Live Art in LA: Performance in Southern California, 1970 - 1983

257 Pages·2012·9.9 MB·English

by  Peggy Phelan

LIVE ART IN LA
Live Art in LA: Performance in Southern California, 1970–1983 documents and
critically examines one of the most fecund periods in the history of live art. The
book forms part of the Getty Institute’s Pacific Standard Time initiative—a series
of exhibitions, performance re-enactments and research projects focused on
the greater Los Angeles area. This extraordinary volume, beautifully edited by
one of the leading scholars in the field, makes vivid the compelling drama of
performance history on the West Coast.
Live Art in LA:
• moves lucidly between discussions of legendary figures such as Judy
Chicago and Chris Burden, and the crucial work of less-celebrated solo
artists and collectives;
• examines the influence of key institutions, particularly Los Angeles
Contemporary Exhibitions and the California Institute of the Arts—and
the Feminist Art Program established there in 1970;
• features original and incisive essays by Peggy Phelan and Amelia Jones, and
compelling contributions by Michael Ned Holte, Suzanne Lacy and Jennifer
Flores Sternad.
Combining cutting-edge research with over 100 challenging and provocative
photographs and video stills, Live Art in LA represents a major re-evaluation of
a crucial moment in performance history. And, as performance art becomes
ever more relevant to the history of art, this volume will become a vital and
enduring resource for students, academics, and artists alike.
Peggy Phelan is the author of Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (1993);
Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories (1997); the survey essay for Art and
Feminism, ed. Helena Reckitt (2001); the survey essay for Pipilotti Rist (2001);
and the catalog essay for Intus: Helena Almeida (2004). She is co-editor, with
the late Lynda Hart, of Acting Out: Feminist Performances (1993); and co-editor
with Jill Lane of The Ends of Performance (1997). She has published more than
60 articles and essays in scholarly, artistic, and commercial magazines ranging
from Artforum to Signs, which have been cited in the fields of architecture, art
history, psychoanalytic criticism, visual culture, performance studies, theater
studies, and film and video studies.
“Peggy Phelan’s keen editorial eye and astute introductory essay brings
together an important, literate collection of inquiries into Los Angeles
as a generative and often over-looked site for foundational performance
art during a crucial period of the form’s history. But these lucid,
incisive essays also address key contemporary issues in art historical
and live performance: should classic Happenings and performance
art pieces be re-enacted? By whom? How and where? What’s the
relationship between live performance and its documentation? Each
contributor takes up these questions and more, offering lively, cogent,
and fluid mash-ups of history, testimony, memoir, criticism, theory,
and first-hand accounts of live performance and reenactments that
communicate the excitement of creating art work on the edge, in a
historical and cultural milieu to which it responds and shapes. Live
Art in LA pays close attention to race and gender as an ordinary rather
than exceptional part of this history, detailing contributions by Marina
Abramovic´, Yvonne Rainer, Suzanne Lacy, Judy Chicago, Rachel
Rosenthal, Linda Montano, Senga Nengudi, Faith Wilding, Guerillmo
Gomez-Pena and many others alongside those by Chris Burden and
Allan Kaprow. Deeply concerned with the afterlife of performance and
with writing as a practice of tribute; with historical remainders and
reminders; with contesting the binary between live performance and
its archive; with the relationship between the photograph (in all its
analog and digital differences) and performance; and with violence
and creation, this vibrant collection addresses the market for live art
and its documentation, inquiring into its ontological and commodity
status. I’m eager to share this book with colleagues and students.”
Jill Dolan, Director, Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Princeton
University, USA
“Vital documents and testimonies from the LA art and performance
scenes combine with astute critical writing that will reorient estab-
lished histories of American art and culture. Through diverse revisions
of the archival life of performance the authors have finely traced the
aesthetic and political fault lines of one of today’s most forceful and
