John Kaldor Family Collection – Summary

On May 2011, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) opened The John Kaldor Collection. Truly a gift to the Australia, the collection is of over 200 contemporary international artists and has been composed over a period of 50 years, since the 1960s. It is worth over $35 million. Kaldor over the years has collected the works of numerous emerging artists, many of which are now highly influential in the art world. Due to the input of John Kaldor the Art Gallery of NSW can now boast an internationally acclaimed collection of contemporary art.

The collection is a conglomeration of both internationally recognised and emerging artists. Incorporating the works of Jean-Claude, Robert Rauschenberg, Gilbert and George, Nam June Paik, Sol LeWitt, Jeff Koons, Carl Andre, Rebecca Horn, and the list goes on. As one of the most dedicated collectors of contemporary art in Australia, John Kaldor’s collection ranges in mediums including performance, photography, sculpture, instillation, drawing, to name a few. Director of the Art Gallery of NSW, Edmund Capon conveyed "The John Kaldor Collection is the most important collection of late 20th century avant-garde art in Australia.”[1]

After a $27 million grant from the NSW government, AGNSW were able to complete the gallery space after having the collection since 2008. The floor was transformed from storage space into a space where the collection, and all that is included within it, could be enjoyed and marveled at by those who visit the gallery. As one goes downstairs into the space Sol LeWitt’s site specific drawings are one of the first pieces to catch the eye. The presence of the five drawings is consuming, largely due to the huge scale of the works, and exciting. In a way the Sol LeWitt pieces are like an enticing introduction to the gallery space, however not at all preparing you for what’s still to come.

The John Kaldor Family Collection, as a whole, works seamlessly with the rest of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, extending the contemporary collection to now be one admirable on an international scale. The experience of the collection alone is inspired.

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[1]http://archive.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media/archives_2008/kaldor_gift/index.html

Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art – Summary

In the article ‘Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art’ by Frazer Ward, he examines the relations between conceptual and performance art, as the title implies. Looking at the similarities and connections between both during the period of the late 1960’s to early 1970’s.

Frazer Ward suggests that the concept of a work should come before the materialization of a work. The temporal position of performance evokes these same ideas with the material considerations becoming secondary in conceptual pieces. Many artists were heavily influenced by this deterioration of aestheticism and the dematerialization of art, many artists shifted away from the galleries to creating art just in studio spaces, art then no longer existed as much as a commodity but more so as something in the moment, more temporal.

In the late 1960’ to early 1970’s there was clear overlapping between conceptual and performance art, due to this many thought of Performance Art as an opposition to Conceptual Art. In the reading Ward looks at the art work ‘Mirror Piece’ (1967) by Ian Burns and Vito Acconci’s ‘Step Piece’ (1970) comparing them in order to find the connections. ‘Mirror Piece’ is made up of 13 typed pages of notes and diagrams and a mirror, both framed behind glass and ‘Step Piece’ is a performance where Acconci steps up and down from an 18” stool in his apartment for as long as he can without stopping, regularly making the audience aware of his progress via announcements. Acconci’s work is the perfect example of rebellion against the gallery space, inviting the general public to watch his performance in his studio completely removing the existence and notion of the institution.

Ward describes the first, ‘Mirror Piece’, as being “typically Conceptual in it’s abandonment of aesthetic authority.” Whilst on the other hand describes Acconci’s performance piece, ‘Step Piece, as vaguely Conceptual. Both works remove the idea of the ‘elitist’ and challenge the traditional values of what is considered ‘art’.

In 1973, Rosalind Krauss and Greogory Battock compiled the collection of writings ‘Idea Art’, which features writings by both critics and artists. Together the writings comment on the rationalisation of conceptual art. 

