Author: Past editor, Victoria Glanowski

What is performance art ? It is a time-based art form rather than a permanent artistic gesture that has a beginning and end. The artist forces the audience to be in the present thus challenging them to participate while educating them about current conditions. 

The orgins of performance art dates back to the Middle Ages with the traveling troubadours and performances of the court minstrels, but really grew into existence in the 20th century with movements such as Dada, Futurism, Automatism, Noveau Realisme, Fluxus, Neo-Dada, Body Art and Feminist Art. It became a movement in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Performance art is not a passive art but, an “action” art that focused on the “message” expressed by the performance artist. Below are two examples of performance artists that have succeeded in this art medium.

Marina Abramovic bursted onto the scene in the 1970’s with “cathartic performances that tested the limits of spectator participation and personal safety (“Between 1973-1974”, 2015). She used her own body as art.  Rhythm 10 is an excellent example of this and her first performance piece. For this particular performance she used 20 knives of different sizes and shapes and adapted the slavic knife game called “five finger fillet”. This game lasted till each knife was used twice. Another example is Rhythm 0, which was the last performance of the Rhythm Series that involved her objectifying her body for an audience that gradually became aggressive. This performance lasted for 6 hours and involved the audience to do whatever they wanted with her body that included the use of the 72 objects provided. Her emotionally and physically challenging performance pieces have been highly influential in performance art and earned her the title of “grandmother of performance art”. 

Guillermo Gómez-Peña is another performance artist. He came onto the art scene in the 1980’s and incorporates activism into his pieces. In 1992, his most notable work came out which is titled Couple in The Cage: Two Amerindians Visit the West in collaboration with Coco Fusco. It was about responding to the widespread commemoration of the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’s arrival to the Americans while focusing on colonial ideas regarding the exploitation, captivity, and abuse of indigenous people.  What Gómez-Peña notice was that the audience still held onto these colonial ideas of Western thought towards non-Western cultures and that they need to let go of these mentalities. 

As an activist, much of his work is about erasing the divide between art and politics. His most current work to date is the perfect example of this: The Most (un) Documented Mexican Artist performed at Los Angles Contemporary Exhibitions. In this particular piece, he presents an eclectic perspective on the prompt future of the Americans. 

As you can see, both of these artists have used their art to teach society about itself, hoping to point out the attitudes and mindsets of the current society we live in. Finally, art is necessary for the advancement of civilization, thus letting go of outdated ideas can civilization be allowed to move on to a better world.

Other notable performance artists:

Joseph Beuys

Ana Mendieta

Works Cited:  

Between 1973-1974, Abramović performed five pieces. (2015, February 10). Retrieved from https://blogs.uoregon.edu/marinaabramovic/category/rhythm-series/

Butler, Anne Marie. (2012, January 22). Performance Art Movement Overview and Analysis. Retreved from https://www.theartstory.org/movement/performance-art/artworks/#pnt_5

Lopez, Mia. (2014, October 14).  A History of Revisionism: Contemporary Art and Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day. Retrieved from https://walkerart.org/magazine/a-history-of-revisionism-contemporary-art-and-columbusindigenous-peoples-day

Stromberg, Matt. (2018, February 14). “Welcome to a World Without Trump!”: Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s Latest Performance. Retrieved from https://hyperallergic.com/427085/the-most-un-documented-mexican-artist-guillermo-gomez-pena-lace/

Before diving into the past let’s ask ourselves how important is art to learning? Some say not that much while others say it is significant to learning and understanding the world. Below are two art colleges that deviated from traditional colleges in the 20th century. 

Bauhaus was a school of design that started in 1919 by Walter Gropius in the German city of Weimar. In 1925 it moved to the city of Dessau and finally to Berlin in 1932. It changed hands many times and combined fine arts and crafts. Besides from the fact that it was an art school, the minimalistic design that it taught and publicized became well-known throughout the world. Aside from the school being progressive, especially in the manifesto that Gropius written in 1919, stated that it welcomed “everyone without regard to age or sex”, students still meet with discrimination. The women who went there faced prejudice from the professors that they could not work in the more “challenging” fields of metalwork and architecture. Nevertheless, only 11 female students preserve and worked in the more “challenging” fields.  It closed in 1933 due to constant harassment by the Nazis. 

Another art institution that was also progressive was Black Mountain College. It ended up becoming a haven for Bauhaus expats when it opened up in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was started by John A. Rice who left Rollins College due to controversy. And was born out of a desire to create a new type of college based on John Dewey’s principles of progressive education. At the time, the college was a community-centered education that was owned and operated by the faculty. The traditional hierarchies that are usually found at colleges were non-existent. The community type environment was meant to inspire “the individual student with a sense of his or her relations to others and the environment.” The Liberal Arts College was committed to democratic governance and to the idea that the arts are central to the experience of learning. Even though it was located in the south at a time when it was segregated, the Black Mountain community did have 11 black students before closing in 1957.

Therefore, even though both schools were seen as a progressive they both faced challenges. What they left behind is still present to this day; a simple revolutionary design and a community-based education.

