1972 : chronologie performance

1972

 

- ABRAMOVIC Marina, Environnement sonore : forêt, 1972. 

« Marche, cours, respire, repos. Fais tout ce qu’on fait dans une forêt. Décris ton expérience dans la forêt. » (Musée d’art moderne, Belgrade, 1972).

- ACCONCI Vito, Face to Face, 1972. 15 min, color, silent, Super 8 film

In this exercise in nonverbal communication, Acconci explores facial expressions, and their psychological resonance, as a mode of performance narrative. 

- ACCONCI Vito, Hand to Hand, 1972 (action-film)

HAND TO HAND, 1972

1972, 12 min, color, silent, Super 8 film

In another exploration of nonverbal communication, the camera moves back and forth, each time catching one of Acconci’s hands in an expressive gesture. The result is a kind of narrative or dialogue of gesture.

- ACCONCI Vito, Seedbed, 1972.

- ACCONCI Vito, Understone, 1972 (vidéo) 1973, 34:12 min, b&w.
37:20 1972

In this now infamous tape, exemplary of his early transgressive performance style, Acconci sits and relates a masturbatory fantasy about a girl rubbing his legs under the table. Carrying on a rambling dialogue that shifts back and forth between the camera/spectator and himself, Acconci sexualizes the implicit contract between performer and viewer—the viewer serving as a voyeur who makes the performance possible by watching and completing the scene, believing the fantasy.                                     

« In a visual style of address exactly equivalent to the presidential address, the face-to-face camera regards The Insignificant Man making the Outrageous Confession that is as likely as not to be an Incredible Lie. Who can escape the television image of Nixon? » -David Antin, Artforum

1973, 34:12 min, b&w, sound

One of Acconci’s most compelling works, Undertone is a confrontational attempt to engage the viewer in an intimate, ultimately perverse relation with the artist. Acconci sits at the end of a long table, arms hidden underneath, facing the camera/viewer. Looking down, he begins a hypnotic monologue as he tries to convince himself that there is a woman under the table rubbing his thighs, or, alternately, that it is only himself rubbing his thighs. « I want to believe there’s no one here under the table ... I want to believe there’s a girl here. » Then, in a direct address, he implicates the viewer in this fantasy: « I need you to keep your place there at the head of the table. I need to know I can count on you.... » Coercively positioning the viewer as both voyeur and accomplice, Acconci defines himself through the spectator as psychological other: « I need you to screen out my lies, filter out the lies from the real point of view. »

- ACCONCI Vito, Transference Zone, 1972. (performance/installation), Sonnabend Gallery. NYC.

- ANTIN David, « Talking in Pomona », Artforum, v.11, September 1972, pp. 39-47. 

Transcription of a talk he presented to art students at Pomona College, Claremont, Ca., in April, 1972.

- ANTIN Eleanor, Carving: A Traditionnal Sculpture, 1972 (action-photo). Orlando Gallery, Encino, Ca.

— « Ainsi, celle d’Eleanor Antin, Carving: A Traditional Sculpture (1973) est une oeuvre composée de soixante-douze photographies de l’artiste prises chaque jour lors d’un régime amaigrissant qu’elle s’impose pendant cinq semaines. La représentant en pied et nue, de face, de profil et de dos, les images en noir et blanc montrent le corps de l’artiste perdant cinq kilos au fil des jours. Les photographies sont présentées sous la forme d’un quadrillage de manière à ce que quatre d’entre elles forment un axe vertical et les autres un axe horizontal révélant le corps qui perd du poids semaine après semaine. Le titre de l’oeuvre se réfère à la sculpture grecque et rappelle la fonction même de cette technique par le biais de la taille dans la matière. Cette transformation physique renvoie dès lors tant au canon sculptural qu’à la dictature sociale auxquels le corps de la femme doit se soumettre pour répondre au désir masculin et à l’inconscient collectif de la forme parfaite. Le régime est la performance, touchant à l’intimité du corps, la photographie est le travail fini mais les deux interagissent. »

(Nathalie Boulouch & Elvan Zabunyan, « Introduction », in Janig Bégoc, Nathalie Boulouch & Elvan Zabunyan, La Performance. Entre archives et pratiques contemporaines, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes & Archives de la critique d’art, 2010, p. 21)

- ANTIN Eleanor, Domestic Peace, 1972. Orlando Gallery, Encino, Ca.

- ANTIN Eleanor, Representational Painting, Orlando Gallery, Encino, Ca., 1972.

— Marilyn Nix : « Eleanor Antin’s Traditional Art », Artweek, v. 3, September 16, 1972, p. 3. Review of Antin’s exhibition Painting, Drawing and Sculpture at the Orlando Gallery, Encino, Ca. Discusses the three works in the show : Representational Painting, Carving, and Domestic Peace, part of Antin’s Traditional Art Series. Extrait : 

(Antin) states that the three pieces in the exhibit… are concerned with « a re-investigation of art history and methodology by redefining the old terms so precisely as to throw new and relevant light and, in fact, make them useful again ».

In the « Painting » segment of the exhibit, the artist shows a videotape of about 35 minutes length titled « Representational Painting ». …she applies cosmetics, changes into a chic blouse and a perky hat, prepared to present herself to the world…

The second work is « Sculpture », titled « Carving »…as in the classical tradition the piece is carved one layer at a time. Through a program of dicting, the artist gradually whittles down her body, a layer at a time. Antin was photographed unclothed daily for a month – front, back and each side…

In the « Drawing » portion of the exhibit, the work is titled « Domestic Peace ». It consists of 15 xeroxed pages on which… Antin recorded manually, but almost as an oscillograph would, the reactions her mother had during conversations that had been pre-planned and were carried out without her knowledge of the under-the-table sketching that continued throughout the project.

— Peter Plagens : « Eleanor Antin; Orlando », Artforum, v. 11, November 1972, pp. 88-89. Review of Antin’s exhibition at the Orlando Gallery, Encino, Ca. Extrait :

« The actions in this show are : 1) « a strict regimen of diet and exercise » resulting in the loss of nine pounds in thirty days – docummented by 120 photographs, four view a day, of Antin in the nude ; 2) a face-cleansing and make-up session – documented by a sharp, professional videotape ; and 3) a ‘forced’, extended psychological encounter with her mother – documented by a kind of psychic electrocardiogram, ranging from restful pleasantness (pleasantness restful ?) to hysteria. »

- ANTIN Eleanor, The King, 1972-78, 52 min. b&w. silent. 

Writes Antin : « Applying hair to her face, the artist moves throught a variety bearded faces seeking the identity most appropriate to her facial structure ans satisfying to her aspirations. » Antin transforms herself into a man and adopts one of recurring performance personae, « The King ».

Dans The King, vidéo tirée d’une série de performances réalisée entre 1972 et 1978, Eleanor Antin se filme et se photographie avec un déguisement qui lui permet de construire son autoportrait masculin idéalisé ; un alter ego, chef d’état de Solana Beach, une ville de Californie. Ce personnage souligne déjà le goût d’Eleanor Antin pour l’allégorie et le tragi-comique qui animent ses créations les plus récentes. Au cours de ces performances, elle traverse la ville ainsi masculinisée et va à la rencontre des sujets de son royaume, préoccupée par les problèmes que rencontre la communauté. A l’instar d’une personnalité politique, elle les écoute, les conseille, les mettant par exemple en garde face aux entrepreneurs immobiliers destructeurs de la nature. 

Dans sa performance filmée The King, l’artiste filme sa transformation. Dans une pièce sombre, sans décor précis et à l’éclairage maîtrisé et théâtral, elle s’installe à une table de maquillage, face à un miroir. Elle applique sur des zones de son visage préalablement déterminées au crayon noir, des mèches de cheveux qu’elle coupe pour donner vie à son personnage. Elle passe avec minutie par différentes longueurs de barbe et de moustache avant d’aboutir finalement à la taille qui correspond à l’identité du Roi qu’elle va incarner. 

