At this point, I don’t think it’s outlandish to be sceptical of modern art, I am. And, I think it may have something to do with breaking away from art as craftsmanship only, towards meaning and emotion. This is good, as it allows a deeper connection to the artist, but it can also lead to pieces that feel pointless or unpolished to the viewer. A champion example of this is Duchamp’s ready-made sculptures, where a common object is made art via conceptualization. And that is the feeling I got when I saw a version of this Tiktok/Reel.
These are five Performance pieces, that I honestly don’t understand. So after the initial shock, I decided to look around for the artist’s statement as I’ve not seen the pieces live and I’m sure there is some meaning or purpose behind it. So here are the five pieces, and my thoughts about them.
Saut 8 (por trampoline) by Emmanuel Béranger
This is the latest in a series of five performances where the artist uses mediums such as charcoal or photographs to record his movement as he performs different jumps. This jump was made on Mars 2022 as part of the exhibition Hyperdrawing. About the series, this is the statement found on the artist’s website.
Translated to English, it reads something along the lines of.
I like the concept, I find it poetic, a sort of celebration of movement that leads me to imagine how we leave traces in all the places we visit. And, as I read about Béranger’s story behind his Performance Art practice coming from Parcour I can relate to the repetition of a movement for practice.
But I don’t think the medium of performance conveys the wonder I feel when I think about movement, especially when it comes from something so urban as Parcour. I would’ve loved to see an installation. And, I get the meaning behind the live mark-making but as someone who has been a competitive high jumper, I don’t think watching someone practice the same jump over and over again as they make the mark particularly awe-inspiring. I would have loved to see it as an installation though, the marks already made.
Score 1: Butter by Tallulah Haddon
This is the second performance shown in the video, and it took me a while to find any information about it. I did find the artist’s Instagram account and there is a post talking about the reaction to the clip that went viral online. This is what Haddon had to say about the comments their clip has been getting.
I have mixed feelings, it is not an Artist’s Statement, and I haven’t found the full performance. But I don’t find watching someone put a mic in their pants to be making fun of “overly sincere performances”. Maybe it means to make fun of art that takes itself too seriously? I don’t think they get the message across. On the other hand, there is the inspiration for the piece, which is sincere and very serious. This leaves me with the feeling that the two criticisms were too big for the piece and failed to make a cohesive concept.
Still is important to remind myself of the fact that I wasn’t there, and I don’t have a record of the full performance.
Stream by Takesada Matsutani
This is a performance done in 2013 by Japanese artist Takesada Matsutani at Hauser & Wirth London as a part of the “A Matrix” exhibition. I didn’t find a lot about this piece in particular, but I did find information about the series in general, and the artist.
In this context, the circle makes perfect sense, and alongside the collection of works that form the exhibition, I can understand the rawness of the work and imagine the artist’s thoughts and intentions. This changed my way of looking at the piece, I mean, the Tiktok only talks about the fact that it is a circle and nothing else, but if you look at the artist’s body of work, then it kind of makes sense. It exposed me to my own biases.
After seeing the images, but before I watched the video from the performance I was expecting something akin to a Shodō demonstration. The stone in the middle and the ink bar gave the vibes. But after watching Mr. Matsutani grind the bar for about eleven minutes I was not so sure anymore. I was expecting him to talk a bit about the work before the demonstration, and I don’t know if that was the case before the camera was turned on, but eleven minutes is a little bit too much for me. But I guess that’s the thing about performances, you have to be there to know whether the artist pulls your attention or not.
In this case, the final piece is, to me, aesthetically pleasing, and it completes the installation, with Stream-10 behind it, which might be something else to think about when doing performances.
I didn’t find any information on the next piece, aside from a lot of reels criticizing it. This in itself is a disservice to art commentary in general because there is nothing to analyze or expand on, besides a five-second clip everyone is using as an example of how much of a joke modern art is. Can we say that it’s a joke if we know nothing of its inception, can we talk, about technique, concept, and the quality of the piece without seeing it in full?
Sand Column by Roman Signer
This is the first one I saw on reels showing its activation by the artist. The piece is composed of eight to twelve buckets of sand stacked on top of each other like a column. The lowest bucket has a tiny hole in its side, approximately 10mm in diameter. When activated, sand starts to leak from the hole until the column collapses. The action of the piece is documented through photographs as well as moving images and it is part of the artist’s explorations of sudden energy releases and calm, between order and chaos.
Now I come from an engineering background, so this piece feels closer to a physics experiment than to art, from the setup, repetition, and recording of evidence. I think this is the closest to the point I made at the beginning, in the use of common items and prioritization of concept over aesthetics.
Conclusing thoughts
So after chasing these pieces to the ends of Instagram, TikTok, and Google, I can say that my view of performance art has expanded. I still think that in my practice, I’ll continue to value the craft aspect of it. Still, these contemporary pieces give a new spin on how to incorporate concepts and make me think about what art is for me. I’m a hard-core painting fan, so I’ll continue my route there. But I’ll be waiting to see if Mr. Signer ever decides to work with wave harmonics in his work. They sort of remind me of those moments in our life when we feel life stops, and we keep going back to them as pivotal moments.