Chris Burden; Annotated Bibliography

You'll Never see My Face in Kansas City 1971

Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri, USA; November 6, 1971

Bewley, Jon and Jonty Tarbuck, Edit's. Chris Burden (United Kingdom, Thames & Hudson) 2007 

This monographic study compiled in association with Burden provides a useful and vast overview of burdens work spanning from 1971 to 2006. The explanations accompanying each work (provided by Burden personally) provide an in depth explanation as to the intentions and actions undertook during each performance (earlier works) and also the material orientated installations (later practice) . I felt that this in contrast with the accompanying 5 texts confusing at first. How ever after consideration and re-reading this document to helped me to break away from the word of the artist himself. I also felt that the separation of the works under titled themes was interesting in allowing me to see correlation in works that span Burdens whole career, as in to say that it allowed me to tie his body of work as a cohesive progression when before it seemed segmented and non linear.

Horvitz, Robert. “Chris Burden.” Artforum Volume XIV No.9 (1976): 24-31

This article provided an extremely helpful look at Burden from his beginnings of the utilization of minimalist practice and how by chance he discovered the activation of artworks via the human body. The analysis of Burdens performances against his dead pan statements and often obscure titles (such as White Light/White Heat that in the article we discover apparently refers to the velvet underground song of the same name) allowed me to break free of the word of the artist and embrace a personal opinion surrounding issues of politics, religion and (of course) ones body. How ever due to the publish date (1976) it does fall short in areas of Burdens progression back to the (art) object and his critic of technology.

Morris, Francis. Chris Burden: When Robots Rule: The Two-Minute Airplane Factory. London: Tate Gallery, 1999.

Although the title may elude to a specific exhibition it proved to be an extremely helpful resource in defining Burden’s chronology of practice. Interpretations of works are made but are also followed by directly quoted statements from the artist himself which serve to provide an alternate. This is fundamental as in trying to analyze Burdens works many interpretations (mainly alluding to religion, politics, technology and money) can be drawn.  The use of such a dialogue served as a point of understanding for myself when observing and considering, it drew attention as to how ones objective may be clear in their head a viewer can take another reading away from this. The Section directly written by Morris played a key role in my understanding of the difference between documentation and Burdens own construct of the 'relic'.

UBU web "A Twenty-Year Survey, Newport Harbor Art Museum - A Video Portrait (1989)." Accessed May 5 http://www.ubu.com/film/burden_newport.html

A great documentary surrounding Burdens practice. How ever like a lot of information sourced it is quite intensive with Burdens presence and thoughts. I felt this to be detrimental as it does or did not serve to allow for critical engagement of the artist practice. 

Bibliography

Bibliography on Stelarc.

Stelarc’s webpage, http://stelarc.org/, (2012)
This website hold a copious amount of information on Stelarc’s career as an artist including explanations and interpretations on most of his works alongside detailed photographs and diagrams. Also found on this website is the artists biography and sources of relatable essays and quotes to characterise the artist and his motives. Being a performance artist, suitably the website contains a gallery of images of his works as well as an archive of video footage of his performances, which allowed the viewer a greater understanding of each piece and the feelings and interpretations obtained from each work.

Stelarc - The Body is Obsolete, http://www.artfilms.com.au/Detail.aspx?ItemID=220, Artfilms, (2005) – an excerpt from the film
This short excerpt contained information on the concept and notions of Stelarcs work, focusing on his interpretation on the use of his body in his art. Suspension was also addressed, developing an understanding on how Stelarc chose to come about using piercings in his pieces and the various ways he explored this suspension direction.

Stelarc - Art, Design, Future of Man, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1SPish8ZwQ Adam A. Ford (TheRationalFuture), (28-06-2011)
This was video footage of an interview with Stelarc. Being quite a long video, it held a helpful amount of information on his works and concepts directly from the artist. His manner of speech and occasional manic laughter assisted in understanding the character and artist that is Stelarc.