Tous les gestes sont lents et précis, tels une chorégraphie, un rituel répété. Les plans s’enchainent par l’intermédiaire de fondus enchainés cinématographiques. Eleanor Antin est telle l’actrice, se préparant dans sa loge ; elle rentre dans la peau de ce personnage anachronique et fantasmé. Elle n’a pas besoin de changer de sexe pour devenir un homme, le costume et la posture suffisent à faire basculer le genre. L’apparence fait l’être. (Priscilia Marques)

http://www.newmedia-arts.be/cgi-bin/show-oeu.asp?ID=150000000059695&lg=FRA

Re-Enact 2009/Oreet ASHERY : Hairoism, 27 June 2009, Tate Modern. Once more with Feeling. Reprise de The King d’Eleanor Antin.

For Hairoism Oreet Ashery shaved her head and applied hair donated from the audience to her scalp and face to imitate the hair patterns of four male public figures : Moshe Dayan, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzouk, Avigdor Liebermann and Yassar Arafat/Ringo Starr. The first figure has the least hair and the last has the most, allowing her to become hairier as the piece progressed. After the fourth figure’s hair pattern had been applied, her two assistants continued to glue hair to her face and body, with the goal of covering it entirely as time permitted.

Hairoism was inspired by Eleanor Antin’s The King, a silent, 52 minute, black  and white fil where Antin slowly applies hair to her face to become her male alter ego. In a recent interview, Antin states : « Role playing was about feeling that I didn’t have a self. And I didn’t miss it… I just borrowed other people’s, or made them up. And it’s something that continued when I started working with personas because it was a very good way of dealing with a lot of the political and social issues that were of interest to me. » Oreet Ashery shares Antin’s subjectivity expressed in those descriptions and in taking on various characters for her work she addresses socio-political backdrops and challenged a sense of authority over herself.

Cindy Nemser (— Cindy Nemser. Art Talk : Conversation with 12 Women Artists. NY : Scribners, 1975. Eleanor Antin is among the 12 women interviewed for the book, pp. 267-302. Extensive interview ; includes several photographs. Extrait :

« E. Antin : When I started moving out of those more plausible or expectable transformations like dieting, putting on street make-up, or changing my regular artist’s self into a more bourgeois image, all these things we do all the time, I moved into perfectly plausible but less expected and perharps more exotic transformations. I got interested in the tranformational nature of the self and the possibilities of defining my limits, such as age, sex, space, time, talent, what have you, all the things that restricted of himself would be. Well I wanted perfect freedom.

C. Nemser : To transcend space and time.

E. A. : Why not ? If autobiography is fiction – and it is because it is history, the past – you don’t have to be restricted to your own past. You might come up with someone else’s fiction. One of my selves is a king.

C. N. : Does that refer to your piece The King and The Ballerina ?

E. A. : I have been putting those two together.

C. N. : Which did you do first ?

E. A. : Well they all started with Carving and the naturalist transformations and then they went into exploring the limits of my possibilities. »

— Cf. Cindy Nemser, « Four Artists od Sensuality », Arts Magazine, v. 49, March 1975, pp. 73-75.

— Cf. Carla Liss, « Eleanor Antin as Ballerina », Artweek, v. 6, November 29, 1975, p. 6. Review of Antin’s performance, as the King (November 6) and as the Ballerina (November 7), performed at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, as part of the opening of Lynn Hershman’s Floating Museum.

- ASCO, Walking Mural, 1972.

- BALDESSARI John, Choosing Green Beans, Milano : Toselli, 1972. Artist book.

- BALDESSARI John, Easel Painting, 1972-73. (action-film).

« Each finger on one of my hands is alternately stuck in yellow, then green, dry pigment. First it was fun, second it is a painting and a comment on painting. »

- BALDESSARI John, Ingres and Other Parables, London : Studio International, 1972. Artist book.

- BALDESSARI John, Inventory, 1972. Video. 30 mins. b/w.

- BEN Vautier, Documenta 5. 1972.

- BEUYS Joseph, Office Organisation for Direct Democracy per Referendum, 1972.

- BRISLEY Stuart, And for Today Nothing, 1972.

- BROWN Trisha, Group Primary Accumulation. Raft Version, 1972. Loring Park. Walker Art Center. Minneapolis.

- BUCHANAN Nancy, Hair Transplant, (F Place) Santa Ana, Californie. 1972. (First performance) 

A completer anthology p. 474.

- BUGLI Enrico, The Search for the Ideal, 1972-73.

« Object to be acted upon: 54 wooden boards shaped by hand, tied with a 3 mm nylon cord, of unfinish fir, 20 x 220 x 1.8 cm; the length of the mounted object is 12 m, composed of two sections of 6 m each. 

Use of object: two people undress themselves and place the object in various positions interacting with it, as the camera repeats the images of the performance on a 150 x 120 cm screen, placed 230 cm from the ground, to underline the tautology and the changes in their behavior, provoked and caused by the object.

The object es a pretext for stimulating behaviors which are completely different from what may be predicted from the spectator, who is an indispensable element in this true poetic monument to the useless. In this, although we can expect a natural pendular motion between cynicism and sincerity, we cannot exclude a point of transition where, as a matter of fact, the individual can try to force his own audience to judge him according to the fixed image of his so-called wickedness, which the object corroborates by constantly insinuating that the effectiveness of the interpretation proposed (see: tautology) is somehow illusory.

Besides, there is the old question of deception, which here becomes a suspicion of violent negation of the roles. The (physical) coercion is such, that one involved in the action, one becomes an actor, of necessity, offered to the sadism of the author. ‘Professions, for which the audience has a solid respect, often allow trespassing into cynicism, sometimes not to deceive their own audience (their statements can never be taken as valid ones), but because they can use this cynicism as a means to isolate the most intimate part of themselves from contact with the spectators.’ The latter are, in any case, misled by the double image, which comes as a commentary aside, but which ends up by being the only representative element – that is, a sadistic one.

The performance The Search for the Ideal lasts twenty minutes and is projected on a screen two meters high; in the dark behind the screen, two nude figures repeat the action of the film; the soundtrack by Caruso and me is obtained with two tape recorders which are placed in two corners at one hand of the room and run simultaneously. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 64-65)

- BURDEN Chris, Bed Piece, February 18-March 10. 1972. 

As part of something called Market Street Program, Burden moved a single bed into an art gallery. At noon on Feb. 18, he took off his clothes and got into bed. It’s not clear how long he stayed – surely it coudn’t have been nearly a month. At any rate, during this performance he spoke to no one, and started to prefer the bed to the world outside. It seems to have freaked people out pretty effectively.

- BURDEN Chris, Deadman, Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles, Ca., November 12, 1972. 

« At 8 p.m. I lay down on La Clenega Boulevard and was covered completely with a canvas tarpaulin. Two fifteen- minute flares were placed near me to alert cars. Just before the flares extinguished, a police car arrived. I was arrested and booked for causing a false emergency to be reported. Trial took place in Beverly Hills. After three days of deliberation, the jury failed to reach to decision, and the judge dismissed the case. »

— Barbara T. Smith, « Artpiece Brings Arrest, » Artweek, v.4, January 6, 1973, p.3. Discussion of Burden’s performance work, Deadman, for the Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles, in which he placed himself under the rear wheels of a parked car on the street outside the gallery. He was arrested by the police during the event and subsequently went a trial. Excerpt:

« …we discovered that the ‘piece’ was just on the other side of the vehicles parked in front of the gallery. We saw a ‘body’ beneath the rear wheels of a car, covered by a heavy tarpaulin. Two road flares had been struck and were lying nearby. Immediate thoughts of accident and death came to mind. A large crowd gathered in a semi-circle around the ‘accident’ and into the street. Wondering what was going to happen next, the possibility of police intervention crossed my mind just as in fact a plocie car drove up.

« Two officers came forward, scanned the scene and began to ask what had happened; did anyone see what had happened? After some pause one approached Chris and uncovered him, ask if he was OK and what he was doing. He told them he was an artist doing his ‘piece.’ They arrested him. »

— « Editor’s Mail Bag, » Artweek, v.4, February 10, 1973, p.2. Critical letters regarding Barbara Smith’s review of a performance by Chris Burden at the Mizuno Gallery (Artweek, January 6, 1973) and Smith’s response to the criticism. Excerpt:

« Smith: 1. The artist tends to deal with his own feelings and concerns about this, his life. It would be naive to say that all artists find our times easy or rosy. So what is he to do ? It is not news to say that a great many artists find it very difficult to make paintings or sculpture when there is no viable architecture – upon which these media depend – the adequately represents either our needs or times. So we can cite many names other than Burden’s that show there is a body of work being done in this area of, simply stated, what it feels like to BE now. Vito Acconci, Terry Fox, Joseph Beuys, Joan Jonas, Paul Cotton, Jim Byars, and more all of whom show how they feel in their own being and/or in alternative ways, formalized into event-like occurrences that transcend their personal dilemnas. »

— Barbara T. Smith, « Burden Case Tried, Dismissed, » Artweek, v.4, February 24, 1973, p.2. A report on the Burden trial; Chris Burden was arrested November 12, 1972, during a performance at the Mizuno Gallery, Los Angeles (see Artweek, January 6, 1973, p.3 and February 10, 1973, p.2).

