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]
[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)?
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