Still hooked after all those years, Stelarc suspends pain threshold, http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/still-hooked-after-all-those-years-stelarc-suspends-pain-threshold-20120313-1uyia.html, Ashley Crawford (The Age), (March 14, 2012)
This was an article on Stelarc’s most recent suspension piece, allowing and understanding of the happenings of the performance and a sense of the mood and audience reaction to this work. It included quotes from the artist before the performance to discover his feelings moments before the painful suspension. The image included also helped with and understanding of the layout and feel for the work.

Performer gets third ear for art, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7039821.stm, BBC News UK (11 October 2007)

Extended-Body: Interview with Stelarc, http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/stelarc/a29-extended_body.html, Paolo Atzori and Kirk Woolford

Annotated Bibliography

Joan Jonas “Mirror Piece 1” 1969

"Joan Jonas Performance Video Installation." Hatjie Cantz, 2001.

This book was helpful as it directly focused on Joan Jonas. It formed the basis of my research, and helped to develop an overview of her pieces. It had detailed pictures, as well as a number of essays and interviews based on her works between 1968 and 2000.

Website: http://arttattler.com/archivejonas.html. (Accessed 25/5/12)

This website gives a great overview of Joan Jonas’ work, spanning from her early works to her more recent, current works. There are multiple images per piece, giving the reader a good idea of the actual performance. It also provides the date the work was made and the location. The only downside I would say is that it is not in chronological order of the time the work was created. Some of the works have extensive background writings and academic’s opinions stated.

Movie Clip from YouTube:

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiYsGBMHNqI (accessed 27/5/12)

This short interview was really useful as it combined interview footage and documentation of the actual piece “Mirage”. Jonas speaks about her influences, and what she has done in this piece. She also refers to the fact that the piece has been re-made and re=performed since 1976. It was helpful as it proved ridiculously hard to see any footage of her work, thus this piece was the closest I got to seeing “Mirage”.

Jonas, Jens Hoffman and Joan. Art Works, Perform. 2005. Thames and Hudson.

Although this book did not focus on Jonas, but was written on her, it was still a lot of help in understanding what is performance art. The first 32 (or so) pages directly discuss ‘performance’ art and give a good example of a few. It also focuses on the development of performance art, whilst still sharing a few perspectives and ways of interpreting it. 

Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art.

Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art.

In this article by Frazer Ward, he discusses the relationship between Conceptual and Performance Art. Over the years, there has been much debate over what the definition of Conceptual Art is. Ward suggests that the aesthetics of the work is secondary to the actual concept or idea behind it, with language being one of the major components of it’s framework. As it’s name suggests, Performance Art is more easily definable, “as a form of art that happens at a particular time, in a particular where the artist engages in some sort of activity, usually before and audience”. The main difference between these two art practices is that Performance Art can be seen as temporal.

During the late 1960’, early 1970’s it was seen that there was overlapping between these two practices, because of this, the thought is that Performance Art is in opposition to Conceptual Art’s critical inquiry that can be seen in it’s works. Ward compares two works of art to finds these ‘relations’. Ian Burns’,  Mirror Piece (1967), 13 typed pages, diagrams and a mirror framed behind glass, and Vito Acconci’s Step Piece (1970) in which he steps up and down a stool for as long as he can perform it without stopping allowing the audience to come into his home and watch. He describes the first as being typically Conceptual with a rationalistic abandonment of aesthetic qualities where as Acconci’s obsessionally comic performance piece is seen as ambiguously Conceptual. Both these works show the artists challenging the traditional values of what can be considered ‘art’, discrediting and removing the ‘elitist’ element from it.

Ward also suggests that “there is a problem of how to account for any relations” between the two art practices as Performance Art has never been a ‘movement’ rather coming and going in relation to other ‘movements’ such as Futurism, the Bauhaus and Dada.

Summary---Relatins between Conceptual and Performance art.