- BURDEN Chris, Match Piece, 1972, Beverly, Californie.

- BURDEN Chris, TV Hijack, Los Angeles, Ca., February 9, 1972. 

« On January 14 I was asked to do a piece on a local television station by Phyllis Lutjeans. After several proposals were censored by the station or by Phyllis, I agreed to an interview situation. I arrived at the station with my own video crew so that I could have my own tape. While the taping was in progress, I requested that the show be transmitted live. Since the station was not broadcasting at the time, they complied. In the course of the interview, Phyllis asked me to talk about some of the pieces I had thought of doing. I demonstrated a TV hijack. Holding a knife at her throat, I treatened her life if the station stopped live transmission. I hold her that I had planned to make her perform obscene acts. At the end of the recording, I asked for the tape of the show. I unwound the reel and destroyed the show by dousing the tape with acetone. The station manager was irate, and I offered him my tape which included the show and its destruction, but he refused. »

- BURDEN Chris, You’ll never see my Face in Kansas City, November 6. 1972. Kansas City.

« Rumbles ; Chris Burden », Avalanche, no. 4, Spring 1972, p. 6. Brief discussion of Burden’s performances presented in 1971. Extrait :

« You’ll never see my Face in Kansas City was Chris Burden’s one-man show on Saturday, November 6, at Kansas City’s Morgan Gallery. Wearing a knitted snow mask which he donned 50 miles outside the city limits « for safety’s sake », Burden entered the gallery and sat bolt upright in a wooden kitchen chair so that his face was completely hidden behind a painted plywood panel attached to the ceiling. … During the past year he has executed a number of body-oriented performance pieces in Northern and Southern California,. … For his Five–day locker Piece at the University of California, Irvine, he had himself sealed up in a three foot square gym locker. His contribution to the graduate group show at Irvine was Bicycle Riding piece, which consisted of approximately 1600 passes through the University Art Gallery on his bicycle. »

- CALZOLARI Pierpaolo, Action, 1972.

« …as for the explanatory text for my action, I am sorry, but it is not my habit to accompany my work with texts »
(See Lea Vergine, p. 69)

- CARPI Cioni, Egg One Egg Zero, 1972.

« I do not believe it is possible to talk about just one or two of my films (even if I omit a whole period, from 1960 to 1965, of experimental film) without also speaking of others which are their premise, or element of continuity. And particularly I would like to mention three films (Dog, Rat, Puzzle) of 3 to 4 minutes each, whose framess cannot reproduces other than by projection, since the visually recognizable part of these films, which lasts a few seconds, is the key to their interpretation, that is, the element of shock which must act on the body of spectator. So, I will start precisely with these non-reproducible films in which the recognizable sequences present situations of violence (with a meaning of bullying) that goes from the kind of violence which still leaves a margin for struggle, to total violence. In each of these three films the recognizable sequence is preceded and followed by about two minutes of imageless projection. It is inevitable that during the first part of ‘zero’ projection the spectators’ behavior will vary from individual to individual: from expectation, to boredom, to agitation, to irritation, to a hypnotic state, to thinking about one’s own affairs, to hatred toward the artist, and so on. To sum up, this part of non-happening should help to detach spectators from the reality surrounding them, to free them from defined contexts, to make them available for any possibility. But from the very moment when these different inner attitudes recompose themselves thanks to the short recognizable sequence, the spectators’ behavior should change by conforming to a common model through cognitive processes (curiosity, attention, reflection, etc.), since the received information of violence will be stored and elaborated by the spectators according to homogeneous modes and quantities, and the visual happening will be transformed into political awareness. Therefore, during the second part of imageless projection the spectators will have all the time they need to reflect, perhaps even upon the impossibility of eluding the existential obligation – rather than the nature of the existential problem – and the danger of evading objective reality, which today seems to be merely a question of violence. And these are truly active palimpsests. » 

« From a hole in the ground I unearth the last egg, I drink it, I carefully bury its remain again. A situation of non-hope: « to hope for something » must be replaced by « to fight for something » (hope, as we know, is the last and the worst sin in Pandora’s box). » (see Lea Vergine, p. 72-73)

- CARPI Cioni, Two Feet One Foot Underground, 1972.

« I dig a hole one foot deep and I bury my feet in it, I sit down and I stop moving. An admission of impotence, of incapacity, of insufficiency (but the admission is in itself awareness). After the film was shot, the fact of having unearthed my feet, althrough with a certain effort, was already a step in the right direction. These films have no soundtrack, since sound must be taken for granted (sea, wind, etc.), otherwise it would become an arbitrary and strongly conditioning element, exactly as the ‘silence’ is in the three films described at the beginning. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 73)

- CHIARI Giuseppe, Gestures on the Piano, 1972.
(see 1968: Concert for Woman)

« Concert for Woman, 1968

Gestures on the Piano, 1972

I have written pieces for the human body such as Concert for Woman (1968) and Doing Something with One’s Body and the Wall (1966). In the first one, the main part consists of soft, extremely varied noises which can be obtained by blowing into a woman’s hair. In the second one, any variation whatsoever is right; as long as noises are produced by beating one’s body against the wall.

However, I want to make it clear that as far as I am concerned the body is a thing like anything else. I have written pieces for the woman, but also for the bicycle, for the necklace, for the tape-recorder, for the TV set, for the city, for a sheet of paper, for a stone, for anything whatsoever. Perhaps the piece in which the human body has the most important function is Gestures on the Piano. By starting with the hypothesis that the keyboard of a piano is a long white strip, that man does not know the existence of the keys, that man though is aware that whatever gestures he makes, the keyboard will return it as a noise having the same expression, I proposed a whole technique of gestures.

And, in effect, during the years that I performed this piece, my hands, arms, shoulders, and face, had an opportunity to liberate themselves. The same effect was esperienced by other performers like Frederic Rzewski, Giancarlo Cardini, Jean-Charles François… Perhaps this was a piece of gestures… a piece for hands, arms, face, shoulders… and the piano underlined only these gestures… » (see Lea Vergine, p. 77)

- CHICAGO Judy, Triggering Work, 1972.

- CHICAGO Judy, Womanhouse, 1972.

- CHICAGO Judy, WILDING Faith & LESTER Janice, Cock & Cunt Play, 1972, Womanhouse.

Re-Enact : FOX Oriana, Cock and Cunt Play, 2009. Once More With Feeling. Tate Modern Gallery. 27 June 2009. Londres (Re-Enact Judy Chicago, 1970). Performed with Judy Batalion, Genevieve Maxwell, and Sharon Bennett. This piece is a contemporary of Judy Chicago’s Cock and Cunt Play (1971), a comedic skit about gender stereotypes and domestic violence. It was first performed at Womanhouse (1972) by Faith Wilding and Janice Lester who wore black leotards and oversized vinyl genitalia and recited their lines with exaggereted voices. In the original play the cunt’s simple request for help washing the dishes ends in her own murder at the hands of the macho and chauvinistic Cock.

The new version is decidedly less violent and incorporates two addional characters : Cervix and Sperm. It begins with Cunt asking that Cock help her with the dishes, but when he quickly complies, Cunt gets aroused. The Cervix appears when Cock penetrates Cunt, but much to her chagrin, Sperm arrives shortly thereafter. The Cervix character takes inspiration from artist/sex-guru Annie Sprinkle who showed her cervix to live audiences as part of her solo Post Porn Modernist (1989).

