Performance Art Explained: Hennessy Youngman to the Rescue

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Love him or leave him-- Hennessy Youngman explains difficult art concepts to the social media generation.
Image courtesy: Wikipedia
When I first started my blog a year and a half ago, I was looking to add some value to my lectures, especially those that dealt with more challenging or even potentially controversial topics. Just this past week, I finally arrived at one of those threshold moments in a modern/contemporary art lecture that deals with the subject of performance art. I had learned from past years introducing this material that the road to this particular lecture has to be paved with a great deal of relevant context and information about the reasons/rationale for such a hard-to-understand approach to art. For many students, the idea of the dematerialization of the art object is already a difficult enough concept to grasp—so adding the body as medium to that mix often leads to unpredictable reactions. I also endeavour to provide the requisite warnings that some of the material will be graphic and involve the necessary elements that make performance art push the boundaries of the intimate, sexual, psychological dimensions of the body.  As in most years, there are a handful of students who walk out on this lecture, concluding that the their definition of art has been severely transgressed by the projects I discuss (usually some combination of the Gutai, Carolee Schneemann, Adrian Piper, Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Orlan, and of course Marina Abramovic who I have made no secret of admiring in several blog posts).

Ironically enough (or not—I have a feeling this is no coincidence), I stumbled across one of the more recent videos posted by Hennessy Youngman on his “Art Thoughtz” series focused on defining and explaining performance art (check it out below). For those of you unfamiliar with Youngman, he is a persona created and performed by Brooklyn based artist Jayson Musson and his “Art Thoughtz” exist as a YouTube series while his lectures have also been performed in a number of academic/artistic venues (including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago—see that performance also embedded below). He came to my attention around the same time I started my blog and I began posting his monologues, along with a number of my students who also found his work online, on the blog’s Facebook page as a kind of reflective subtext and running dialogue to the ideas I raised in my lecture and were discussed in seminars. After watching this most recent video, I decided to share it here on the main blog in an effort to reach those students who still “don’t get” how and why performance art is. I also offer it up in the spirit of adding value and some humour to a lecture that sometimes gets sidelined by the discomfort of having to consider a new idea that challenges established beliefs about the art as process/practice. If nothing else, it is a great mind-bending example of a performance artist performing the task of describing performance (say that ten times fast). Enjoy or be offended—but be prepared to be challenged.

Further Reading:

Alexander Cavaluzzo, "Jayson Musson Is More Than Hennessy Youngman" in Interview Magazine (2012).



Weekly Twitter Round-Up

Paris vs. New York graphics via a tweet from brainpickings.org

Perfect spring weekend spent enjoying the sunshine, strolling the seawall, catching up on some great books, and dreaming of post-semester summer plans. What could top that? Later tonight, Mad Men premiere! It is amazing what a difference one weekend and an appearance by the sun can make. Enjoy and check out some of favourite tweets from the past week:  

Authorities censor Art Dubai in advance of a visit by members of the emirate’s ruling family


Good old fashioned Saturday morning cartoon



The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever 


Love it, then critique it: 3 subversive Mad Men remixes to ring in Sunday's premiere 


One tweet, 10,000 followers: Dissident artist Ai Weiwei slips, briefly, through China censor 
New Yorkers may enjoy this, a new app highlighting all of the different artwork on display in the subway system


An Avantgardistic Instinct for Relevances: Intellectuals and their Public, Jürgen Habermas 

Ai Weiwei Speaks Out From Beijing: CBC Feature Interview

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Ai Weiwei risks his personal security and future to speak out to the CBC about human
rights abuses in China and the conditions surrounding his current house arrest in Beijing.
image courtesy of galleristny.com
It has been nearly one year since Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei was arrested in China after a series of escalating episodes that resulted in the contemporary artist's 81 day detainment and silencing by the Beijing authority. Currently under house arrest and under close scrutiny by the local police who track his every move, it has become nearly impossible for Ai to operate in the same capacity that saw his rise in prominence and importance within the global art community. Significantly, he has been forbidden from utilizing social media and speaking with foreign journalists-- activities he has continued to undertake as a way of keeping in communication with supporters beyond China. He has also been savvy in keeping up with his art practice (see my recent blog post here), finding ways to collaborate and maintain his active presence in the world of contemporary art.

In his first major North American interview since his detainment, Ai Weiwei takes on a considerable risk to himself and his family to discuss his situation and keep the conversation going about human rights abuses in China today. In the CBC interview with the art and culture program Q, he discusses the difficulties he has faced both mentally and physically during his long detainment, the question of whether he sees any aspect of his current condition as a form of performance art, and his decision to continue residing in China even after his current situation is resolved. He also warns Western politicians about the short-sighted approach and "bad message" that is sent to the Chinese authority by ignoring human rights abuses while continuing to build economic ties with China. He singles out Canada for this violation and persuasively speaks about the mixed message that is received in Chinese society with respect to the need for social change when so much is ignored by the West when it comes to the internal conditions in the country. Sadly, Ai does not believe that power will shift any time soon within China, but he does believe that external pressure and the consciousness raising through the conditions of his arrest will help others come to recognize the true face of the current Beijing authority. In terms of art's power to affect social change, Ai maintains that it is through collective efforts and "ordinary people's passion" that such transformation is possible.

Weekly Twitter Round-Up

Surrealist cartography of Manhattan by artist Jennifer Maravillas.
Discoverd her projects via Twitter link this week, check it out in my list below.

More than a week without a blog post—I know. Let’s just say that something had to give this month. Publishing deadlines, more grading, administrative duties (along with my regular teaching schedule) have made up the bulk of my days lately and I am looking forward to a bit more time now that I have a number of these items off my to-do list. On a happy note, I was invited to New York to present a paper on new media art by conference organizers of the Critical Themes in Media Studies Conference at the New School. It will be an amazing opportunity to meet other researchers working in the ever-expanding field of new media theory and history. As a result, I now have a trip to NYC in mid-April to look forward to and can check out and report back on a couple of the exhibitions I had suggested at the beginning of the year on my 2012 list (notably #2, #4 and #6). I hear it is already springtime on the East Coast—it cannot come soon enough here. While we wait out here in Vancouver, I wish you all a Happy St. Patrick’s Day weekend and invite you to check out some of my favourite tweets from the past week:

Maps have never looked so good - Surrealist Cartography by Jennifer Maravillas 


Why art will not suffer death by digital 



Want students to succeed? A new study says the best approach is to let them fail: 


Why today is the most exciting time to be working on the internet



Video games enter realm of art in Smithsonian show



The Cinema of Transgression: 16 films made on NYC's Lower East Side in the early 80s: 


Can we say we’ve read a book if we haven’t finished it? Sometimes enough is enough, Tim Parks argues


Research Paper Survival Kit: Links, Tutorials, Strategies

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Better to be safe than sorry-- make a plan and prepare for paper-writing season. 
 Yes, it is indeed that time of year again. Here is my research paper survival kit for all of you to use in good health:
For an even more detailed approach to writing a research paper (especially if you are new to university and/or have not written a research paper before), see my previous post "Research Paper Season: Are You Prepared?" that breaks down the steps above to an even greater degree. Good luck and remember that the best research papers are ones that set out a clearly established argument (thesis) and make direct references to your sources. We don't necessarily expect original research from undergraduates, but we do expect to see a framework for how you arrived at your final conclusions.