In this artical which is written by Frazer Ward talks about the relations between the conceptual art and performance art. For the conceptual art's factions have frequently been at odds, usually over definitions and often after the fact. For the performance art can be simply defined as a form of art happens at a particular time in a particular place where the artist engage in some sort of activites  and befor an audience.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was considerable overlap between these categories.Here is two wroks, the first one is Ian Burn's MirrorPiece (1967) and the other one is Vito Acconci's Step Piece (1970). In these two art works it shown some relationships between the conceptual art and performance art. Also some performance art may be challenge some of limitation of the conceptual art.

The mirror piece , I think it belongs to the conceptual art,it is demanded a new kind of attention and mental participation from the viewer. To do this can let the viewer to see oneself's seeing Further, the notes explain thework in terms of the interaction between the spectator'srecognition of the mirror'snormal function
function as art, referringto the display and its "intentional"
of the mirrorwith the notes and diagrams as a concept.

The Step piece, it can be defined as a performance art work. We can simply find out that this is piece is a kind of photography of a man step on the chair. it seems like he want to performace something to the viewers.Rosalind Krauss suggested that they may be no necessary opposition  between conceptual and performance art.

To sum up this, if the works shows the desire of an embodiment that could not ground the subject of conceptual reason, they might be status as performance at once confounds that desire. However, I think any kind of arts have the relations.

Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art – SumMARY

In the reading of Frazer Ward’s article titled “Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art” we are asked to consider parallels that could be drawn between the two art practices mentioned. We’re asked to consider the practices via the paradigms of linguistics, rationality, syntactic etc. (conceptual) on one hand and on the other subjectivity, physicality, spatial etc. (performance). It is via the disclosure and discussion around these that Ward outlines the basis for the article that ‘Conceptual and Performance art are engaged in a continuing dialogue, sometimes a conversation, sometimes and argument’[1]. 

In order for us to see light in the statement Ward critically engages and discuss’ two works of both practices. The first work being Ian Burn’s Mirror Piece (1967), consisting of thirteen typed pages of notes and diagrams, framed and covered with glass, and an ordinary, rectangular mirror, similarly  framed. The second Vito Acconci’s Step Piece (1970), a project in which Acconci would every morning would us an eighteen-inch stool as a step at a rate of 30 steps per minute, the public was informed by announcements and free to attend during any period of which the activity was performed.

As a juxtaposition in the two works Ward has successfully opened up the syntactic paradigm as a discussion.  We are aware of conceptual artists use of such a system as their medium (to dis-regard aesthetics and in place allow language to take its place). In the reading of Acconci’s project description we to can see the use of a linguistic method (in fusion with physicality) that allows for the ‘step piece’ to be aligned with conceptual practice. It is via this aligning that Ward draws our attention to the observation made by Joseph Kosuth that it is an ‘impossibility to discuss art in general terms without talking in tautologies’. We are later in the article reminded of this as a point is drawn in relation to the statement that there is no need to see opposition in the practices but instead we should use ‘step piece’ as a matter of observing how intertwined the practices in fact were.

An important observation is made in regards to a key difference between conceptual art and performance. This being that conceptual art was in fact a movement that sought to achieve a goal set out by peers. Where by performance (noticeably sans the accompanying ‘art’ tag) has been utilized as a medium across many movements such as Dada, Fluxus, Minimalism and questionably Abstract expressionism. It is not to say that this difference is intended as means of stating what aspect is timeless or of better value. Instead it is a point that is used to demonstrate that for artists such as Acconci and Chris Burden the medium of performance was one that was valuable in questioning and criticing Conceptualism’s aims of removing the physical burden of the artists thoughts and actions in order to achieve their planned outcomes.[2]

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[1] Performance in the article is not given a capital. I am unsure as to if this was a typo or if this could be read into as  Ward sneakily proposing a more dominant force.

[2] If the aim of the first incarnation of conceptualism was to remove the burden of the physical from the practice of art. Could the internet be seen as a post conceptual medium as it seeks to blur the boundaries between user (physical) and avatar (virtual)?