— Judy Chicago’s Cock and Cunt Play was first performed by Faith Wilding and Janice Lester at Womanhouse in 1972. Cock and Cunt is a skit in three short acts, in which two women dressed identically in black leotards with oversized, pink vinyl genitalia performa with deliberate, awkward, puppet-like movements. It begins with one student, dressed as the ‘cunt’, asking in a high-pitched, halting voice if the other, dressed at the ‘cock’, will help her to the dishes. Shocked, the ‘cock’ refuses, claiming his phallus exempts him from doing dishes. The play continues with the ‘cock’ mounting the ‘cunt’ while he declares the superiority of his sex organ, which is ‘long and hard and straight… like a gun or a missile’, and accuses the ‘cunt’ of threatening to castrate him by asking him to participate in household chores and please her sexuality. The performance ends with the ‘cock’ beating the ‘cunt’ to death with his phallus. A clear mockery of gender roles, Cock und Cunt is a comedy. But humorous as it is, it is also deeply sadistic, one might call it histerical.

This performance, as with many of the performances produced through The Feminist Art Program at Fresno State and CalArts under the leadership of Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro more closely resembled skits or plays than the more sophisticated, conceptual work being done by artists elsewhere. However, despite their lack of sophistication, the students’ performances of assault, harassment and violation were in tune with the broader cultural moment. Issues of aggression and violence toward women were just beginning to be discussed and analysed within the women’s movement, and other feminist artists in the 1960s and 70s had just begun to explore these concerns through performance.

- CHICAGO Judy, LACY Suzanne, ORGEL Sandra & RAHMANI Aviva, Ablutions, 1972.

- CIAM Giorgio, Attempt to Enrich Ciam’s Personnality, 1972 (photo)

« Sixteen canvases: one has photographic reproduction of my face, the other fifteen, on which my image has been printed, reproduce a series of expressive faces for me: Fontana, Duchamp, Pistoletto, a typical murderer, etc. Roughly speaking, my intervention consisted in removing those parts of my face which were not common to the selected individual. The only constants are the eyes and the chin with the scar, around which the drawing/painting operation defined itself. I used color and pencil to obtain the images that interested me. The canvases must be viewed in succession and not separately, in order to establish a continuous comparison with the unit of measure. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 81)

- COLETTE, Hommage à Delacroix, 1972.

- COLETTE, I Can Move, 1972.

- COLETTE, Street Work-The Ear, 1972.

- COLETTE, Street Work-The Heart, 1972.

- DE COINTET Guy, A Captain from Portugal, 1972. Artist book.

- EXPORT VALIE, Aufprägung, 1972.

- FOX Terry, Action in a Towerroom, 1972, Dokumenta, Kassel.

- FOX Terry, Axione per a Bacile, 1972. Super 8 film, 30 mins., color.

- FOX Terry, L’Unita, 1972, Lucio Amelio, Naples, Italy.

- FOX Terry, Performance Spaces, 1972. School of Visual Arts Gallery, NYC, organized by Vito Acconci. 

Terry Fox’s  piece consists of a chair facing a wall. The chair is the performance space. Persons whom Fox has met in NYC, sit in the chair at 3 P. M. and attempt, by thinking of Fox, to transmit througts to him in California. Rosemary Matthias, « Performance Spaces : Exhibition », Arts Magazine, v. 46, Summer 1972, p. 58. Review of exhibition, Performance Spaces, at the School of Visual Arts Gallery, NY, organized by Vito Acconci, Excerpt on Terry Fox’s contribution to the exhibition.

- FOX Terry, Pont, 1972, Galerie Sonnabend, Paris.

- FOX Terry, The Fire…, Rotterdam, 1972. Videotape, 30 mins., color.

- FOX Terry, Washing, Paris, 1972. Audiotape sound loop, 15 mins.

- FRIED Howard, Chainsmoke-Flavor Mint- Portrait of Flower, 1972. 

« Object… Howard Fried’s transmitted image.

Object modifier… Howard Fried.

Subject… the transmission of Howard Fried’s image.

Subject modifier… Anne Evans. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 100 and see Howard Fried, Out of Sight Out of Mind, 1972)

- FRIED Howard, Indian War Dance/Indian Rope Trick, Documenta 5. Kassel. 1972.

— Cecile N. McCann, « Howard Fried at Documenta », Artweek, v. 3, July 29, 1972, p. 5. Description of Fried’s contribution to Dokumenta 5, Kassel, Germany; a performance work entitled, Indian War dance/Indian Rope Trick. Extrait :

« The first stage is a wrestling match between Howard Fried and David Sherk… as they wrestle, a judge rings a twill, ending each ‘round’ of the match. Naming one or the other of the artists as the ‘winner’ of the round, he gives him a drink or liquor. There are no guide lines for the judge’s decisions, but the wrestlers abide by them. ‘The Judge’, according to Fried’s intent, ‘is just a bell ringer. He’s the manipulator of the sobriety of the participants’. The match is to continue until both wrestlers are to drunk to stand.

Later, ‘or next day, after they recover’, comes the Indian Rope Trick part. …a weight on a long piece of rope is attached to Fried. He will swing it out and back in an expanding and contracting spiral that centers on his body. He sees the rope as a means of control over a certain space – a control that ‘initially commandeers a certain amount of space and then comes back and wraps me up’. »

- FRIED Howard, Long John Silver vs. Long John Servil, 1972.

- FRIED Howard, Out of Sight Out of Mind, 1972.

« The psychological tone originally transmitted by the physical presence of the object modifier decreased in fidelity or was distorted by the passage of time and eroded by the friction-like correspondence of the subject modifier and the time spent in the presence of each of the objects (the portraits). This process reached a stage where the psychological tone displayed by the object seemed to the object modifier to be somewhat less than nineteen times more reflective of the subject modifier’s psychological stage than that of the original object; much less, the object modifier. The twentieth then seems to be a mask, or rather functions as a camouflage for the subject modifier’s reaction to her encounter with a particular structure of time rather than her encounter with the object modifier – whose image is the object.

I commissioned Anne Evans, an ex-portrait artist to do twenty portraits for me. The first was a portrait of me. The second, a portrait of the first portrait; the third a portrait of the second portrait… and so on. I was present while the first portrait was executed, I posed for it. I was no present while any of the subsequent nineteen were executed. » (see Lea vergine, p. 100-101 and see Howard Fried, Chainsmoke-Flavor Mint-Portrait of Flower, 1972)

- FRIED Howard, Sea Quick, 1972.

- FRIED Howard, Sea Sell Sea Sick at Saw/Sea Soar, San Francisco, 1972. Video. 50 mins., b/w.

— Steve Davis, «  Howard Fried Installation Piece », Artweek, v. 3, March 25, 1972, p. 1. Review of Fried’s exhibition at Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco. Includes description of Fried’s videotape, Sea Sell Sick at Saw/Sea Soar. Extrait :

« This particular video piece is about a restaurant situation which gets to the roots of comedy in addition to exemplifying Fried’s formal and philosophical concerns. The Setting is a table and chair on a suspended and swinging platform stage with Fried acting as patron of the restaurant (it’s his studio). Alec Lambie and Barney Bailey are waiters. The video camera is also on a swing and the camera and set swing in opposite directions and are in constant motion. Two videotape viewers sit side by side on the floor and relay the dualities. The action consists of Fried trying to order (dinner, lunch and breakfast in that order). Lambie and Bailey try to get the order out of him. »

- FRIED Howard, « Studio Relocation », Breakthroughs in Fiction. NY : Something Else Press, 1972.

- FRIED Howard, Which Hunt, San Francisco. 1972. Video.

— Cf. Cecile N. McCann, « San Francisco Artists », Artweek, v. 3, November 4, 1972, p. 1. Review of San Francisco Art Institute’s exhibition of five San Francisco artists. Includes discussion of the videotape contributed by Howard fried for the exhibition.

- GERZ Jochen, Calling to The Point of Exhaustion, 1972. action-vidéo.

- GERZ Jochen, Rufen bis zur Erschöpfung,  1972, Blanc-Mesnil.

Durant cette performance « Crier jusqu’à épuisement », en haut d’une colline au Blanc-Mesnil, en région parisienne, l’artiste hurle jusqu’à extinction de sa voix, l’unique mot, Allo à 60 mètres d’une caméra.

- GILBERT & GEORGE, Oh, the Grand Old Duke of York, 1972.

