"Undiscovered Amerindians"

[KoPilot]

I know this might be old news to some of you, but for a class I'm reading an interview done in '93 for Bomb magazine with the two artists responsible for the performance piece. It's incredibly interesting what they did, and it brings out a lot of the sinister ugliness of the Western world that we only think can only be found in history books. Here's a bit near the end that hit pretty hard:

Anna Johnson: Your image of the woman in the cage is a very sexually loaded image.

Coco Fusco: Eliciting the same type of comments women hear on the street. I think men do that because they think they can get away with it—I’m in a cage; how can I understand? Or even if I can understand, I’m in character, so I can’t react. A lot of guys get a kick out of that. Also, I had very little clothing. To repressed Westerners, my costume represented pure sexuality.

AJ: Like dressing Naomi Campbell up as a Northern African tribeswoman, or Gaugin’s Tahitian odalisque…

CF: In Minneapolis, people tended to be less verbally aggressive, choosing instead to take pictures, more than the Spanish or British had. I decided that their way of sublimating was voyeurism.

AJ: People feel that with a camera, they have the right to make a theft. Do you feel stripped-down, exhausted, after you’ve been in the cage for a few weeks?

CF: It’s physically tiring but nonetheless fascinating.

Guillermo Gomez-Pena: I think every human being who undergoes the experience of living in a cage for three days would have a different experience according to their degree of familiarity with being exposed to the public eye. Coco and I had very different experiences. Coco, as a woman, has had to face this sinister experience of always being objectified. Because of that, she has already developed mechanisms of protection against that gaze which make her seem very tough. She can turn off an inner channel and disconnect from that experience, just as she would riding the subway.

AJ: And you, as a male, experiencing the perpetual gaze?

GGP: I had a more emotionally involved experience, I don’t know how to turn off. As a result I came out of the cage three days later completely, spiritually devastated. And Coco was complete and whole and ready to do the next piece.

Full interview here

Thoughts?

 

[YourCaptor]

Cages are awesome

So versatile

 

[Netzach]

I know this might be old news to some of you, but for a class I'm reading an interview done in '93 for Bomb magazine with the two artists responsible for the performance piece. It's incredibly interesting what they did, and it brings out a lot of the sinister ugliness of the Western world that we only think can only be found in history books. Here's a bit near the end that hit pretty hard:



Full interview here

Thoughts?

Completely irrelevant but I was interning for them (BOMB) right around - then. Good times, though the stature of a lot of the people I was dealing with was something I think I only understood in retrospect and the value of the exposure I had to the material they worked with then, again - only percolated recently. It's a great publication and I think that was its heyday. Possible favorite interview: Ross Bleckner interviewing Felix Gonzales Torres.

I think Guillermo's thoughts on gender at the end are pretty amazing. There's been a lot of stuff like they said on Ota Benga and I wonder if the public would be as naive now, but I guess that was as good a question in '93.

You're probably aware of a lot of the performance/body based art that always seems to skate on the same ice as sexual deviance - I forget who was tied together with a rope for a year, and then there's Chris Burden and Vito Acconci - but the racial and cultural aspect of this one set it apart.

 

[KoPilot]

You're probably aware of a lot of the performance/body based art that always seems to skate on the same ice as sexual deviance - I forget who was tied together with a rope for a year, and then there's Chris Burden and Vito Acconci - but the racial and cultural aspect of this one set it apart.

I'm actually... not, unfortunately. Some Latino performance pieces from the 60's and 70's, and a few contemporary things. My knowledge on the subject is woefully lacking, especially since I always end up loving what I read about.

But now I'm suddenly reminded of the Marina Abramovic retrospective at MoMA last year: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/arts/design/16public.html

Contrast the above with that! But I agree; the cultural "divide" that they manufactured there was the real kicker for me. I was re-reading the article and framed it with a bit of BDSM context when I made this thread, and it made me think of lots of stuff; humiliation scenes, mostly. Just a sort of "hm!", you might say. Nothing really coherent.

 

[Netzach]

But now I'm suddenly reminded of the Marina Abramovic retrospective at MoMA last year: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/arts/design/16public.html

I so want to know if this kind of thing happened when it debuted - I think it might be getting worse - it's like the idea of nonsexualized nudity doesn't exist any longer at all because everyone actually buys the right wing take on it.

She's one of the people I thought about. She did a piece where she cut herself. Then there was the Ron Athey freak out in Minneapolis - the SM content was very overt.

I'm only partially informed about a lot of this stuff, which almost no one cares about LOL - I recommend the book "On Edge - Performance in the 80's"