Introduction
In this essay I will be discussing Performance, somewhat
focusing on using the body to express something unseen, in two exhibitions and
one artist talk I attended in July/August of 2012. I will be looking at works
by Joan Jonas, Rineke Dijkstra and Joachim Koester from the subjective
perspective of being a member of the audience. With the exception of having
seen Dijkstra’s photographs before, the artists were unfamiliar to me. It
surprised me that experiencing their work offered a complex mix of feelings,
ideas and resolutions that insidiously crept into the domain of my own artistic
process. I picked up threads in the work of the three artists, as well as my
own, that latticed sometimes harmoniously and sometimes jarringly.
Renike Dijkstra
I saw ‘BuzzClub’ (1996) and ‘Krazyhouse’ (2009) as part of
the ‘Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective’ exhibition at the Guggenheim, NY. Both
video works are of teenagers filmed dancing to music, however, I perceived a
very different tone in each one. According to Don Burmeister, Djikstra
“specializes in teenagers – awkward, anxious, determined, placed into positions
that they can barely understand” (The New York Photo Review, Volume 3/Issue
30). My initial reaction to ‘BuzzClub’ was one of simultaneous fascination and
discomfort. Added to this were layers of nostalgia, scopophilia and
protectiveness. The voyeur in me was rapt watching the revealing performance on
the large screen, I related to the subject through my own memories of being a
passionate teenage dancer and clubber in the UK, and as a high-school teacher regularly
witnessing the fragility and bloody mess that this transitional phase entails,
I was annoyed. ‘BuzzClub’ seemed particularly exploitative to me because many
(if not all) the subjects were “high”, appeared to have been yanked off the
dance-floor (sweat and all) isolating them from their context and making the
direction aggressive and intrusive. In his article, Burmeister comments that:
“what comes across is the brazenness of the videographer… The power of the
adult to force these people to ‘dance’ on command is chilling… there is no
empathy between the subject and the artist” (The New York Photo Review, Volume
3/Issue 30). Like a typically offensive reality show, I dismissed it and moved
on.
When I came across ‘Krazyhouse’ (a few floors up), the effect
was very different. The dancing teenagers appeared more in control of their
visual presentation; they were carefully prepared and fully clad in their
fashionable attire. They responded to and engaged with, what I perceived were,
their own musical preferences (some mouthing to the lyrics) slowly and
incrementally, and their performances seemed more grounded and conscious. There
were no seats available in the room, and as these images loomed larger than
life on screens, the audience either stood or sat on the floor, while watching
them. It was mesmerising to witness the gradual influence the music had on each
performer, as its energy unfurled, Kundalini like, building up into a joyous
and dynamic climax, at a pace directly proportional to the individual’s loss of
inhibition. I was suddenly aware of my own body moving in full participation.
It occurred to me that the experience felt “spiritual”, as the teenage dancers,
Guru-like, embodied a powerful, yet hidden, transformation and transmitted it
successfully so that I was fully engaged. I became appreciative of what Kyle
Chayka attributes to Dijkstra’s work:
“[She has] the power
of shooting her subjects in moments of distress or suspension, times when the
wall between the individual and society comes down and the soul is bared.”
(Kyle Chayka, 2012)
What struck me most was the extent to which the nuances of
the process, which Dijkstra describes as: “having control and not having
control” over, affected my perception. The contrast between the two video
installations was dramatic. In one, the
subject was ogled at, singled out like an anthropological specimen, in the
other, the dancers enticed inspiration, elation and engagement.
Joakim Koester“The unknown – in its scientific, metaphysical, and historical variety – has been central to the work of Joachim Koester… for over two decades” (MIT press release, 2012). ‘Tarantism’ (2007) was a film shown as part of Joachim Koester’s ‘To Navigate, In A Genuine Way, In The Unknown…’ exhibition at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center. A large screen displayed a number of performers convulsing and jerking wildly, and was situated at the end of a dark room, pricked by tiny rays of light coming through boarded up windows. It was a spacious room, so did not feel claustrophobic, and I sat in the dark watching the screen, trying to decipher my surroundings. The boarded up windows evoked a literal meaning of something hidden, unknown and, for me, connected with Koester’s ‘Morning Of The Magicians’ (2005) depicting the Sicilian villa where Alistair Crowley conducted his “religious, social and personal” experiments (also part of the exhibition). I was not sure whether they were also referencing a cliché image in horror movies, of being shut up without hope of escape therefore alluding to being trapped (in a body?S). As I watched the performers “dance”, I was conscious of experiencing something orchestrated and was responding analytically and not emotionally or physically. Koester comments: “…the film [is] structured around six individually choreographed parts, each defined by a different set of rules”. That the performance is staged, is enhanced by the fact that the dancers, each using their own expressive gestures, stop their extreme movements suddenly and resume their normal positions.