(no UP, no DOWN)

Oh, the Grand Old Duke of York

He had ten thousand men

And he marched them up to the top of the hill

And he marched them down again

And when they were up, they were up

And when they were down, they were down

And when they were only half way up

They were neither up nor down

Being living sculptures is our life blood, our destiny, our romance, our disaster, our light and life. As day breaks over us, we rise into our vacuum and the cold morning light filters dustily through the window. We put on our shoes for the coming walk. Our limbs begin to stir and form actions of looseness, as though without gravity they bounce about for the new day. The head afloat on top levels on the horizon of our thought. Our hearts pound with flesh blood and emotion and again we find ourselves standing there all nerved up in body and mind. Often we will glide across the room, drawn by the window’s void. Our eyes are glued to this frame of light. Our mind points ever to our decay. The big happening outside the window floods our vision like a passing film. It leaves us without impressions, giving up only silence and repretitive relaxation. Nothing can touch us or take us out of ourselves. It is a continuous sculpture. Our minds float off into time, visiting fragments of words heard, face seen, feelings felt, faces loved. We take occasional sips from our water glasses. Consciousness comes along and goes away, slipping from dreaming space into old concrete awareness. The whole room is filled with the mass and weight for our own history, at time it sees us chained to our chairs and then it will appear like large music, surrounding and intoxicating. We feel briefly but seriously for our fellow artistmen. More than ever complete with our physical, for a time with legs crossed, or arms folded until the elbows ache, a throat is cleared gently but effectively, we then stand for relief pushed up against the wall. Sometimes the room with its size and form and precision of our clarity, its one vase of flowers, its large desk-blackboard of our doing, our two dear, faithful green chairs, the black telephone, linked with the World’s art-network.

Ring and ring again

Make us happy ever again

Stay as silent as the desk

And be as free and let it be.

The neat ash tray steadily fills with relaxful butts, beside it a fresh yellow packet of cigarettes. Very often the room makes us hurt with real bodily pressure. From time to time we are taken head-first from this room called “Art for all“ out and away, sometimes driven, sometimes drawn to breathe again amongst the people. We stroll with specialised embarassment and our purpose is only to take the sunshine. The people are all living near to beauty, passing by. Walking is the eternity of our living movement, it can never tell us of end, it is for nothing but the time passing unnoticed. We give ourselves to this walking and so the houses come towards us and then away behind. We would like to tell of our great pleasure in seeing the early flowers and blossoms, they seem to have a youg fresh youth, so fine and coloured. We remark the trees with their tight bursting buds. As our legs take us jauntily along we come to a place where we pause for a cup of poison-nervous tea. We sit sit over it chatting a little of the normal afternoon when all is usual and well. Nothing breathtaking wil occur here, but in the darkness of a picture house, where time is killed, the world explodes realistically into giant action stories, men are killed, women are loved, mountains are blown up, night falls, Volcanoes erupt, john wayne rides again and caesar speaks anew to people. All this until the reel is done and viewers drift blinking and reeling out into the bright city. And we happily go back to Our art where only tiredness and searching play big roles, where all is thin on the ground, where greatness is made at the stroke of a brush, where something and nothing are both qualities. Art is for all the only hope for the making way for the Modern world to enjoy the sophistication of decadent living expression. It is our strong belief that in Art there is living, and where there’s life there’s Hope.  It is for this reason that we have dedicated our hands, legs, pens, speech and our own dear heads to progress and understanding in art.

Art my Life and Art my Way

See us painting in mud and clay

See us dancing and smiling too

Let us hope that Art is true.

And then maybe we will see ourselves in a garden, soft and sitting, watching the sun as it gently lowers itself down behind the horizon, taking with it all its golden light and warmth. For a little while the garden keeps some of the day’s warm-strength. The two men-sculptures use-up the last pleasure, but soon the chill of evening creeps over all, we hear no insect, the birds begin to settle down from the day’s frolics and we feel it must soon be time to stretch a leg and make our way between the rich beds of flowers, over the spongy lawns to return to solid state of buildings with their sensible doors and windows. On our way we pause on the embankment to take in the glory that is the Thames and Westminster. Slowly the lamps are lighted and night presumes upon the evening. We like it very much. We like it because we are so stupid, artistic and shy. Because we have come from nowhere and where we go nobody knows. We feel the total mystery of each man-laid brick. We are just down at the river feeling around. As the shades of night are falling around our neighbourhood we stroll because we know full well that another sculpture day is over. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 105-107)

- GLASSMAN Joel, Symbolic Logic of Now, 1972. Video. 45 mins.

- HENTZ Mike, Musictheatre. Group Defi Science Mental, 1972-74.

- HORN Rebecca, Finger Gloves, 1972. 

Ideas of touch and sensory awareness are explored in this work. Horn has described how wearing these gloves altered her relationship with her surroundings, so that distant objects came within her reach: « the finger gloves are light. I can move them without any effort. Feel, touch, grasp anything, but keeping a certain distance from the objects. The lever-action of the lengthened fingers intensifies the various sense-data of the hand; …I feel me touching, I see me grasping, I control the distance between me and the objects. » Implicit in the work is the idea that touching makes possible an intimacy between our own body and those of others. (2004)

— « An instrument to extend manual sensibility. The finger-gloves are light – I can move them without any effort – feel, touch, grasp anything, but keeping a certain distance from the objects. The lever-action of the lengthened fingers intensifies the various sense-data of the hand. The manual activity is experienced in a new operational mode: I feel myself touching, I see myself grasping, I control the distance between me and the objects. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 115)

- HORN Rebecca, Kopfextension, Documenta 5, 1972.

- HORN Rebecca, Pencil Mask, 1972.

- HORN Rebecca, White Body Fan, 1972.

While Rebecca Horn’s more recent work has been determined by a poetical deployment of mechanical constructions, this object – a metal construction measuring 300 cm in diameter – belongs to the film « Performances II », 1973, in which Rebecca Horn was preoccuped still with extending her own body into space. Besides the « White Body Fan », body extensions also figured in the performances « Einhorn » (« Unicorn »), « Kopf-extension » (« Head-Extension »), « Bleistifmaske » (« Pencil Mask »), « Meine Hand kann fliegen » (« My Hand Can Fly »), « Gavin », « Hahnenmaske » (« Cockfeather Mask »), « Fingerhandschuhe » (« Finger Gloves ») and « Kakadu-Maske » (« Cockatoo Mask »). She produced a variation on this work with the action « mechanischer Körperfächer » (« Mechanical Body Fan ») in 1974.

- JANICOT Françoise, Encoconnage, 1972.

Françoise Janicot (*1929, France) a été peintre avant de photographier ses contemporains dans les années soixante (Julian Beck, Julien Blaine, W. S. Burroughs, John Cage, Jacqueline Cahen, François Dufrêne, J. Giorno, C. Moorman, E. Ferrer, Christian Prigent et Jean-Jacques Lebel. Elle a aussi produit des performances en 1969-70. Plus tard, elle fit des films and des vidéos sur des artistes de la performance et des poètes sonores.

Inspiré par des poèmes sonores composés pas son mari, Bernard Heidsieck, Françoise Janicot s’enferme le visage dans une sorte de cocon fait d’une fine bandelette, oeuvre qui montre son isolement en tant que femme, mère et artiste.

- JONAS Joan, Left Side Right Side, 1972.

- JONAS Joan, Vertical Roll, 1972. (vidéo).

In this well-known early tape, Jonas manipulates the grammar of the camera to create the sense of grossly disturbed physical space. This space functions as a metaphor for the unstable identity of the costumed and masked female figure roaming the screen, negotiating the rolling barrier of the screen’s bottom edge. (Making) use of a jarring rhythmic technique to developp a sense of fragmentation, ‘Vertical Roll’ uses a common television  set malfunction of the same name to establish a constantly shifting stage for the actions that relate both to the nature of the image and to the artist’s projected psychological state ».

- JONES Timothy Emlyn, Equation = Equation, 1972, Cardiff.

- JOURNIAC Michel, Body Contract, 1972.

Body Contract/Homage to Freud

Change your body in a work of art

Contract A: you settle for painting –  your skeleton is lacquered white.

Contract B: you settle for an object – your skeleton is dressed in your clothes.

Contract C: you settle for a sociological factor: the gold standards –  your skeleton is gold plated.

