Category:
Performance Art
Performance Art
The Trainee, by Pilvi Takala
Finnish performance artist Pilvi Takala got permission to pose as a trainee for a month at the accounting firm Deloitte. What she wanted to find out was how people at the firm would react if she did absolutely nothing... if she just sat at an empty desk all day staring into space. Predictably, the office workers grew increasingly perplexed by her inactivity, as can be seen in the video below.More info from her website:
We see the trainee sitting at her workstation in the consultants' open-plan office space, or in the tax department library all day doing nothing. One of the videos shows her spending an entire day in an elevator. These acts or rather the absence of visible action slowly make the atmosphere around the trainee unbearable, forcing the colleagues to search for solutions and to come up with explanations for the situation...
What provokes people about this ‘non-doing’, aside from the strangeness, is the element of resistance. The non-doing person isn’t committed to any activity, so they have the potential for anything. It is non-doing that lacks a place in the general order of things, and thus it is a threat to order. It is easy to root out any ongoing anti-order activity, but the potential for anything is a continual stimulus without a solution.
What provokes people about this ‘non-doing’, aside from the strangeness, is the element of resistance. The non-doing person isn’t committed to any activity, so they have the potential for anything. It is non-doing that lacks a place in the general order of things, and thus it is a threat to order. It is easy to root out any ongoing anti-order activity, but the potential for anything is a continual stimulus without a solution.
I'm guessing her performance was inspired by Herman Melville's classic short story, Bartleby the Scrivener.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Aug 16, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Work and Vocational Training, Performance Art
Rosa Hernandez: The Cleaning Lady
When San Diego performance artist Claudio Cano does her act, much of the audience isn’t aware that she’s actually performing, because her performance consists of dressing up as a Latina maid (whom she calls Rosa Hernandez) and sweeping or mopping the floor of art galleries. She notes that people in the galleries will often complain to the front desk about the maid cleaning while they're trying to look at the art, unaware that the "maid" is part of the art.Cano also sometimes performs outside, where, in her maid outfit, she does stand out more. But even then, she notes, people rarely pay much heed to her, seeming to go out of their way to avoid her.
More info: ClaudiaCano.com, Only Here Podcast
Cano performing at SDSU Downtown Gallery
Performing at Oceanside Pier
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 27, 2019 -
Comments (6)
Category: Jobs and Occupations, Performance Art
RIP Carolee Schneeman
Her obit.Her Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 08, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Performance Art, Pop Art, Body, Obituaries
Prince Leonard Casley, RIP
Full article here.
Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 14, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Eccentrics, Curmudgeons and Contrarianism, Government, Unauthorized Dwellings, Outsider Art, Performance Art, Foreign Customs, Obituaries, 1970s
Mary Worth, the Full Version
This is an experiment where the mise en scene of the comic strip is done directly to film. MADE BY: stephanie barber, peter barrickman, sara boland, tate bunker, theresa columbus, yasuhuhiro ikeguchi, anna johnson, annie killelea, didier leplae, xav leplae, doug schall, naomi wyoming.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 04, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Comics, Homages, Pastiches, Tributes and Borrowings, Performance Art, Surrealism
Singing at the Smithsonian
The Smithsonian has bought its first piece of performance art. Which means that if you visit the Hirshhorn’s sculpture garden you may find that a young woman will suddenly start singing while following you around.The performance piece, titled This You, is the creation of Tino Sehgal, though he doesn't perform it. There are four women who do that, in shifts.
Sometimes the performers will abruptly stop singing in order to state the title of the performance piece: “This You, Tino Sehgal, 2006.” And then they'll start singing again.
More info: Smithsonian Mag, Hirshhorn
Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 14, 2018 -
Comments (1)
Category: Museums, Music, Performance Art
Mat Fraser’s “Cabinet of Curiosities”
The explanation is here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Aug 04, 2018 -
Comments (1)
Category: Body, Medicine, Museums, Performance Art, Twenty-first Century
Pop Art
"Vital Capacity" by performance artist William Lamson, in which he battles black balloons. There's a longer, larger version of the video here (but not embeddable).His website
Brief wikipedia article about him
Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 01, 2018 -
Comments (3)
Category: Performance Art, Pop Art
Hunting Groceries
For one week in 1992, German artist Christian Jankowski "hunted" his groceries in the supermarket with a bow and arrow. From his website:Jankowski shot down frozen chickens, butter, toilet paper, and various other "essentials." His game, if edible, was not just dead, it was processed on a mass scale. Thus the reaction of the woman working the checkout counter: she remained wholly unimpressed by the trophies of his "bargain hunt," which she scanned with the arrows still sticking out of them.
Imagine trying to go into a supermarket with a bow and arrow nowadays to hunt your groceries.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jul 31, 2018 -
Comments (6)
Category: Food, Shopping, Performance Art, 1990s
Squished Cockroach
In order to confront the stereotype of the "perceived passiveness of Asian people," the artist who calls herself Squished Cockroach painted herself yellow and then wandered through a crowded train while eating rice and stepping on printed articles strewn in her path. The articles referred to "the rise of hate speech against Asians, stereotypes against Asians presented by the media and increased crime rates targeting Asians."She walked through the train and then was gone, leaving the befuddled commuters to wonder about "the many incidents of racial harassment that do in fact occur on public transport" as well as "the ‘progress’ of humanity."
More info
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jul 21, 2018 -
Comments (0)
Category: Performance Art
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