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.