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*,

Performance
Art
(Some) Theory and (Selected) Practice at the End of This Century
Martha Wilson

here is no agreement as to where, when, and why performance art was invented. I take this as an opening to
advance my theory, which has appeared graduallyto me
through the murkover the last two decades, during which time I
2 have established and piloted FranklinFurnace.While viewing the
exhibitionFuturism& Futurisms,presented in 1985 at the Palazzo
Grassiin Venice, I realizedthat the beginning of performanceart
might be fixed in that moment on July 8, 1910, when the Italian
Futuristpaintersand poets threw eight hundredthousand copies
of their broadside, "AgainstPasseistVenice,"from the clock tower
above Piazza San Marco onto the heads of law-abidingcitizens.1
The Futuristsclaimed Venice was "a great sewer of traditionalism"; a physical confrontation ensued, and, in my view, performance art was born.
Contemporary performance art still exhibits the traces of
this art-historicalmoment in the following ways: Performanceart
is composed of (often confrontational) ideas; it takes place in
"real" time; and the body is its irreducible medium, the locus
where text and image intersect.Confrontationis apparenteven in
tamed, pay-your-money-sit-in-chairsperformanceart being practiced at this end of the century. In my experience, performance
artistsare not the kindof people who wish to be discoveredworking in garrets but, rather,hope to change the world. (Never mind
that artists have had little impact upon the political/social/economic/philosophical life of the twentieth century; if they don't
shake you by the lapels, they will go mad.)
Performance art in my view is the opposite of theater,
which holds, according to Samuel TaylorColeridge, "the willful
suspension of disbelief"as its objective. Performanceart has raided literature,music, dance, and theater traditions (while theater
has borrowedfrom performanceart conventions), spreadingconfusion; but in general, performanceartistsremindtheir audiences:
There is no artifice here; this is happening now, in "real" time.
Because it is embedded in the body, performanceart takes time
itself to be its primarysubject. TehchingHsieh'syearlong worksduring which he, for example, lived in a cage, lived outside,
punched a time clock every hour,was tied to another person;and
did "no art"-place the body's expenditureof time at the center
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FIG. 1 Cover of Parole in libertM,manifesto published by the Futuristsin 1912.

of the idea. (Now he is involved in a meditationthat impliesthe

twentieth century and the Judeo-Christianera as time frames; it
will end on his birthday,December31, 1999, when he turnsfifty.)
The body is the new art medium of this century, "discovered" by way of the text by visualartists.I believe the avant-garde
visual artists of the early part of the century were inspiredby a
poet, Stephane Mallarme,whose poem "Un coup de des jamais
n'abolirale hasard"of 1897 was widely discussed.A dealeron the
scene, Daniel-HenryKahnweiler,declared, "Itwas only after 1907
that the poetry of Stephane Mallarme,in my opinion, exerted a
powerful influence on plasticart, an influence that was combined

with Paul Cezanne's painting. It was through reading Mallarme

that the Cubistsfound the courage to invent freely."2Surely,Filippo TommasoMarinettirippedoff Mallarm6when he producedhis
Parole in liberta (Words in Freedom) manifesto of 1912 (fig. 1).
And Hugo Ball acknowledged that the starting point of sound
poetry and other experiments at Cabaret Voltairein Zurichwas
with Marinetti'smanifesto, "whichtook the word out of the sentence frame (the world image)."3
What was so great about "Un coup de des"? It cast words
in variouspoint sizes on the page, transformingthe page into visual art space, and it freed the readerfrom prescribedlinearorder,
conferring the possibility of multiple interpretations. Finally,its
subject (a throw of dice will never eliminate chance) and form
were congruent-as the body is the source and form through
which ideas are created.
Before I knew anything about the ItalianFuturists(all my
postgraduate work was in EnglishLit), the connection between
the text and performancefor me was throughthe practiceof Conceptual art in the early 1970s. The artistsinvitedto visit the Nova
ScotiaCollege of Artand Design (e.g., Vito Acconci,Joseph Beuys,
Peter Kubelka,lan Wilson, Sol LeWitt, Dennis Oppenheim, Carl
Andre,Joseph Kosuth,Douglas Huebler,Dan Graham...) blurred
the distinctions between thought and action, words and deeds.
Forexample, LawrenceWeiner'sthoughts about the existence of a
work of art,
1. THE ARTIST MAY CONSTRUCT THE WORK /
2. THE PIECEMAY BE FABRICATED/
3. THE PIECENEED NOT BE BUILT/ EACH BEING EQUAL AND
CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST THE DECISION
AS TO CONDITION RESTSWITH THE RECEIVERUPON THE OCCASION
OF RECEIVERSHIP[,]

