So I clicked on Jillian Steinhauer’s post — “Is Marina Abramović Trying to Create a Performance Art Utopia?” — and the first thing that popped into my head was, “Why does it look like a suburban public library, circa 1962?” What I’m talking about is the architectural rendering from none other than OMA’s leading lights, Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas, gracing the head of Steinhauer’s article, which was published by Hyperallergic on Monday.
Nearly 150 people gathered in MoMA PS1′s performance dome this morning to hear Marina Abramović present plans for her new museum dedicated to performance art in Hudson, NY. As the crowd took their places on and around the oversize red ottomans filling the space, people gazed at and stuck their heads inside the glowing architectural model set up in front (it features a hole in the center, for peering inside). Within a few minutes, MoMA and PS1 curator Klaus Biesenbach introduced the woman who must be the only celebrity performance artist in the world. “If it wasn’t for Marina,” he said, “I expected 10 guests or so.” (Although free pastries and coffee always help.)
Neal Medlyn has been channeling pop stars in New York galleries and theaters since the early aughts, and has built a repertoire of performances that run heavy on exhibitionism and intellectualism. His most recent show, Wicked Clown Love, which premiered at The Kitchen in February, is based on a trip to the Gathering of the Juggalos, the annual hardcore rap festival organized by the group Insane Clown Posse. Medlyn and I met at a bar in Chelsea, where he told me about how he made Kanye West cry, among other juicy tales.
Whenever I find myself strolling in the hutongs near Gulou and see the entrance of Bed Bar, images of Liang Tao’s 2005 cross-gender performance come to mind. I met her that same year in the 798 art district, just after her performance “Madhouse in Paradise” at Marella Gallery. For that piece she built a replica of a room from a Western mental institution, in which she spent two days as a “perfectly happy” schizophrenic patient. Her point was that, after having spent a period of time in a Chinese mental institution, a Western one would be quite a nice place to live.
If you’re hoping to see some art tonight but also don’t want to leave your couch, we have a solution: Beginning at 8:30 pm, the international internet performance art festival Low Lives will begin broadcasting online, with performances from artists around the world, including a number in Brooklyn.
Please join us for a discussion about performance art and Occupy Wall Street. From the early days of OWS performance art and artists have played a pivotal role in raising awareness about OWS and its importance.
Today, one writer at The Atlantic has throw her hat into the whole “if it’s strange then it must be performance art” line of thinking, which is starting to aggravate me.
January usually sees the dismantling of lavish holiday windows on Fifth Avenue, a dissipation of arresting tableaux that engaged pedestrians. But the eminent Paris department store Le Printemps refused to wait until next year to showcase another extravagant display, hosting fashion icon’s Daphne Guinness’s second foray into performance art housed in their windows.
Some peculiar things end up in our inbox on a daily basis but this one stood out. Performance artist Colette has staged a strange protest against Lady Gaga at Barney’s Lady Gaga windows.
Yesterday, performance artist Amber Hawk Swanson began her latest performance that was to feature the transformation of a life-sized sex doll of her likeness into a small replica of a bull orca at SeaWorld Orlando. Sure, the performance may sound out of the ordinary for veterans of the “there’s nothing I haven’t seen before” art world, but the artist, who was using the free Ustream livestreaming service, encountered an unexpected obstacle. Two hours into her performance, the online broadcast stopped and viewers where provided with a message that clearly states that the broadcaster was “banned due to violating terms of service.”
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