overview
Lesson 3 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 3 | converging media
activity | cross fertilization
Performance art is a hybrid form born of a cross fertilization between
visual art, performing arts like theater, dance, and music, and
sometimes, language arts like poetry. While the focus is often on
the ephemeral (involving an element of time as an important aspect
of the work’s meaning), many performances leave a physical
trace, result in an art object, or are documented for posterity.
While many performance artists use video to record their performances,
others let the objects they act upon speak for themselves: the object
implies time and evokes a psychological sense of action in the mind
of the viewer.
Art21 artists Janine Antoni and Cai
Guo-Qiang both integrate performance with traditional visual
art forms, leaving objects that attest to the unique process by
which they were created: Antoni uses her body as a sculpting tool,
blurring the line between sculpture and performance, and Cai creates
huge “drawings” by orchestrating gunpowder explosions
on paper.
Ask your students to look at Cai Guo-Qiang’s gunpowder on
paper work “Drawing
for Transient Rainbow,” as well as the works “Lick
and Lather,” “Loving
Care,” and “Moor”
by Janine Antoni. Have students write a journal entry that vividly
describes each process as they imagine it from looking at the resulting
object.
Next, view the video segments on Janine Antoni, and Cai Guo-Qiang
and discuss the notions of performance, time, and object making
that are posited by both artists. Antoni’s process is slow
and calculated while Cai’s is quick and unpredictable. What
purpose does performance serve for each of these artists? Why do
Cai and Antoni create and display objects that result from performative
acts? How does the evidence of process affect the meaning of the
object for viewers? Which aspect is more important to each artist-
the process or the record? Who serves as the audience for their
performances?
Ask students to choose a topic that is important to them personally
and brainstorm ideas for a number of related performance pieces
that will result in a physical trace or object. Students should
then choose one to perform for the class and should be encouraged
to consider other aspects of performance art, such as setting and
sound. Display the resulting objects, including video or audio recordings
if possible.
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