BODYWORKS
(artists
working with the body)
This exhibition features forty-two works by
artists who all use their own and/or others’ bodies in their works. I hope the
following texts, by and about the artists, will illuminate and expand upon the
varieties of artistic practices in which the ‘body’ takes center stage. Stephen Perkins
1. Banana Productions, VILE Covers’ Series:
4th edition, DADA Shave #1, Bill Gaglione and Anna Banana,
Summer 1976.
2. Banana Productions, VILE Covers’ Series:
Homage to Duchamp, Anna Banana and Buster Cleveland, August
1978. Vile magazine was a
magazine that was published in 7 issues between 1974-1983 by Banana and
Gaglione. Started in response to the Canadian artists’ periodical File,
and its lack of coverage of the then burgeoning mail art network, the
periodical drew heavily on historical Dada and its tradition of dadazines.
These two covers are inspired by Duchamp’s 1919 piece in which he cut a star in
his hair as a possible play on the title of a Roussel play “The Star on the
Forehead.”
3. Kaprow, Alan (1927-2006), Pose,
1969. Performance documentation. The
founder of ‘happenings’ and a pioneer in creating installations, Kaprow was at
the forefront of thinking about art and its activities in new & different
ways. An influential teacher and writer, he will perhaps be most remembered for
attempting to close the gap between art and life through the agency of his
works.
4. Singh, Vishavjit, Captain America,
2015. Offset print. “I settled on a rock
in Central Park, the New York skyline behind me. A glassy new skyscraper neared
completion in its stretch toward the skies. I was striking a few poses in my
superhero costume when a young boy perched higher on a rock chimed in.
“Captain America does not have a turban and
beard,” he said. He had a child’s curious tone. No malevolence.
“Why not?” I asked him. “I was born here. We
could have a new Captain America who is Sikh or black or Hispanic.”” [source: Salon,
9.10.13]
5. Dudek-Durer, Andrzej, Metaphysical-Telepathic
Self Portrait 1971-?, 1471-1985, photocopy. In 1969
the Polish artist Dudek-Durer “… discovered that he was an incarnation of
Albrecht Dürer. He started to identify with the Renaissance artist and became
to realize works alluding to Dürer on many levels – through the themes explored
by the German woodcut creator, iconographic references to his works, and
autobiographical strands. Except for spiritual and artistic affinity, there are
other connections between the two artists – including an uncanny physical
resemblance.” [source: http://culture.pl/en/artist/andrzej-dudek-durer]
6. Mellberg, Allyson, Untitled, nd.
Drawing. Mellberg is an Associate
Professor of Art at James Madison University in Virginia and she does these
cool portraits where the figures usually have some terrible affliction of some
kind and its ravages can be seen on her figure’s faces and yet at the same time
these works seem quite lovable and endearing.
7. Nauman, Bruce, Self-portrait
as a fountain, 1977/70. Postcard. An
amusing work that pays homage to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), which
was a urinal that he submitted to the first annual exhibition of the Society of
Independent Artists in 1917, and which was subsequently rejected by the
exhibition committee. This work is part of a folio of 11 photographs that
comprise Nauman’s Photographic Suite all of which were inspired by puns.
Nauman is also referencing statues in decorative fountains that often spew
water in this manner, all of this within his larger exploration of the role of
the artist and the artwork. Indeed around this time Nauman was using the
following phrase The true artist is an amazing luminous fountain in a
number of his text-based works. The other key aspect to this work is that the
artist and his ‘work’ have become one and the same. [source: whitney museum of art,
online]
8. Stonehouse, Fred, It’s a little late
now, risograph, 2015, from “Handwerk” a Risograph portfolio printed by Jan Matthe at Risiko Press and published by De
Bomen in Het Bos in an edition of 50.
This work is from a cool risograph print portfolio curated by Colin
Matthes during a residency at the cultural center Het Bos in Antwerp, Belgium,
and it features artists from both Belgium and the USA. This particular print by
this wisconsin surrealist badboy reveals not only his trademark ‘humor’ but
also his preoccupation with the body in all its shapes and sizes, and then
subjected to a wonderful myriad of terrible & mostly awful things.