Sebastian Smee, wrote in his article (Boston Globe, 2012)
that, even though he considered ‘Tarantism’ one of the artist’s most successful
works: “Koester’s efforts almost never achieve the buoyancy required to become
their own thing, rather than a series of intriguingly illustrated Wikipedia
entries”. I must admit that the historical evolution of the dance inspired me
more than the work did. It was once believed to ward off symptoms caused by the
bite of the tarantula, and in an interview, Koester disclosed that the spider
has since been proven harmless, and that it was estimated that only a few of
the afflicted had actually been bitten. “It was known as a cure for physical
poisoning, but it addressed subconscious ailment” (Koester, Whitehot Magazine,
2007).
In both Dijkstra’s and Koester’s work, the audience is
confronted with performers expressing something internal. Associations are perhaps
made with the prevalent, yet often hidden rituals performed globally, the
complexity of the physical, mental and spiritual components of our being and of
the body being manipulated by the unknown.
Joan JonasIn her artist talk at AIB, Jonas talked about there being a thin line between acting and performance. In her attempt to distinguish the two, she said: “[In performance, I] treat[ing] my body as material… It has to do with the way people perform in rituals – a little related to dance - and acting is primarily involved with text and also manipulating the voice and face in different ways” (Jonas, 2012).
Several of the ideas that Jonas discussed that evening
interested me. She mentioned that through the process of wearing masks,
dressing up and using disguises, she developed imaginary characters, states of
mind and alter egos. “In a way, I found myself through the video
transformations” (Jonas, 2012). The medium of video enabled her to add a layer
of detail and projection to her performances. She also talked about how she
created drawings of her dog, which became part of the set, representing the
presence of the dog and referencing “a mythic relation to animals” (Jonas,
p.54). In ‘Organic Honey’s Visual Telepathy’ (1972), Jonas performs by
physically juxtaposing herself with the dog drawing, unifying the two elements,
and “the dog and the woman become one.” (Jonas, 2012).
In my own video work, which I am still in the process of
resolving, I am addressing all of the core themes mentioned above. The
hybridization of woman and animal, archetypal personae, mythology and the
layering of imagery in video, all feature in my assembly of moving images.
Conclusion
In terms of thinking about my own creations, the work of all
three artists not only explored the role of the performer extensively but also
made me reflect on who that performer should be. Using one’s own body and image
enables more control of the process and result. However, it may be that the
loss of control is precisely what is needed to do the content justice. Jonas
employs a “double” now that she is older and Koester hires professional dancers
who can operate their bodies very deliberately, as the body’s limitations are
another consideration. The ‘objectification’ of a performer is an issue that I
am interested in, especially when dealing with women and animals, and I intend
to push this in my own work. The function of video as a device to move
experiencing the performance from directly to indirectly, and thus heightening
the mystery and the unknown, is also potent to me. And lastly scale is
something that I would like to experiment with. Although all the work I saw was
on a large screen, Jonas’s small ‘My New Theatre’ series (1997-2006) resonated
with the way I am thinking of presenting some of my films.Word count: 1520
Bibliography
Ratti A., Pinto R., Jonas J. et al, ‘Joan
Jonas’, Charta, Milan, 2007‘Joan Jonas Visiting Artist Presentation’ DVD, The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, 25 June 2012
Websites
‘If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution’, Joachim Koester, online article, accessed 17.9.12, http://www.ificantdance.org/Artists/JoachimKoester
’Tarantism’, Sebastian Smee, Bostonn Globe, online article, accessed 17.9.2012, http://www.smk.dk/en/visit-the-museum/news/artikel/joachim-koester-tarantism/
’Tarantism’, Jan Mot, Whitehot
magazine, online article, accessed 17.9.12, http://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/explore-screen-space-power-plant/2043
‘Joachim Koester at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge’,
Conversation with Joachim Koester and João Ribas , MIT press release, online
article, accessed 17.9.12, http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/joachim-koester-2/
‘A Return To
Video Is Moving, Roberta A Smith, New York Times, online article, accessed
17.9.12, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/arts/design/13dijkstra.html?pagewanted=all
‘At the Guggenheim,
Rineke Dijkstra’s Portraits Dive Into the Deep Waters of Human Vulnerability’,
Blouin Artinfo, Kyle Chayka, online article, accessed 17.9.12, http://184.106.39.147/news/story/814016/at-the-guggenheim-rineke-dijkstras-portraits-dive-into-the-deep-waters-of-human-vulnerability
‘Teenage
Wasteland’, Don Burmeister, The New York Photo Review Volume
3/Issue 30, online
article, accessed17.9.12, http://www.nyphotoreview.com/NYPR_REVS/NYPR_REV2400.html
‘Kadiview with Joachim Koester 2’, Kadview, online video, accessed 17.9.12, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssUpgttEj8Q
‘Joachim Koester’, typischmichiel, online video, accessed 17.9.12, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTRRFuoK5lg
‘Artist
Rineke Dijkstra on “The Krazyhouse” Series at the Guggenheim, Guggenheim,
online video, accessed 7.9.12, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcGKg3t7K-I
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