|
You're walking down the road when you see a bundle of rags and boxes dumped on the pavement. Then you notice an arm sticking out of it. Do you:
- hurry on by?
- call 999?
- kick the arm and giggle?
Now you can take a bow: you have just been part of Tom Geoghegan's performance artwork Rubbish. Geoghegan performs around London in a number of sinister guises, holding a steady pose for hours at a time. He may suspend himself from the side of a tower block or hang from a tree.
Live art, aka performance art, tends to involve the unexpected. Other than that it's hard to define. It may have elements in common with performance arts such as experimental drama or dance, but it moves beyond the conventions and usual boundaries of these other genres.
Some live artists use shock tactics. Remember JJ Xi and Cai Yuan, who had a pillow-fight on Tracey Emin's My Bed in the Turner Prize exhibition? This Chinese duo often uses slapstick violence to parody western stereotypes of the east, staging soy-sauce-and-ketchup fights in the street.
Michelle Griffith's work is equally dynamic, with the emphasis on performance, though the mood is very different. She specialises in acting out dreamlike scenarios with an element of surrealism or menace. In one work, she runs through a public park, wearing crinoline and pursued by a large black box with two glowing lamps like eyes.
Art of the audience
Some acts seem closer to more conventional drama. Bobby Baker, for example, who has become one of the UK's best-known live artists, has performed her off-the-wall housewife persona at the Barbican. But her work isn't what most theatre audiences would expect, because the barriers between audience and performer are broken down – for instance, one of Baker's shows involves her taking the audience shopping for boxes.
The audience then, may become a crucial part of the work. Joshua Sofaer, who appears wearing seat-less trousers at the beginning of the Beware Live Art film, plays with this idea in his work Performance Pack, a kit that supplies all you need to make your own performance art.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, internationally famous for decoratively wrapping up cliffs and skyscrapers, are at the more sculptural end of the spectrum, as is the early work of Gilbert and George, which the artists describe both as 'actions' and as 'living sculptures'.
So can such a diverse and elusive form of art have identifiable roots?
|