Conditions: 1 – bequeath your body to Journiac.

                 2 – die.

(see Lea Vergine, p. 127)

- JOURNIAC Michel, Hommage à Freud, 1972.

- KAPROW Allan, Calling, 1972.

- KAPROW Allan, Message Unit, 1972. California Arts. Valencia. Californie.

- KIPPER KIDS, You Turn to Roll It #3, 1972 (photo)

- KLAUKE Jürgen, Illusion, 1972.

- KLAUKE Jürgen, Self Performance, 1972-73.

- KLICK Laurel, Suicide, Fresno. Californie. 1972.

- KOS Paul, rEVOLUTION-Notes for the Invasion-Mar Mar March,
Video-Installation, 1972-73. 

Redwood 2 x 4’s, a red box with typewriter, manuscript, one inch T.V., cassette player, videotape-Mar Mar March. (performance in 1971. Winery Lake, Napa, Ca.)

- LACY Suzanne, Car Renovation, 1972.

- LACY Suzanne, Rape Is, Valencia: California Institute of Arts, 1972, 1976. 

Artist book, a « book ressembling the privacy of a woman’s interior space which is intruded upon in a variety of manners all stemming from the attitude of rape », – from Women in the Printing Arts catalog, 1977.

- LA ROCCA Ketty, You,You, 1972-73.

« My work attempts to redeem the image for itself/by materializing the challenge to metaphor, a challenge already lost, but in a declared manner, /in fact I do not narrate, I limit myself to go over again, to draw, to write the outlines with the only possible sign: handwriting/handwriting, alienating and partial moment which already pre-announces itself as historical, although always unique, my only gesture there/“you, you“ tries to hamper the visual and mental process/and to reduce the language to a simple bit of information/and to make immediately clear the asymptote of alienation/“you“ also mean I, I do not have alternatives, I save myself within my own hysteria, with the not repeatable of writing myself/by making microscopic the living the otherness outside myself/by being an example to myself of alienation/but not of perversion/thus, my work is not the seat of my affections/it is not the partial, therefore,/but the denunciation made against my stereotypes/it is not the warm placenta with which to wrap myself/but cruelty as new and only will,/outside of this force one is able to do so much/like saying/“deer are fast, Indians are fast, Indians are deer“/and to lose oneself in the narcissism of paralogism. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 131)

- LAUB Stephen, Relations, 1972-73. Detail of ‘My father and a friend from school’. (photo)

— Willoughby Sharp, « Stephen Laub’s Projections » Avalanche Newspaper, December 1974, pp.24-25. An Interview. Excerpts:

WS: What actually takes place during one of your projection pieces?

SL: First of all I project the image on the screen, as close to my actual size as possible. I wear white pans, shoes and shirt. I stands in front of the projection and look into a mirror changing my expression and position so that it resembles the
image as closely as possible.

WS: What are the images that you project?

SL: Originally the images were old photographs of my family. My parents are from Central and Eastern Europe and I went through my mom’s and dad’s old photo albums and recopied a lot of the pictures – of my mom as a kid, of her old boyfriends, her parents and grandparents. I’ve also taken photos from my baby picture book, pictures of strangers, money, the constellations…

WS: And you try to assume as exactly as possible the whole posture of the body and the facial expression.

SL: Yeah,  if they’re smiling then I try to smile. It starts out as me trying to assume their position but then I find I don’t have to try – I know how my dad smiles, or I know what a lot of my mom’s expressions are like. It’s more like falling into it than trying to get into it. And because I want to do it as perfectly as I can, while I’m looking at my image or the image in the mirror. I think, « Oh wait, that nose isn’t right! » And then I move, but it’s not my nose, it’s the image’s nose.

WS: So you really become this other person you’re trying to become.

SL: Og yeah. I get lost… 

- MARIANI Elio, Ambiences, 1972-73.

« The ambience, the body, the embraces. The before and the after. The empty ambience is the “before“, the body, the embraces “the after.“ The before represents the basic premise, the departure of all things, our desire, the expectations, the hypothesis of possible actions; the after is their conclusion, the necessary end to be reached, from an unstable balance (departure) to a verifiable one (arrival). The analysis of the bodies’ behavior through their embraces is the most natural, logical investigation of the function the body itself assumes in a process of self-identification, almost a realization of the self, of the relationship with reality. All my operations of recording and intervention are photographically executed, enlarged and then transferred onto sensitized canvas. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 139)

- MARIONI Tom — Lynn Hershman & Alec Lambie, « Tom Marioni on Record, » Artweek, v.3, May 6, 1972, pp.2-3.

Two interviews with Tom Marioni; the first by Lynn Hershman, the second by Alec Lambie. Excerpts:

[Hershman]: What’s Conceptual Art?

[Marioni]: Idea oriented art that’s not directed toward the production of a static object. There are three kinds of conceptual art. There are language artists, who use language to create imaginary space; there are artists who use mathematics to do the same thing (those are purists) and then there is conceptual art (that’s performance sculpture where the element of time has been added to sculpture).

[Lambie]: How do you feel about the personal narrativeness of the West Coast conceptual?

[Marioni]: The subject of my work a lot of the time is similar to a lot of the other people who are into performances. Like humor is an element, and I found a lot of people can’t take something serious about humor, because I’m serious about the humor.

[Lambie]: I wasn’t really referring to the content but the use of yourself as the medium.

[Marioni]: How do I see myself as an element? Oh, I’m very conscious of the relationship to the objects that I’m using. All the same problems that have always been there remain. The only difference is that the work only remains for a shorter time. It really has all the traditionnal sculptural problems with the possible exception of the time element added. »

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish), Allan Fish Drinks a Case of Beer, Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco, Ca. 1972.

Marrioni creates a situation and enviroment while becoming increasingly more intoxicated over an approximately 8 hour period of time, and simultaneously playing a congo drum, tape recorder, radio, television set and record player to make a barrage of sound.

— Hilla Futterman, « Activity as Sculptures; Tom Marioni Discusses His Work with Hilla Futterman, » Art & Artists, v.8, August 1973, pp.18-21. Excerpts:

« And then I had a show at the Reese Palley Gallery. That was called ‘The Creation – A Seven Day Performance.’ I spent the week in the gallery. I lived there. And I learned a lot about myself… »

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish), Lecture, University Art Museum, Berkeley, Ca., 1972-73. 

Marioni with a janitor, dancer, and actor swept an area of the gallery floor. « We show the world differently and we reacted to the world differently. » (Performance Anthology. Source Book of California Performance Art, p. 375)

— Carl E. Loeffler, ‘‘From the Body into Space: Post-Notes on Performance Art in Northern California,’’ in Performance Anthology. Source Book of California Performance Art. Updated Edition, Edited by Carl E. Loeffler and Darlene Tong, Last Gasp Press and Contemporary Arts Press, San Francisco, 1989 (First Edition : 1980), p.369-389. Excerpt on Tom Marioni:

‘‘Marioni regards the activity or process as a key element in this work. In this ‘‘new art’’ aesthetic, activity or situations could become art simply by moving the conceptual frame to include it within the definition of art. This principal is illustrated in the work Lecture (1970?), where, in ordered sequence, Marioni had a janitor, dancer, actor and himself sweep a gallery floor. Marioni commented, ‘‘We saw the world differently… it was sweeping the floor for the janitor… a dance for the dancer… a performance for the actor… and it was a sculpture piece for me.’’ Marioni produced works that stressed ways of perceiving other than the traditional way for the visual artist. For example, getting ‘‘stoned’’ and eating junk food created an interest in taste as a subject, and Marioni put different tastes together to make combinations that he equated to ‘‘something like sound.’’ In 6’x6’x6’, an Allan Fish work, Marioni had a dinner catered in a gallery. The participants included the artist, his wife, and Terry and Marsha Fox, who went to the gallery and ate a dinner there just as they would have done at a restaurant.

The table was set up with four chairs and a tablecloth, nice dishes. When people tried to talk to us during the dinner, we ignored them because we were people tried to talk to us during the dinner, we ignored them because we were there just as though we were in a restaurant. All the activity outside of that six feet imaginary boundary (the dimension of work for the sculpture exhibition) was not art gallery activity. It was just a blank space. The meal took about an hour and half. And we left afterward. The table and dirty dishes were left on exhibition as the record of the act. After about a week there was a row of ants that had come into the gallery… and were getting the food on the plates.[12]

The aspect of residue as a means of documenting performance activity became increasingly important.’’