9. Kahn, Robin, Professional Model, nd. Black
& white photocopy. A humorous work
in which this New York artist substituted her own head for that of the
‘professional model’ in this photocopy poster for a professional model seeking
work. This piece raises all sorts of issues as Kahn has literally offered to
rent out her body.
10. Wyand, Joan & Guillermo Gomez-Pena, New Border,
collaborative print folio (cover image), 2012. [edition: 250] This silkscreened
cover page is signed by both artists and the text found inside the silhouetted
body and its address to bohemian and delinquent bodies is as follows: “We, the artists and intellectuals famous and
unknown. We, bohemians walking on millennial thin ice; our bodies pierced,
tattooed, martyred, scarred, our skin covered with hieroglyphs and flaming
questions. We the witches who transform trash into wearable art. We, Living
Museum of Modern Oddities and Sacred Monsters. We, vatos cromados y chucas
neo-barriocas. We bad boys and bad girls over 50. We, the Hollywood refuseniks,
the greaser bandits and holy outlaws of advanced Capitalism. We, without guns,
without Bibles. We, who never pray to the police or to the army. We, who never
kissed the hand of a bishop or a curator. We, who barter and exchange favors
and talismans. We, who still believe in community, a much stranger and wider
community. We, the artists and intellectuals who still do not wish to comply.
We, who talk back in rarified symbols against the corruption of formalized
religion and art. We critical brain mass, spoken word profetica. We, the urban
monks who pray in….We who put on hats, masks and wigs to shout: ‘You can’t just
take my art away!!!!’ We continue to talk back, speak up, and make art.”
11. Larter Pat, (1936-1996), from film
“Thicko-Thicko,” Femail Art, B/W photograph, c. 1985.
12. Larter, Pat, (1936-1996), from film
“Thicko-Thicko,” Femail Art, B/W photograph, c. 1985. Larter was born in
the UK but immigrated to Australia with her painter husband, Richard (Dick)
Larter in 1962. A longtime model, muse and collaborator with her husband, she
comes out from behind the easel and begins to stage in-home performances that
were documented by Dick starting in 1974. At the same time she becomes an
active participant in the international mail art network sending sexually
explicit photographs of herself throughout the network as well as coining the
term ‘FEMAIL ART.’ On the provocative nature of her performance photographs she
states “I worked then as a body or performance artist, most of my work being
parodies of malegiven sexual stereotypes imposed on women by the media and the
male world in general.” [Fenici, #5, 1987, Spain]
13. Sprinkle, Annie, War is menstrual
envy, 1983. Postcard. Sprinkle
worked as a prostitute between 1973-92 and is now a well known sex positive
activist and educator, but perhaps she is most famous for her performance A
Public Cervix Announcement first performed in New York in 1988 and
internationally since then. This performance involves inviting audience members
onto the stage and holding a speculum in one hand and a flashlight in the
other, they’re invited to view Sprinkles’ cervix.
14. Cheong, Yeonheo, Burkini and
Facekini, a set of 5, 2017. Screenprint.
15. Cheong, Yeonheo, Burkini and
Facekini, a set of 5, 2017. Screenprint.
A curious and unsettling pair of works from a larger set of five by this
South Korean artist who recently completed an MFA in Design Studies at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. In a statement on her website she addresses
her current interests and this is reflected in the work included in this
exhibition and she states, “More recently she began to focus on how to endow
her subjects – women – power and dignity through their bodies and outfits that
are their own.”
16. Moore, Frank (1946-2013) Pleasure
friction of intimacy: A performance by Frank Moore, 2003. Photocopy
poster. Born with cerebral palsy Moore
was a performance artist, shaman, publisher and writer who performed regularly
in the Bay Area. Using his disabled body to his own advantage he developed a
performance practice that was centered around the erotics of the body
(“eroplay”) and a performative model that depended upon the audience’s
participation and collaboration. Moore received national attention when he was
targeted by Senator Jesse Helms in the 1980s. For further information on this
remarkable artist see: eroplay.com
17. Nato, Untitled, performance documentation, c.
1995. Offset print. In the mid-1990’s
the French painter NATO organized at least two events/festivals called Art
and Absence of Clothes the purpose of which was “…to present Art in its
creative stage: the moment of the act, the throw, the impulse…associated with
its original material, ‘the human body.’ Opening its mouth, shouting speaking,
singing the human body becomes poetry…the human body is the painter of the
Society, of which the work of Art is the unique remaining mirror.” Pamphlet for
festival #2, 1995.
