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C_ _A __A.C T S L.A. STEVE FRITZ JOHN DUNCAN ponders his music. As part of a group, he played a jackhammer and ended up riding It like a sied across the gaiiery fioor. 100 Over a year later, the first Los Angeles performance art festival still reverberates as an impressive summary of California performance activity. The festival, held in May and October, 1980 at the LACE gallery, presented over seventy artists, including shows by noted performers like Allan Kaprow, Barbara Smith, The Kipper Kids, Chris Burden, Suzanne Lacy, Bob and Bob, and Rachel Rosenthal, and other artists like Stephen Seemayer, Johanna Went, and Nancy Buchanan who are gaining well deserved reputations. Megan Williams, coordinator of the festival, talked about the artist's motivations and the theme of the festival. I think what's real important is the title, PublicSpirit. The word spiritual has become a dirty word in the art world and it's terrible. That's the artists' source whether they admit it or not. The title implies that the individual experience has social significance, that it has public significance. I think it's interesting that usually the audience was half artists, half .. . not only non-artists, but people who had never come to an art event. The in-between is the so-called art world, if that exists in L.A. They're not interested. Performance art is much more connected with the music scene and the party scene. The art system can be very r vicious and most artists are scared to cteath because ' it's so competitive. What's wonderful about performance is you can do it anytime, anywhere. The artist doesn't need support from anybody. It's just them presenting something in an attempt to be completely direct and to the point with their audience. It isn't like STEPHEN SEEMAYER trapped In a sea of skylines. putting up some static piece and walking away, leaving the work to represent you. Most of the artists in this medium don't care what the dealers or the critics think. They've already found their own community. For example, a number of the women who have been involved with the Woman's Building (the women's art collective on N. Spring Street) participated here. They're dealing with social structures, class structures , the fact that lesbianism is still kind of a difficult life style. I think that most of them are doing it in a very direct, unabashed, unashamed, very proud way. Catharsis is the main thing these people deal with. Some of the most revolting images produced in the world of performance art have come from the hands ofPaul McCarthy. In one of his tamer pieces McCarthy ingested raw hamburger on a landing between the twelfth and thirteen floors of the Biltmore Hotel during the American National Theatre Conference. During this time he had a doll hanging out of his pants, an Arab mask over his face and a ketchupcovered doll on his head. He hung crucifixes on the railing and at one point tried to put a ketchup bottle up his ass. It lasted about thirty minutes-until the hotel security managed to stop him. I talked with McCarthy about some of these things. The whole movement has denied the capitalist art system. It's more political. But it's not really as clear cut as all that. When I work I don't really set up things all that much. The piece tells its own story. I collect things and arrange them in a setting. Then it's a matter of things developing-one thing leads to another. Sometimes it turns out lighter than others. Other things are going on besides shocking images. That's really been sensationalized. Still, doing that kind of stuff is a little risky. You open up things that people don't like to deal with. It isn't just about showing the obvious. The answers don't come that ALLAN KAPROW talking down to his audience like a boring grandfather telling dull stories. 101 tA THE KIPPER KIDS entered through gallery windows blown out by an explosion . They burped, farted, and pinched their way through...

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