[12] Hilla Futterman, ‘‘Activity as Sculpture: Tom Marioni Discusses His Work…’’ Art and Artists, London, August, 1976, p.18.

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish), My First Car, De Saisset Gallery, Santa Clara, Ca., 1972.

Marioni when offered an exhibition at the gallery used the budget to buy a car. “I was going to give them the car for their permanent collection, although I was going to keep it because I lettered on the side of the door De Saisset Museum and the dates of the show and my name, sa that as I drove the car aound, I was driving around one of the objects from the collection of the De Saisset Museum. And even so the car was in my name because I went out and bought it, with the money they gave me. So then I exhibited the car and it was a small Fiat, one of those little small 500’s like everybody drives in Europe, and I drove it up the steps, through the double door, into the gallery and parked it on this nice 19th century rug… I parked the car in there with paper under it so that the rug didn’t get ruined and at the opening I sat in the car and drank champagne and there was a microphone in the back seat and in the corner of the gallery was a video camera. People would come up and talk to me in the window of the car and I could listen to the radio in the car, and they got in and we talked and everything… » (see Performance Anthology. Source Book of California Performance Art, p. 83)

— Hilla Futterman, « Activity as Sculptures; Tom Marioni Discusses His Work with Hilla Futterman, » Art & Artists, v.8, August 1973, pp.18-21. Excerpts:

« I did a piece in the gallery at the University of Santa Clara in February [1972] called ‘My First Car.’ It was a sppof on Don Potts but the gallery didn’t know that. I asked them how much money they had budgeted for the show, and I used that money to buy myself a car. I exhibited the car as the documentation of that act… »

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish), Sunday Scottish Landscape, 1972.

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish), Using My Body to Control Feedback, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England, 1972.

« The concussion created by the whipping and tearing of paper caused an amplifying system to sound-feedback, suggesting screaming with pain. I discovered during this action that if I moved my body between the paper and the amplifier I could decrease or increase the sound of the feedback. This action was the aggressive half of a part work. The other was passive. » (see Performance Anthology. Source Book of California Performance Art, p. 82)

- MAURI Fabio, Ebrea, 1972.

The girl cuts her own hair, forms the star of David on the mirror of the medicine cabinet

Ebrea may be a debt paid off today to a time which is now closed. It might be. A time – 1945 – when I too found myself in front of an intellectual operation based on a worked our system of “falsehoods.“ Anyway I saw racialism being presented again with variations which ahd already caused evil to an extent that had rarely been  so pure. In Ebrea anti-jewish racialism represents the anti-black racialism and any other species or subspecies of racialism. This law, finally, can be summarized as follows: “discrimination exists because of a lack of values. Or, equally, because of values.“ And discrimination is the contrary of judgement. It is a sentence executed against man not because of his individual features but on the basis of infinitively repeated traits, objective traits, external and collective signs.

In Europe, from the thirties to the forties, racialism had a scientific origin: it stated that race exists, and that some of them are superior. These are two ideas which I recognized as being wrong, although the former is still largely accepted.

Not all has been lamented or enjoyed as it should have been.

In Ebrea it is the first case.

I had little time to examine the substance of that reality thoroughly. A disease closed my eyes at once, confiscating the whole postwar period. Somewhere an unexpressed lament remains. I am not a jew, nor am I a son of a jew. I have wished I could be a jew. I feel I am a Jew whenever possible, and I suffer discrimination, an unfair discrimination. Concerning oneself with this question means completing the cry, for a benefit of poetic nature and, maybe, for one’s psychological health. Nobody can prevent me from curing myself as I want.

In Ebrea the operation is cold. And tactlessly cultural. Patiently I repeat with my hands the experience of the shameful one. I explore his mental possibilities. By extending his action I invent new objects made up of new men. Incidentally I hinder the self-confidence of contemporary design with its faith in progress. I behave as if it were still adding up data today. Elsewhere, we may suspect, in different ways, the operation is still going on. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 156-157)

- McCARTHY Paul, Meat Cake, 1972. Los Angeles.

- MENDIETA Ana, Death of a Chicken, 1972. University of Iowa. Iowa. (action-film)

- MESSAGER Annette, Album-Collection n° 11. Men-Women and Women-Men, 1972.

« I love to observe men and women walking together. Not knowing them personally, I am better able so see to what extent the characters of the man-man and the real-woman often seem inverted, but each one preserves the role which he or she is supposed to represent. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 161)

- MONK Meredith, Education of a Girl-Child, 1972.

- MONTANO Linda, Chicken Dance, 1972. Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco.

- NAGASAWA Hidetoshi, Sans titre, 1972.

« To recover the memory of a hardly touched entity has been the subject of my work for the past few years. For the present work I have chosen the body because my hand had to be involved with a live substance. Thus, I begin by very slowly touching a naked woman on those points in which I am especially interested, almost the whole front side. At a certain moment the woman disapppears, she is no longer in front of me. I find myself facing the cloth which was previously the background for the woman; my hand dirty with charcoal, I touch this cloth at the same points where I was touching the body, I repeat the same gestures; in the end, an image emerges on the cloth (the woman has disappeared only for the spectator, but actually she has remained behind the cloth, and only I know she is there).

I am interesting in verifying to what extent it is possible to remember what one has seen, through touch. I think I can remember more through my hand than through my eye. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 169)

- NATALIA LL, Consumer Art, 1972.

- NAUMAN Bruce, see Robert Pincus-Witten, « Bruce Nauman: Another Kind of Reasoning, » Artforum, v.10, February 1972, pp. 30-37.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Three Stage Transfer Drawing, 1972.

- PANE Gina, Le Lait chaud, 1972. Paris.

- RAINER Yvonne, Lives of Performers, 1972. photo. Babette Mangolte

- RINKE Klaus, Deplazierung, 1972 (action-photo).

- RINKE Klaus, Primmärdemonstration, 1972.

- ROSENBACH Ulrike, Drawing Hood, 1972 (vidéo)

- ROSENBACH Ulrike, Wrapping with Julia, 1972 (vidéo).

- RUPPERSBERG Allen, Allen Ruppersberg, Claremont, California: Pomona College Gallery, 1972

— Catalogue for an exhibition, October 31-November 22, 1972. Introductory essay by Helene Winer. Excerpt:

« The artist’s interest in magicians, especially Harry Houdini, is evidenced by the piece, “Missing You,“ an homage to Houdini, and “Houdini Again.“ The latter Houdini piece makes use of an operative system, as did the far more elaborates projects, “Al’s Cafe“, and “Al’s Grand Hotel,“ of 1971. The cafe and the Hotel were working situations that ressembled and alluded to the real thing, much as the novel does, but relies upon chance occurences within the basic structure. “Houdini Again“ makes use of an established system that is thoroughly predictable. The piece is library overdue notices for five books on or by Harry Houdini. In addition to the pun indicated by the title of the piece, it also is a use of information. By keeping each book out longer that the designated lentgh of time, a system of action is put into play. Notices, eventually arrive at Ruppersberg’s address that provide a great deal of what, where, when, how much, information. In most art works other than performance pieces, the activity of the artist while executing the piece is not clear. This piece is to a great extent that action of going to the library, carrying each book off separately, keeping it around, probably reading it, eventually receiving the overdue notice, returning the book, paying the fine and checking out another book. The evidence of all this is a small paper notice. »

- SAPIEN Darryl, Initiation, 1972. San Francisco Art Institute, with Michael Hinton and Conny Vokietaitis. 

« The neophyte artist and his double are initiated into the role of masters by a female adept in a series of labors and trials. The performance metaphorically equated rites of shamanic initiation with the process of a young artist achieving a personal vision and an authentic voice. »

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Ices Strip, 1972.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Road Animation for Reykjavik, 1972.

- SHERK Bonnie, Cleaning the Griddle, 1972-73.

