Summary - PERFORMANCE “Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art”

Summary -

PERFORMANCE 

“Some Relations between Conceptual and Performance Art”

By Frazer Ward

Frazer Ward discusses the relationship between Conceptual Art and Performance Art.  Conceptual art is and has been the focus of ongoing arguments. For the purpose of the article conceptual art is out lined as including aesthetic experience, language and material but all coming secondary to concept. Where as with Performance Art the point is made that it is “relatively straight forward to define”. Giving the personal definition “ as a form of art that happens at a particular time in a particular place where the artist engages in some sort of activity, usually before an audience. The main difference between performance art and other modes of visual art practice, such as painting, photography and sculpture, is that it is a temporal event or action.” Ward states that Conceptual Art is hard for the public to accept because of the change in value of aesthetic pleasure.

In the late 1960s - 1970s there was an overlap but it is commonly thought that Performance Art is in opposition to Conceptual Arts in critical investigation. Ward compares  two works of art first Ian Burn, his Mirror Piece (1967) that is typically conceptual and second Vito Acconci’s, Step Piece (1970) seen as a conceptual performance. Both artists Burn and Acconci like Duchamp and his Readymades questioned what art is, art placement.

The work of Burn’s is conceptual because it is not aesthetically  pleasing. Mirror Piece is 13 typed pages of notes and diagrams framed and covered in glass and also a rectangular mirror, the notes included a quote about copy right of the work, explain the work and the interaction of the spectator to the mirror’s normal function and its “intended” function. In Acconci’s piece he steps up and down on an 18 inch stool each morning at a rate of 30 steps per minute for as long as he can and announcements are sent to the public so they can see the performance this brings the public into his home. Acconci takes the artwork out of the gallery challenging typical thought patterns of the time on art and the gallery.

Conceptual Art is also a movement, period of time but Performance Art is not.  Performance Art has coexisted  throughout the last century in many of movements. Performance Art now exist as primarily as documentation and Conceptual Art undertook the removal of traditional elements of aesthetic expression from art.