in relationto one of the pieces in his 1968 artistbook Statements,

One regular rectangularobject place
d across an international boundary a
Ilowed to rest then turned to and tu
rned upon to intrude the portion of
one country into the other [,]
identifythe intersectionof word and image in the idea of the artist.
This is the "body" from whence performanceart springs. In fact,
when I founded FranklinFurnacein 1976, 1invitedartiststo readto
the public. (The term artist'sbook did not exist as yet to describe
contemporary,and cheap, publishingby artists.)Everysingle artist
chose to manipulatethe performativeelements (light, sound, relationshipto the audience, props, costume, time) as part and parcel
of the work. (The misnomerperformanceart had not as yet taken
hold either.) The word in vogue at the time was piece, which
encompassed the thought, the action, the documentation-drawn
or photographedor filmed or publishedor taped-whatever.
So there is no ironyfor me in the selection of a text by the
ScottishperformanceartistAlastairMacLennan,for Burythe Veil,
a fifty-hourperformance/installation(he uses the word actuation)
at FranklinFurnace,which took place from 4:00 P.M.on November
13 to 6:00 P.M.on November15, 1986, as this issue'sArtist'sPages.

Throughthe use of a multitudeof heterogenous elements, including telephones, window frame, crutches, confetti, bridalgown,
child's prosthetic leg, and the faint sound of bleating sheep, the
artist managed to re-create the ambiance of his adopted city of
Belfast-and the feeling of emotional conflict on every level-in
the heartsof viewers.
I wish to thanka few individualsaroundthe worldwho have
maintainedthe practiceof the visualart traditionknown as performance art, such as the artistSeijiShimoda,who has for years single-handedly organizedthe Nippon InternationalPerformanceArt
Festival;the young and energeticcollectiveknown as CatalystArts
in Belfast;Tom Mulready,founding directorof the ClevelandPerformanceArt Festival;and a numberof so-calledalternativespaces
dedicated in large part to the form, such as Dixon Place and P.S.
122 in New Yorkand Highwaysin Los Angeles. Effortsto provide
forums for discourse on the real and possible effects of performance includethe 1996 PerformanceArt, Culture,and Pedagogy
Symposiumorganizedby CharlesGaroianat Penn State; and New
YorkUniversity'sannualPerformanceStudiesconferences,this past
year organizedby Peggy Phelan.These phenomena, and the outpouringof articlesreceivedafter CAA'sopen call in the summerof
1996, signal widespread interestin performanceart at the end of
this century,beyond its use as a politicalfootball.
Underlyingthese thanks, I wish to acknowledge with admiration and gratitudethe work of the writer-activistLucy Lippard,
the curator-historianRoseLeeGoldberg,and practitionerssuch as
Carolee Schneemann, Rachel Rosenthal, LindaMontano, Lynda
Benglis-women who laidclaimto the body as an art medium,the
place where the personalis political.
I wish to acknowledge the sagacious advice of Janet
Kaplan,executive editor of ArtJournal,as well as past and current
membersof the editorialboard,such as MichaelBrenson,Johanna
Drucker,DavidJoselit,EllenLanyon,and Rob Storr,duringthe editorialprocess.
Iam gratefulto ShelleyRice,who told herstudentBetseyGallagher(now a cross-dressingperformanceartist-mayoralcandidate)
to help me out with this project,and AliceWu, my trustyassistant.
Last but not least, I wish to credit Vince, the fishmonger/
performance-artaficionadoof Westfield, New Jersey,with providing his muscularintellectualand emotional support.
I hope this ArtJournalserves to linkthe practitionersof the
early days of this century to contemporaryavant-garde performers, to whom I dedicate this issue.
Notes
1. Futurism & Futurisms, exh. cat., Palazzo Grassi, Venice (New York:Abbeville Press,
1986), 520.
2. Ibid., 509.
3. RoseLee Goldberg, Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present (New York:Harry
N. Abrams, 1988), 62.

MARTHAWILSON is a performanceartist and founding

directorof FranklinFurnacein New YorkCity.
ALASTAIRMACLENNANis a Scottish performanceartist who
lives in Belfast, NorthernIreland.

ART JOURNAL