— Carl E. Loeffler, ‘‘From the Body into Space: Post-Notes on Performance Art in Northern California,’’ in Performance Anthology. Source Book of California Performance Art. Updated Edition, Edited by Carl E. Loeffler and Darlene Tong, Last Gasp Press and Contemporary Arts Press, San Francisco, 1989 (First Edition : 1980), p.369-389. Excerpt on Bonnie Sherk:

‘‘In 1972-73, Sherk performed works at Andy’s Donuts, where she continously placed the frame of art on performing her job. She was then a short order cook and assigned titles to the work such as Cleaning the Griddle. Sherk regarded the pieces at Andy’s Donuts as ‘‘theoretical and practical. The theory had to do with being who you are and being able to be playful in situations… It’s a style of existence.’’

- SMITH Barbara, Pure Food, 1972.

- STEMBERA Peter, Endurance Tests: Exercise of Will & Body, 1972-75.

- THE SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMANCE, exposition organisée par Tom Marioni, March 12-April 16, 1972.

 Artists included: Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Paul Kos, Mel Henderson, Bonnie Sherk, Sam’s Cafe, Larry Fox, and George Bolling.

– San Francisco Performance. Newport Beach: Newport Harbor Art Museum, 1972. Extrait:

« Today artists are using videotape to record unedited the stream of conscious flow of life. The hand-self camera records the movement of the artist’s hand and body. Because of the use of drugs in our society, and especially in San Francisco, there has been a new art climate developing there. Since the advent of the hippies and rock music there are strong feelings to communicate in a personal way in the Area and it is definitely influencing many artists to the point that the talking of drugs is important to the execution and even the understanding of the work. In the new sculpture there are no illusions as in theatre. The artist functions as an element/material and the relationships of his movement, spaces, sound, light, surface quality, presence, and so on functon exactly the same as in traditional sculpture. The life span or performance of the piece is shorter and the methods for recording the artists’ hand today are in keeping with the materials (technology) that are available to the artist. We approached in the late 60’s a love of natural processes, raw materials and moved to the country so to speak. Museums were dealing with dealers and collectors and not the artist himself. The new sculpture demands the artist execute his work in the space that it is to be shown in. That way the artist has control over all aspects of its environment. »

– « San Francisco Performances, » Artweek, v.3, April 8, 1972, p.4. Review of the Newport Harbor Art Museum exhibition. Extrait :

« The exhibition is a controversial one because it points out a drastic departure in the nature of the ideas which form the basis of ‘traditional’ art. The artists whose works are ‘experienced’ in the Museum are not concerned with the conversion of reality into illusion, but rather with the direct experiencing of reality in which the nature and quality of ideas dominate the media from which the objects are made… »

- TRANS-PARENT TEACHER’S INK., COTTEN Paul, Medium, and COLEMAN Diana. Astral-Naughty Rabb-Eyes, Documenta V, Kassel, 1972. 

« The Astral-Naughty Rabb-Eyes were projected into a luncheron at the castle of a local Count, into a Mayor’s reception at City Hall and into the streets of Kassel at random times and places ».

- TROTTA Antonio, The Space Between Me and the Work, 1972.

« The space between me and the work starts to nullify itself at that moment when I can see all that surrounds me as if it were already painted or sculpted. (Painting, sculpture, literature, history, then, are the only materials that it is possible to paint, sculpt, etc.)

Going toward a state of petrifaction among things and feeling doubt about one’s existence, is like observing the irreality of the outside by staying in the reality of the work, within which a photograph is true like an image in a mirror.

The feeling of space is born parallel to the wish to get out of one’s own painted image. »
(see Lea Vergine, p. 249)

- VACCARI Franco, Exhibition in real time, 1972. 

In 1972, Franco Vaccari (b. 1936, Modena, Italy) set up a photo booth at the venice biennale as part of a work entitled, ‘leave on the walls a photographic trace of your fleeting visit’, (1972). Over five thousand visitors complied with the work’s directive ; having their pictures taken in the photo booth and fixing the resulting strip of photographs to the wall. As the exhibition progressed, however, Vaccari ran into some trouble with the venetian police, who were concerned about some of the activity going on behind the photobooth’s floor length curtain. In order to curtail what they believed to be inappropriate behavior, the police took scissors to the curtain, shortening it to a more revealing length.

- WEGMAN William, Family Combinaisons, 1972.

- WEIBEL Peter, Time Blood, 1972-79.

- WHITE John, Bomb Those Dirty Japs, 1972.

- WILDING Faith, Waiting, 1972 (re-enact 2007-2009).

Faith Wilding emigrated from Paraguay to the USA in 1961 (born in 1943). She studied and worked with Judy Chicago and was part of the Feminist Art Program and Womanhouse in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. Till this day, she refuses to limit herself to a single artistic medium, and she continues to expand and develop the formal structures of her art. Her works are textile sculptures, performance, new media and critical discourses that explore social problems and issues. Faith Wilding is a faculty member, advisor and the Chair of the Performance Department of the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

A 15-minute monolog, scripted and performed by Faith Wilding in the Performance program at Womanhouse, Waiting condenses a woman’s entire life into a monotonous, repetitive cycle of waiting for life to begin while she is serving and maintaining the lives of others. Faith Wilding re-enacted this iconographic performance from the 1970s in 2007. She performed it again for re.act.feminism on 23 January 2009.

Waiting was performed at Womanhouse in Los Angeles sponsored by the Feminist Art Program, California Institute of Arts. Extrait :

« Waiting

A Poem By Faith Wilding

 

Waiting… waiting… waiting…

Waiting for someone to come in

Waiting for someone to hold me

Waiting for someone to feed me

Waiting for someone to change my diaper

 

Waiting to scrawl, to walk, waiting to talk

Waiting to be cuddled

Waiting for someone to take me outside

Waiting for someone to play with me

Waiting for someone to take me outside

Waiting for someone to read to me, dress me, tie my shoes

Waiting for Mommy to brush my hair

Waiting for her to curl my hair

Waiting to wear my frilly dress

Waiting to be a pretty girl

Waiting to grow up    Waiting…

 

Waiting for my breasts to develop

Waiting to wear a bra

Waiting to menstruate

Waiting to read forbidden books

Waiting to stop being clumsy

Waiting to have a good figure

Waiting for my first date

Waiting to have a boyfriend

Waiting to go to a party, to be asked to dance, to dance close

Waiting to be beautiful

Waiting for the secret

Waiting for life to begin    Waiting…

 

Waiting to be somebody

Waiting to wear makeup

Waiting for my pimples to go away

Waiting to wear lipstick, to wear high heels and stockings

Waiting to get dressed up, to shave my legs

Waiting to be pretty    Waiting…

 

Waiting for him to notice me, to call me

Waiting for him to ask me out

- WILSON Martha, Appearance as Value, 1972.

- WILSON Martha, Art Sucks, 1972.

Art Sucks is part three of Martha Wilson’s series of early video performances recorded in Halifax, Canada, which also includes Premiere, Routine Performance and Appearance as Value. These performances show the artist taking on the role of a kind of newcaster philosophing about art. The title of this performance has a double meaning. On the one hand, it denigrates art. On the other hand, the presenter claims dryly that the soul of a person in a colour photograph she is holding up to the camera has been sucked out of it. She declares that eating the pictures will restore this long-lost identity to her. She rips up the photograph and eats it.

- WILSON Martha, Breast Forms Permutated, 1972 (photo).

- WILSON Martha, Premiere, 1972.

- WILSON Martha, Routine Performance, 1972.

Martha Wilson (1947, USA) is an artist whose first performances were for an audience of one – her Pentax Camera. She began her artistic career in 1971, while teaching English at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada. She moved to New York in 1974, where she performed for real audiences at The Kitchen, the Whitney Museum, PS1 and countless other venues. In 1978, she founded the all-female punk band DISBAND. None of the members could play an instrument, and DISBAND disbanded in 1982. After this, Wilson turned to political satire, performing as Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Tipper Gore, to name a few of her personas. Martha Wilson was also the founder and director of Franklin Furnace (1976-1996), an art event space and archive specialising in process oriented art.

Routine Performance is an early video performance in which Martha Wilson adopts the mannerisms of a kind of newcaster or spokewoman while philosophing about art, the artist and the audience. The brief self-scripted lecture is presented dryly and with subtle humour, highlighting the structuralist analysis of performance and performer. The performance is one of a series of four similar video performances that includes Premiere, Art Sucks and Appearance as Value, which were recorded in 1972 in Halifax, Canada.