither do they wish to disturb other’s art pursuing; maybe all they wish to do is to release the souls and minds from the cages that are made of chains of “Forms”, and let people to re-experience the real freedom.

Response: Ping Yu

To me, “Happenings” comes from dadarism but different from dadarism. They are both express free feelings and use anything they can use; however, “Happenings” is closer to daily life and encourages audiences to get involve. Dadarism is more randomly and means nothing. “Happening” usually has a plan or instruction for the beginning and it cares about what is going to happen and “Happening” is only happen once and it is not react able. Its concept likes our daily life which we do not know what is going to happen next and it is different depends on the circumstances and people who engage in it. There are lots of great performances such as “Fluids” in 1967 and “Sweet wall” in 1976.

I like performance of the "cutting". She is very beautiful and very brave in that performance. she is a lady who represent Fluxus and happenings. She never move her position, and audience come to the stage and cutting her clothes into pieces. She tell audience what art is, she never change her expression on her face until end. She use hand cover her body that tells audience that is enough suffering for her. Audience also know they have to end their cutting activity. It tells audience that artist is also a normal person. The Fluxus tells people that artists expect to escape from pressure of politics and mood.

response: jiachen wu (response to Ping Yu)

i likes what Ping Yu says in her response. "Happenings" is closer to daily life and encourage aduiences to get involve. i strongly believe that the original of art is come from daily life. everybody is a artist and spectator in their life time. we are performancing different plays in daily life but sometimes we did not realize that ia a performance. life is a great performance because there is a script or instruction to read or follow and guide us to play well in our entire life. performance in our daily life is truly randomly.

Response: Nathan Hunt

I really found it interesting how in the video the artist essentially used womens as a tool to convey their art. This is more so an observation than a direct criticism of the art. I am very curious as to why the artist decided to use women specifically and also how it seemed as if the women were instructed to only use certain elements of their body to paint. Generally the women would only place paint on their breasts down-words. The effect that came about was a highly feminine murial, that showcased the stereotypical feminine traits. This is not a criticism of anything like that, but rather an observation. Simply, art was perceived and came about through a man manipulating women as objects.

Response: Huibing Wu

Live Art is term used to describe all acts of performance undertaken by an artist as a work of art. The term was first used in Europe in the middle of 1980s. A famous live artist called Klein Yves created a new method of painting called 'Anthropometry', refers to the measurement of the human individual for the purpose of understanding human physical variation. Today, anthropometry plays an important role in clothing design. In Klein's 'Anthropometries of the blue period and fire painting', he used naked female bodies as 'living brush', with their bodies cover in blue paint and lay upon canvases to make image. Be contrary to Nathan's point, i don't think Klein stereotype female traits. Before he used female models, he had tried various methods to apply paint, like sponges, rollers, and maybe male bodies too. I think the point that he chose naked female bodies because the sharp of their bodies have better images for his painting. Also, female can make good looking poses than males.

Response: Yibin Wang

In this article, I strongly agree with John Cage’s opinion about music. He believed that music was not only made by instruments. According to this, I also think every sound can be music even noise. In my hometown, there is a art form which is the music is made by raping lots of containers such as bowls, plates, or cups. The sound from raping these stuff is really comfortable. This is music, isn’t it? In addition, this really depends on people’s mood and circumstance at that time. If people are happy, every sound they hear is music including bird’s twitter. Sometimes, silence is music as well. When people are sad and they stay in room alone, they can meditate there is music around them during the silence. Therefore, music does not have to be only made by instruments.

Response: Meng Shi

I really like this article because it mentions a kind of performance art which is more innovative and simpatico. In addition to Yibin Wang's supportive opinion about John Cage's music, I also agree with "Happenings".I know that when artists do the performance,they really enjoy their creation and don't want anyone to interfere them.However, Kaprow's "18 Happenings in 6 parts" created a more perceptual and interactive performance. I think all of artists want to show people what they think and hope to get response from audience .Therefore,let the audience become a part in the performance is the most easy and valid way to achieve that.For example, I have been visited a performance before, the artist was soak himself in his world on stage,and there is no interactive,no eye contact with audiences.Finally, I didn't understand what dose he want to express,and I felt very boring.Moreover, if audience can be a part in the performance,it will be more interesting and simpatico.

Response: Xiaochao Ma

When I read this article,it reminds me my chilhood. When I was a kid, I liked to combine the different sounds which were made by different things. For example, I would like to use my hands to tap the desk, and then, I used my foot to knock the floor. At the same time, I was blowing the whistling sound through rounded lips. After my show, I would ask my audience how did they think of my work. Of course, this performance in this article is not talking about the same thing as I did. But I will say that when we done our work, we hope that our audience can get satisfaction. But in this article, the performers hope that the audience can get the meaning by going trough the performance. If I am doing my performance by now, I will ask my audiences to help me finish my work.

Response: Sijin Chen

According to this article, I learned a lot about Joseph Beuys’s ideas. Joseph Beuys, who is a German artist, believes that art should effectively transform people’s everyday lives. I strongly agree with his opinions. People require not only the material product, but also spiritual product. In fact, art, which is a kind of spiritual product, reflects people’s thoughts. Thus, a great art work is to capture the ‘spirit’ of artists as an energetic and catalytic force in society. He thought that human thoughts must be revolutionized so that it appears something new and original art works. In addition, his idea of ‘social sculpture’ would mobilize every individual’s latent creativity so that a great art work can be created.

