Performance in Place

PERFORMANCE IN PLACE SALLY RANDALL In sculptural installations, we assume that the environment is the stage. We adapt ourselves to our surroundings as extensions of the work. In Richard Serra's monumental barrier at Castelli, Slice, the space is split into separate environs, accessible by separate entrances. Our "action" is our realization of the activity on the other side; by our subliminal attention to the negative space we become positive space. This piece is a melding of structure and motion within it, not unlike a fishbowl. Any work of such overwhelming size (10' x 104', 38 tons) appeals to the geographical instincts for exploration. Our major performance is in the degree of space and motion we allow ourselves before the constriction of the walls plays on our self-awareness and inhibitions. It is an intimate performance despite Slice's vast size. The installation can be influenced by the wisdom of science, architecture, and any spatial documentation. Alice Aycock finds her inspiration in the utilitarian embellishment of traditional architecture. In their classicistic ideals she finds childish functions that are translated into whimsical and The Machine that Makes the World, Alice Aycock non-habitual structures. The result is a contemporary, repetitious patterning of fantasies. installation-into one. Our quick and direct statements are requiring more Patterning, however, has been dtiven to elaborate blends of media so as to attract more minimal expressions through our the attention that painting once did and need to understand moments within a grid. now, again, does. This is one of the many ideas that have melded the two forms-performance and I IDragon (detail), Judy Pfaff 86 Judy Pfaff coerces the viewer into involvement by fears of chaos. Within the tangled brambles of Dragon, shown at the Whitney Biennal, we choose our participation on a par with our daily encounters with similar situations. To enter her piece is to become lost, to play-act, to concede to childish inequities . It is difficult for a formal New York museum audience to take this work seriously . Such a direct encounter seems unnecessary . The same audience might not disregard this piece if staged and performed by someone else, giving the audience a safe vantage point and a passive role, but it would also prevent us from fully understanding the crossover of the theatrical into visual art. Dragon is pluralistic and therefore too ambiguous to totally comprehend ; as an "event," it disregards constructed theoretical modes to give us a multitude of ideas to explore. Both Vito Acconci and Dennis Oppenheim derive their installations from performance as a more permanent documentation of motion. A stabilization of the object in space seemed to be a more serious committment to each artist's ideas and an alternative to the self as art. The modes of performance seduce our senses, becoming moving picture frames and so we are detached from a confrontation. Our realizations are more calculated; the motion acts out our supposed reactions for us. Both of these artists have suspended these ideas in their installations by defeating the differences between the two. Performance is more immediate in response and commentary, but its mediums are no more direct than the mediums of sculpture or painting; it is simply more physical. The problem that we grapple with when discussing this subject is how to explain it. More precisely, what do we call it? Perhaps "event" is a plural term that does delete boundaries, but the levels must be expanded. Genre cripples new art forms and it is a problem of genre that we have, not actually of art. Vito Acconci's play house 87 ...