18. Tót, Endre, I AM GLAD IF I CAN STAMP, 1971.
Postcard of “Stamp on Cosey-Fanni Tutti’s knickers,” 1976. Photo by Genesis
P-Orridge.
19. Tót, Endre, A Note on Cosey Fanny Tutti’s Bum,
1977. Postcard, London. Photo by Genesis P-Orridge. Endre Tót was an early mail artist from
Hungary who pioneered the rubber stamp as an artistic medium and here he
strategically positions this stamp from his My Joy (1971) series on the
knickers of fellow artist Cosey Fanny Tutti.
Tutti was one of the founding members of the performance/industrial
music groups Coum Transmissions (1969) and later Throbbing Gristle
(1976-1981) with Chris Carter, Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson & Genesis P-Orridge. Tutti also worked as a stripper and in the
pornographic film industry, later using these experiences as the raw material
in her artistic practice.
20. Cavellini, Guglielmo Achille, Cavellini,
Guglielmo Achille 1914 – 2014, nd. Promotional postcard & sticker.
Avant-garde art collector, rich playboy, artist and self-publisher who was
hoping to live to be 100 years old in 2014, but died an untimely death in 1990.
In the 1970s he connects with the emerging mail art network and floods this
network with his works including his volumes of reminiscences about his life as
a famous person and how important his artworks were. His over-the-top bombastic
and self-promotional persona was fortunately tinged with a heavy slice of
humor, which saved the whole project from being a rich man’s fantasy trip.
21. Anonymous, Untitled Silhouette, c. 1951/52.
Black paper cut-out on light brown paper.
“Cutting portraits, generally in profile, from black card became popular
in the mid-18th century, though the term silhouette was seldom used until the early decades of the 19th century, and
the tradition has continued under this name into the 21st century. They
represented a cheap but effective alternative to the portrait miniature, and skilled specialist
artists could cut a high-quality bust portrait, by far the most common style,
in a matter of minutes, working purely by eye. Other artists, especially from
about 1790, drew an outline on paper, then painted it in, which could be
equally quick.” [Wikipedia]
22. Hsieh, Tehching, One Year
Performance 1980-1981 (Time Piece) 11 April 1980-11 April 1981, nd. Postcard announcing catalogue for “Work
Ethic” curated/edited by Helen Molesworth (2002, Penn State University Press).
This performance piece by this Taiwanese artist is the second in a series
of three one-year performances, in the first one (1978-79) the artist spent the
year in a cage, for the second (1980-1981) he punched a time clock every hour
for a year, and for the last performance in 1981-1982 he spent the entire time
outside on the streets of Manhattan with a rule to never seek shelter.
23. Kruger, Barbara, Untitled, 1989.
Postcard. Since the late 1970s
Barbara Kruger has fashioned a career through combining images and texts in
ways that deconstruct a variety of social constructs, with a particular
emphasis on women’s roles and rights within our patriarchal culture.
24. Toche, Jean, In Memoriam, 2004. Digital print
for his wife Virginia Poe (Virginia Toche - 1922-2000) a ballerina and Miss
Cincinnati 1948 and who was Toche’s muse.
A founding member with Jon Hendricks and Poppy Johnson of the Guerrilla
Art Action Group (1969-76) Jean Toche has a long activist history. This
work from the early 2000s is part of a large output of image & text works
that Toche created and printed in his home and then mailed to a selected
mailing list. Never one to stay quiet about a perceived injustice Toche is
dogged once he takes aim at his target but this particular work shows a much
softer side to this fascinating man.
25. Piper, Adrian, My Calling (Card)
#3: Guerrilla Performance for Disputed Territorial Skirmishes, 2012.
Printed card [this version included in Artforum, January, 2018]. One in a series of Piper’s business
card-sized works that address her status as a person of color and as a woman,
with all of these works insisting on a respect for her bodily autonomy and for
herself as a woman. This card, and its publication at this particular moment in
time, obviously makes reference to the unfolding sexual misconduct charges
being made against many men in the wake of the Weinstein scandal and the
genesis of the #Me Too movement.
