I hope this isn't too much of a tangent either, but I'd be curious to
keep an eye on how obituaries of some of the great
performance/action/happening-related artists are written -- will we be
re-framing their work in relation to current/growing [?] acceptance of
activist / community / collaborative practices in the history of art or
the place of art in networked/media saturated culture?
I feel unqualified to say.
Rest in peace Allan Kaprow (Ian Breakwell, John Latham, Dick Higgins...)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/arts/design/10kaprow.html
Sarah
On 10 Apr 2006, at 3:48 pm, leon wrote:
> Historically art has constantly confronted itself and its audience in
> the
> pursuit of the new. From the dynamics of the gaze, of enactment and
> participation, the artist has been involved in a constant process of
> breaking the conventions of previous movements and styles. Each epoch
> has
> had its own technologies that have shaped its art, politics and
> religion.
> These have been interdependently employed evolving the practice of its
> activists which feed back into this cyclic cultural process.
>
> This era's concerns are no doubt influencing the practice of those
> engaged
> in its activism. Today's new technologies, that of a globalized digital
> communication network offers new tactics and strategies to be employed
> in
> interpersonal exchange. Is it any wonder that the concerns of
> collective
> action seem to be a foremost on the minds of artists today? This
> escalation
> of the radical proposes new medias and locations for art, switching the
> focus in the way art is located, perceived and experienced.
>
> The broad range of current practice being associated with this genre
> only
> shows that there are many opinions on how an artist today generates a
> dialogue with a wider audience and under which context. Whatever the
> methods, a dialogue with the public around issues that they hold
> relevant in
> a language they understand seems to be recurrent. The code employed in
> fine
> art criticism often only presenting itself in the funding proposals
> written
> to facilitate them.
|