Works Cited: 

Kino, Carol. (2015, March 16). In the Spirit of Black Mountain College, an Avant-Garde Incubator. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/arts/artsspecial/in-the-spirit-of-black-mountain-college-an-avant-garde-incubator.html

Gotthardt, Alexxa. (2017, April 3). The Women of the Bauhaus School. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-women-bauhaus-school 

Lutyen, Dominic. (2018, September 20). Anni Albers and the Forgotten Women of the Bauhaus. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180919-anni-albers-and-the-forgotten-women-of-the-bauhaus

Pearce, J., Michael. (2019, June 1). Why Art Schools Are Disappearing.  https://fee.org/articles/why-art-schools-are-disappearing/#disqus_thread

Ritter, M., Jennifer. (2011, December 30). Beyond Progressive Education: Why John Andrew Rice Really Opened Black Mountain College. https://scholarship.rollins.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=rurj

Saval, Nikil.(2019, February 4). How Bauhaus Redefined What Design Could Do for Society. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/t-magazine/bauhaus-school-architecture-history.html?module=inline

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/black-mountain-college/

http://www.blackmountaincollege.org/history/

Recently, I interviewed Annie Meyer who is one of the leading figures in the Portland art scene. Long story short, Meyer came to Portland in the 1980’s while driving up from California and oddly enough her car broke down in Portland. In 1995, she opened up her art gallery on Clinton Street and in 2010 opened up a successful art gallery in the Pearl District before closing it in 2018. In 2004, Meyer received a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council to create a map of First Friday Art Walk. Meyer is one of the few people that has witnessed the changes in the Portland art culture over the years. 

Speaking of changes, in the past 20 years, the art scene in Portland has not changed for the better and has “devolved”. This can be due to the increasing rent prices happening in Portland due to new developments that has to do with gentrification. 

With the rise of gentrification in Portland, it has affected the art scene in the process and has made it worse, especially for emerging artists getting their start. Meyer’s thoughts on how gentrification affected the art scene in Portland is that it is: 

More expensive for artist to have a gallery to sell their art.

Brings in people with money, but they are either not buying art or

maybe it is harder for them to find artists. 

~Annie Meyer

As to making the art scene more accessible to emerging artists coming from different cities and states. Portland needs to encourage artists to be part of the art scene. First Friday Art Walk is one example that Meyer suggested and to elaborate further:

[You need] cheaper places and First Friday Art Walk is perfect.

It is less about drinking and more about art.

 ~ Annie Meyer

This coming August and September, First Friday is having an Art Party, that is at no cost for artists, which will help them tremendously. As a quick mention, First Friday Art Walk recently became a non-profit.

Therefore, Portland is an art buying city, but in times like these, everyone has to step in and help make it a thriving and lasting art culture. Not only does the art community has to be doing the work, but the city has to be doing its part as well. Finally, when people from different backgrounds put aside their differences and work together for a cause, change happens for the better. 

Forget Banksy for a second and let’s focus our attention on the women taking on the male dominate world of street art. Here are 5 female street artists making headlines and giving new meaning to street art.

American artist Caledonia Curry, aka Swoon, known for her wheat pasting, is also an activist and humanitarian. Her projects/work include: Konbit Shelter, which helps to rebuild communities in Haiti and the Braddock Tiles project that enables local employment and arts training in North Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Shamsia Hassani, who is the first female Afghani graffiti/street artist, is also a associate professor of sculpture at Kabul University. Her art depicts women as “strong, independent figures.” The figures can be seen with musical instruments, inside of which they either play or carry, and which act as a vehicles for self­-expression.

Nina Wright, aka Girl Mobb, who hails from Oakland, California, creates work that expands on the theme of “urban girly grotesque,” where her figures display their hairy legs as they lounge. She has been doing graffiti since she was a teenager in her rural hometown in Ohio. When she moved to Oakland, although she found community through street art, she also found herself as the only female in her crew,  This lead her to create a graffiti camp for girls to hopefully shift the gender imbalance in street art. Her graffiti camp proved such a success when she launched it 2017 she has since been asked to bring the camp to other cities around the country.

Vexta is an artist from Australia whose theme gravitates towards feminine forms that are painted with bright colors. Her thoughts on inequality in the street art world: “Often you’re [sic] doing a project there’ll be the inclusion of one girl. Or people go to the other extreme and make it all girls. There’s no middle ground, which to me highlights the inequality.”

As you can see, many of these artists focus on inequality in the art field and society. These artists want to be considered on the basis of their works alone, and not their gender, for this to happen there needs to be a change.

Other notable mentions:
ELLE
Bambi
Lady Pink
Clare Rojas
Maya H
Olek
Lady Aiko

Work Cited:
Ryzik, Melena. (2014, Aug 6) Life Wonderment: Swoon Blurs the Line Between Art and Activism. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/arts/design/swoon­-blurs­-The­-line­-between­-art­-and­-activism.html

Burke, Sarah. (2017, Aug 14) Dismantling the Street Art Boys Club at an All ­ Girls Graffiti Camp. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjj5yq/dismantling-­street­-art-patriarchy­-graffiti-­camp­-girls

Henry, Roland. (2015, Jan 7) Meet the woman redefining street art. Retrieved from https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/07/street­-art­women-elle­-swoon­-vexta

Graham ­ Harrison, Emma (2012, Feb 24) Art in the Streets of Kabul. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/24/graffiti­-street­-art­-kabul