26. Bread & Puppet Press, Bodies: Our
Domestic Resurrection Circus 1997, Bread & Puppet, 1998. Artists’ book. Founded in 1963 by Peter
Schumann in New York City’s Lower East Side, and later moving out to a farm in
Glover, Northeast Vermont, the Bread and Puppet Theatre uses both bread and
oversized puppets in their socially engaged works. This small booklet features
photographs of oversized puppets/human figures clustered together in a rather
unsettling manner within this rural landscape.
27. Verna, Gelsy (1961-2008), Things
I Heard, c. 2006, photocopy. Gelsy
was a personal friend of my family and we all loved her. At the time of her
death she was exploring different ways of working and she used to photocopy her
‘research’ and send it to people, me included. I would comment on or detourn
whatever she sent, but either way this activity always seemed like a form of
conversation as things were exchanged between us, and I miss that. One thing
she had been exploring before her untimely death was her ethnicity, her Haitian
exile status, growing up in Canada, and being a black university art professor
and woman, in both Madison, Wisconsin and the United States in the early 2000s.
This work addresses one slice of her concerns and its awkwardness matches its
stereotyped ethnic notions.
28. P-Orridge, Breyer, Triple Androgyne, 2014. Screenprint, edition
200. In the 1990s, Genesis Breyer
P-Orridge began a collaboration with the performance artist, Lady Jaye Breyer.
Inspired by the language of true love and frustrated by what they felt to be
imposed limits on personal and expressive identity, Genesis and Lady Jaye
applied the “cut-up” technique to their own bodies in an effort to merge their
two identities, through plastic surgery, hormone therapy, cross-dressing and
altered behavior, into a single, pandrogynous character, “BREYER
P-ORRIDGE.” This project focused on one central concern—deconstructing the
fiction of self. They embraced a painterly, gestural approach to their own
bodies, making expressive and startling use of signifiers like eyebrows, lips,
and breasts, in an effort to resemble one another as much as possible. The work
was an exercise in truly elective, truly creative identity, and a test of how
fully two people could integrate their own lives, bodies, and consciousnesses.
One
phase of this collaborative project ended, tragically, when Lady Jaye passed
away in 2007. But Genesis has diligently continued to work on their shared
pandrogynous mission, and in the intervening years has produced a remarkable
collection of work that testifies with astounding power to h/er devotion to
this radical project and to h/er late wife, and that is a powerful reminder of
what real artistic commitment truly means. [text from artists’ website]
29. Steenbergh, Pat, Untitled sketchbook
page, nd. Pencil drawing. The nude,
the academic nude, the hand-drawn nude and the artists’ model (a nod to Quentin
Crisp here). The lessons of the body and its wonderful complexity have always
been of interest to artists.
30. SR, Untitled Self-Portrait, c. 1998.
Digital print, with handwritten dedication.
31. SR, Self-Portrait for Stephen Perkins,
1998. Digital print. Longtime Brit mail
artist, Robin Crozier (1936-2001) gave my contact information to SR, who was
just starting her i am everywhere project in the UK, and she wrote to me
about her work and also sent a bunch of her “I am everywhere” stickers. In 1998
SR published the first issue of her i am everywhere Magazine with a cute
photo of my daughter on the cover with one of her stickers on her butt! SR also sent me a number of her
self-portraits and two examples are in this exhibit. The Independent
[3.10.98] in 1998 called SR …”the art world’s It-girl….famous for being
famous.” After about two years of contact I lost touch with SR so I never found
out how her global i am everywhere project turned out.
32. Emin, Tracey, (The Last Thing I
said to you is don’t leave me here. 1) Self-portrait, 2000.
Postcard. National Portrait Gallery,
London. One of a pair of photographs, in an edition of six, that depict Emin
naked inside her beach hut on the Kent seaside. The Tate Modern’s website has a
particularly lucid description of this work in their collection: “The title suggests that the image documents the
aftermath of a lovers’ quarrel, with the woman abandoned in an inhospitable
environment. Emin’s work is highly confessional. The Last Thing I Said
to You was Don’t Leave Me Here II invites an autobiographical narrative reading
but because, unlike in many of her text-based works…the story is hinted at
rather than spelt out, the viewer is left to draw his or her own conclusions
about what may have happened in the hut. The photograph looks like both the
staged reconstruction of an incident from the artist’s past and her attempt to
derive some peace from a distressing memory. The image invites the viewer to
empathize with the artist and to respect the emotional honesty with which she
documents and shares her pain.”