revealing forms of cultural expression.”
Adrian Heathfield, Professor of Performance and Visual Culture,
University of Roehampton, UK
LIVE ART IN LA
Performance in Southern California,
1970–1983
EDITED BY PEGGY PHELAN
Published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation
First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 selection and editorial matter, Peggy Phelan; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Peggy Phelan to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Live art in LA : performance in Southern California, 1970–1983 / edited
by Peggy Phelan. – 1st.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Performance art–California, Southern. I. Phelan, Peggy.
NX511.L67L58 2012
709.794′909047–dc23
2011035719
ISBN: 978-0-415-68422-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-68423-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-12815-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Berkeley
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
For Laura Grace Phelan, beautiful artist of the everyday
CONTENTS
List of illustrations viii
Notes on contributors xii
Acknowledgments xiv
1 VIOLENCE AND RUPTURE: misfires of the ephemeral 1
Peggy Phelan
2 HAPPENING AGAIN: reinventing Allan Kaprow 39
Michael Ned Holte
3 VOICES, VARIATIONS, AND DEVIATIONS: from the
LACE archive of southern California performance art 61
Suzanne Lacy and Jennifer Flores Sternad
4 LOST BODIES: early 1970s Los Angeles performance art
in art history 115
Amelia Jones
Index 185
ILLUSTRATIONS
1 Cover of High Performance with Suzanne Lacy 7
2 Eva Hesse: Accession II 15
3 Eva Hesse: Installation view at “Eva Hesse, A Memorial
Exhibition,” 1973 18
4 Eva Hesse: Repetition Nineteen III, July 1968 21
5 Kim Jones: Roof Sculpture, Venice, CA, 1973–74 22
6 Kim Jones, 1975 24
7 Kim Jones: Grandfathers, 1958–1959–2009 25
Plates between pages 18 and 19
8 Guillermo Gomez-Peña: Dos Misterios, 1979
9 Kim Jones: Telephone Pole, Los Angeles, CA, 1978
10 Bodacious Buggerrilla: Miss America Piece, 1971
11 Bodacious Buggerrilla: Shop’n at the Co-Op, 1970–71
12 Chris Burden: Shoot, 1971
13 Chris Burden: Shoot, 1971
14 Bob & Bob: Forget Everything You Know, LAICA, 1979–80
15 Dorit Cypis: HisStory is Real, 1981
16 Dorit Cypis: Self Comfort, 1974
17 Dorit Cypis: Self Comfort, 1974
18 Eva Hesse: Contingent, 1969
19 Maren Hassinger: Twelve Trees #2, 1979
20 Maren Hassinger: Leaning, 1979
21 Maren Hassinger: Leaning, 1979 (detail)
22 Maren Hassinger: Paradise, 1990
23 Lowell Darling: Listen/Hear, 1972
24 Sandra Orgel: Linen Closet
25 Simone Forti: Sleepwalkers, 2010
26 Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz: In Mourning and In Rage, 1977
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IX
27 The Waitresses (Jerri Allyn and Anne Gauldin): Ready to Order?,
1978
28 Allan Kaprow: 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, Kaprow Prepares For
18 Happenings in 6 Parts, 1959 40
29 Allan Kaprow: Allan Kaprow 18: Happenings in 6 Parts, by Steve
Roden, 2008 41
30 Joseph Beuys: How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 1965 47
31 Marina Abramovic´ performing Joseph Beuys’s How to Explain
Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965), Seven Easy Pieces, November 13,
2005 48
32 Allan Kaprow: Household, 1964 55
Plates between pages 82 and 83
33 Suzanne Lacy, Three Weeks in May, 1977
34 Marina Abramovic´ and Ulay: Imponderabilia, 1977
35 Marina Abramovic´: Imponderabilia, 2010
36 Ulysses Jenkins: Dream City, 1981
37 Robby Herbst: Household Revisited (Peaceniks & Tree Huggers), 2008
38 Hirokazu Kosaka: Music Box, 1970
39 Hirokazu Kosaka:The Fox of Shinoda Woods, 1983
40 Judy Chicago: A Butterfly for Oakland
41 Simone Forti and Charlemange Palestine: filmstrips of
performance, 1973
42 John Malpede: Dead Dog and Lonely Horse: Adventures in LA, 1978
43 Suzanne Lacy: Ablutions, 1972
44 John Malpede: Dead Dog and Lonely Horse: Adventures in LA, 1978
45 John Malpede: Generic Performance: Packaging & Self-Esteem, 1983
46 Harry Gamboa, Jr.: Latchkey, 1983
47 Jacki Apple: The Garden Planet Revisited, 1982
48 Barry Markowitz: Aesop, 1977
49 Barry Markowitz: Aesop, 1977
50 Guillermo Gomez-Peña: Border Walk, 1979
51 Lowell Darling: Raw Material, 1976 62
52 Simone Forti and Charlemange Palestine: photos of performance
on video monitor, CalArts, 1973 66
53 Eleanor Antin: King of Solana Beach, 1974–75 67
54 Richard Newton: “Those of you who wish to touch a penis may do
so now,” Touch a Penis with the Former Miss Barstow, 1977 71