INITIAL RESPONSE: BRITT KOZLOSKI

1.	On the Passage of a Few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972 1989. Branka Bogdanov. http://www.ubu.com/film/si.html (20 Minutes)

2.	Drucker, Johanna. "Collaboration without Object(S) in the Early Happenings." Art Journal 52.4 (1993): 51-59.

3.	Ono, Yoko. Cut Piece. 1965, New York. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dsvy_yoko-ono-cut-piece_shortfilms (8 Minutes)

Situationist International took place from 1957-1972. Beginning in northern Italy, the small group consisted of international artists and writers who were interested in making daily life an original and creative experience. This group re-evaluated everything, yet were not proclaimed as a political movement. They focused on the collage and juxtaposition of life believing that you could discover everything that needed to be said through seeing the world in new ways. From wandering the city and allowing the attractions to guide you towards new experiences, to retouching old paintings, the group believed that one had the ability to discover new worlds and the power to modernize parts of life.

The Happenings can be found within a brief period of history between 1958-1961, a period immediately following Abstract Expressionism. Unlike Dada activities with a direct attack on language, the Happenings worked against the established beliefs of visual art mastery. The performances of the Happenings were designed to diminish the lines between audience and performer. They focused on collaboration without a perceived goal or outcome, unaware of what their resulting product. The experience of the Happenings was to be of the moment, therefore there was necessary to find yourself inside the moment. Happenings were able to define themselves as collaborations without objects and they were able to subvert the conventions of modern and traditional art practice. They succeeded in making a definite break through the tired ways of Expressionist abstraction and refreshed the artists by offering new terms and parameters of art practice through rethinking the relationships made with the objects of art.

Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece was Performed by Ono twice in the sixties in Japan followed by New York, and in 2003 when Ono was seventy years old. After inviting her audience to come on stage and cut away at her clothing, Ono sits motionless on stage as the audience removes one piece at a time. Her performance significantly relates destruction to relationships among people, and touches on a variety of subjects from female objectivity, human weakness and the relationships between victims and assailants.

There is a bit of randomness to some of the performances, as noted in the article by Johanna Drucker, with some examples on page 55, such as suspended sheets, piled up sets or falling debris stuck to surfaces. The example where the man paints 'I love what I'm doing', drinks from the can of paint and then jumps through the canvas is similar to some of the weird 'art' performed by He Yunchang making this situational art similar to Dadaism. However, there are clear differences, as mentioned above where Dadaist directly attack the language and the Happenings work against established beliefs of visual art mastery. The Happenings did not want any cohesion or a 'chain of events' to occur when using objects which resulted in the 'dematerialization of the art object'.

Yoko Ono’s piece not only reflects human weakness, there is also suggestion of restraint from the audience as well. Most audiences had cut off only small chunks of Ono’s clothing and had taken it with them, which acts as a piece of the performance that they had each taken away and continue to remember; while others are more aggressive in their cutting yet are more reluctant to take any pieces with them off stage. The aggression and passiveness are difference in human nature that is most prevalent through the performance. Also, the performer, Ono was not in control of the outcome of the situation and took the role of an observer instead.

Response:

Ono’s work related destruction to interpersonal, often intimate, human relations. Ono executed the performance in London by walking on stage and casually kneeling on the floor in a draped garment, and audience members were requested to come on stage, she sat motionless on the stage after inviting the audience to come up and cut away her clothing, covering her breasts at the moment of unbosoming. Cut Piece entailed a disrobing, a denouement of the reciprocity between exhibitionism and desires, between victim and assailant, between sadist and masochist. Also, as a heterosexual herself, Ono unveiled the gendered relationship of male and female subjects as objects for each other. Cut Piece was one of Ono’s many opportunities to outwardly communicate her internal suffering through her art. In order to appease her own human suffering, Ono enlisted her viewers to complete her works of art in order to complete her identity as well. However, Cut Piece, it was also a piece that touched on issues of gender and sexism as well as the greater, universal affliction of human suffering and loneliness.

Ono's Cut piece was also a reversal of roles. The Audience members actually became the performers. The clothing which they chose to cut reflected upon their own selves. Yoko Ono is in a state of vulnerability, but she is in that state as a definitive choice where as the audience unknowing and unwittingly open themselves up to performance. The tension that was created was palpable and the audience showed this through nervous laughter and in the beginning restraint as to what they actually cut. By the end there is an acceptance of role and the second to last man on the video simply cuts everything on Ono's torso going so far as to actually expose her breasts to the crowd, he however is foiled by Ono's modesty.

Yoko Ono's famous Cut Piece performance revealed destruction. She was on a stage by herself. The audience randomly came on the stage and cut a piece of her cloth. Some people only cut a small piece, but others were aggressive. During the performance, Ono acted in a state of vulnerability. She had no response to the destruction. Her performance also revealed that human relations and human weaknes. There was a detail that every time after an aggressive audience (for examples: the one exposed her left shoulder and the second last person), the next audience would only cut a small piece, which reflected that people usually want to take a "break" after a big breakthrough. However, the "break" is always short and there will be something more aggressive after all. This is the human nature.

Response: Chao Jiang

The Yoko Ono’s piece is very interesting, because it shows the randomness of audiences’ reaction. Some audiences cut only a small piece which indicates their personality of conservatism. However, some audiences cut large pieces and the performer may not expect that too. So I think this performance is a reflect human nature. For this performance, I think what is interesting about the combination of Dadaism and audience’s participation on stage is the interesting outcomes, and this performance is all about looking at the reactions of audience. As well as the performer’s change of emotion when her cloth slowly cutting off.