33. Gilbert & George, Magazine Sculpture,
1969. Postcard. Including their bodies
in their works has been a defining feature of all the works created by this
wonderful pair of English performance artists. This card is no exception with
its scatological and schoolyard shaming and rampant sexism.
34. Montano, Linda & Tehching Hsieh,
Art/Life One Year Performance, 1983. Announcement poster for this
one-year performance piece, details below.
35. Montano, Linda & Tehching Hsieh,
Statement, 1983. Signed statement
by both artists detailing the conditions of their 1-year performance of being
tied together. The statement reads: “We LINDA MONTANO and TEHCHING HSIEH, plan
to do a one year performance. We will stay together for one year and never be
alone. We will be in the same room at the same time, when we are inside. We
will be tied together at the waist with an 8-foot rope. We will never touch
each other during the year. The performance will begin on July 4, 1983 at 6
p.m., and continue until July 4, 1984 at 6 p.m.”
36. fierce pussy, for the record,
Visual Aids, 2013. Postcard.
37. fierce pussy, for the record,
Visual Aids, 2013. Sticker. “fierce
pussy is a collective of queer women artists. Formed in New York in 1991
through our immersion in AIDS activism during a decade of increasing political
mobilization around gay rights, fierce pussy brought lesbian identity and
visibility directly into the streets.” [fiercepussy.org]
38. Caton, Shaun, Violent
Science/Inside Operations, 1987.
Postcard in edition of 100. Black & white postcard with artists’
hand coloring and text. The artist’s body plays a pivotal role in Caton’s
ritualistic & durational performance works and on the back of this card is
a very brief survey of some of the artist’s 60 performances made between 1981
to 1987 that concentrate on social, psychological and environmental issues all
presented under the title “ART AUTOPSY: Radical Process in Art,” 1987.
39. Marioni, Tom and Petr Stembera,
Connection, Sept. 27, 1975. Postcard.
This action took place during a visit to Prague by conceptual artist Tom
Marioni on September 27, 1975. Stembera described the action as follows: “I
joined our bodies together with two circles, the first made of condensed milk
and the second out of condensed hot chocolate. In the center of the two circles
I emptied a jar of hungry ants. Some of the ants moved toward the circles,
where they sensed food and perhaps a way to escape. But they got stuck there.
The other ants stayed in the center of the circle and began to bite our bodies.”
[source: www.mumok.at]
40. Montano, Linda & Tom Marioni,
Linda Montano will be handcuffed to Tom Marioni from 9pm nov. 2 to 9pm nov.
5, 1973 in MOCA, San Francisco, 1973.
Announcement postcard. For three days Montano and Marioni (San Francisco
conceptual artist) were handcuffed together. For ten minutes each day they made
a video document of the event, with Montano commenting that “…the time together
became a study in movement and mutual signaling.” (http://siteworks.exeter.ac.uk/items/show/32).
Maroni comments upon this performance “We were doing normal things that anyone
would do…While we were handcuffed, we rode on the bus, went out to eat, went to
the movies, went to the hardware store, in other words had a
life.” (Marioni, 2003)
41. Shimamoto, Shozo (1928-2013), head
networking, nd. Color postcard.
42. Shimamoto, Shozo (1928-2013), shozo in
America, nd. Color postcard. One of
the founding members of the Japanese avant-garde movement, Gutai (1965-1972)
and after the movement’s demise Shimamoto began participating in the
international mail art network. One of Shimamoto’s projects was to invite a
worldwide audience to paint, and/or project images onto his shaved head, which
he in turn reproduced and shared with the network, he called this work “head
networking art.” The genesis for this new direction was on the occasion of a
visit by Cavellini, the well-known Italian mail artist who visited Japan in
1986, that Shimamoto originally shaved his head with the invitation for artists
to use his blank head as a canvas.
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