1967 : chronologie performance

1967

- BYARS James Lee, 3 in a Pants, 1967.

- CLARK Lygia, Mascaras Sensoriais, 1967.

- CLARK Lygia, The I and the You: Clothing/Body/Clothing, 1967. Rio de Janeiro. 

- EXPORT Valie, Cutting, 1967-68. 

This examination of the importance of cutting techniques for the constitution of reality in film is one of Valie Export’s first expanded cinema performances. But no filmstrip is cut – she uses material like paper or the human body. In ‘Opening’, the first part, a window projected onto a paper screen is opened through incisions made into the screen.  Later, a film is projected onto a hirsute male chest, and a vertical strip of flesh shaved clean with a razor-blade and exposed. The programme further includes a provocative public presentation of fellatio, along with a homage to Marshall McLuhan in the cut-out words ‘the content of writing is speech’.

- FERRER Esther, Concierto Zaj, Museo de San Telmo, San Sebastian. 

Performeurs : Juan Hidalgo, Walter Marchetti, Esther Ferrer, Mendiburu, Sistiaga y Castillejos. El Caballero de la mano en el pécho E. de Vincente, 1967. Intervienen : Esther Ferrer/Juan Hidalgo

- KAPROW Allan, Allan Kaprow, Untitled Essay and Other Works, (« Great Bear Pamphlet) New York: Something Else, 1967. 

« The historic statement which accompanied the text of the first published Happening (1958) with a sampling of characteristic scenarios. »

- KAPROW Allan, Calling – A Big Little Book, 1967. NY/NJ. (happening) (see 1965 for the happening). 

New York: Something Else Press, 1967. Special, limited edition of Happening of 1965 in concrete poetry format.

- KAPROW Allan, Flick, 1967. NYC.

- KAPROW Allan, Fluids, 10/10/1967. Pasadena Museum. Californie (happening-action).

« A Happening By Allan Kaprow. During three days, about twenty rectangular enclosures of ice blocks (measuring about 30 feet long, 10 wide and 8 high) are built throughout the city, their walls are unbroken. They are left to melt. »

- KAPROW Allan, Interruption, 1967. State University of NY. Stonybook. NYC.

- KAPROW Allan, Moving, 1967. Institute of Contemporary Art. Chicago.

- KAPROW Allan, Watching, 1967. WCBS-TV. NYC.

- KNOWLES Alison, The Big Book, 1967.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Bouncing Two Balls, 1967-68.

Bouncing Two Balls Between the Floor and Ceiling with Changing Rhythms

1967-68, 10 min, b&w, sound, 16 mm film

In this film Nauman bounces two balls in the center of a square marked by tape on the studio floor. He throws them as hard as he can, trying to maintain a specific pattern, but the balls ricochet out of control as his moves become correspondingly jumpy and unpredictable. The film was shot with a stationary camera in the studio that Nauman sublet from William T. Wiley in Mill Valley, California. The sound and image are out of sync because he «didn’t have the equipment and patience» to coordinate them.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Dance or Exercice, 1967-68.

Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square (Square Dance)

1967-68, 10 min, b&w, sound, 16 mm film

For this film, Nauman made a square of masking tape on the studio floor, with each side marked at its halfway point. To the sound of a metronome and beginning at one corner, he methodically moves around the perimeter of the square, sometimes facing into its interior, sometimes out. Each pace is the equivalent of half the length of a side of the taped square. He uses the hip-swaying walk in Walk with Contrapposto.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Playing A Note On The Violin, 1967-68.

PLAYING A NOTE ON THE VIOLIN WHILE I WALK AROUND THE STUDIO, 1967-68

1967-68, 10 min, b&w, sound, 16 mm film

In this film record of a studio activity, Nauman set himself the task of walking while playing « two notes [on a violin] very close together so that you could hear the beats in the harmonics. » The camera is set centrally in the studio in a stationary position so that when he walks outside of the camera’s view at times, only the sounds of the notes and footsteps are heard. Sound and image are out of sync, a situation noticeable only at the end of the film when the sound stops but Nauman continues to pace and play.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Thighing (Blue), 1967 (action-vidéo).
 1967, 10 min, color, sound, 16 mm film

A play on « thigh » and « sighing. » Nauman in this film shows a close-up of his thigh, with his hand variously pinching, pushing, and manipulating skin and flesh, as the soundtrack presents his breathing.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Violin #1, 1967-68 (action-vidéo). 1967-68, 10:54 min., b&w, sound, 16 mm film

Violin Film #1 (Playing the Violin as Fast as I Can), is one of several 1967-68 films featuring Nauman’s violin-playing, in which the production of sound is subjected to procedural strategies that problematize its status as music and performance. In what could be considered a further displacement, the soundtrack to this film was included in Nauman’s Record (1969), a limited-edition vinyl-LP.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeters of a Square, 1967/68. 16 mm. Film, 9 mns. b/w. Silent. 1967-68, 10 min, b&w, silent, 16 mm film

In this silent film, Nauman walks around the perimeter of a large square marked off with masking tape. He shifts his hips exaggeratedly as he places one foot in front of the other, moving carefully around the square. On the back wall of the studio there is a small, tilted mirror in which his actions sometimes are visible as well. Nauman claims the function of the mirror was to expose that which might otherwise be concealed from the viewer. 

- NESPOLO Ugo, Cheeks Ablaze, 1967.

- ORTIZ Rafael Montanez, The Birth and Dead of White Henny, 1967. NYC (action).

- PAIK Nam June & MOORMAN Charlotte, Opera sextronique, 1967 (fluxus).

- PATELLA Luca, Lu’capa tella, 1967-73.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Body Collage, 1967. (vidéo).
1967, 3:57 min, b&w, silent, 16 mm film on video 

Body Collage is a visceral «movement-event» from 1967, in which Schneemann paints her body with wallpaper paste and molasses, and then runs, leaps, falls into and rolls through shreds of white printer’s paper, creating a physicalized corporal collage. « My intention was not simply to collage my body (as an object), but to enact movement so that the collage image would be active, found, not predetermined or posed, » writes Schneemann. 

This is a newly restored version of this seminal work. In 2007 EAI received a grant to preserve this film through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the NFPF. The restored film is available from EAI on video. Performed and Edited by Carolee Schneemann. From 16mm b&w film footage by Gideon Bachmann. This film was preserved through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the NFPF.

Body Collage est une vidéo muette en noir et blanc d’une durée de 3 minutes 30 secondes, filmée en septembre 1967. Carolee Schneemann, nue dans son atelier, prépare un récipient de colle, s’en badigeonne le corps et applique lentement sur celui-ci des papiers préalablement préparés. Elle alterne des mouvements plus expressifs -se roulant par exemple dans un tas de papiers au sol ou courant dans son atelier -à des poses plus classiques de la statuaire occidentale. Les plans en mouvement sont entrecoupés de photographies d’oeuvres de Carolee Schneemann, le montage rapide et nerveux donne un aspect dynamique à l’ensemble de la vidéo. Avec Body Collage, l’artiste introduit un nouveau paramètre à l’une de ses pratiques héritée du Néo-Dada, le collage sur papier. Elle transforme son corps en support de création en inventant le collage corporel, et donne à voir l’élaboration de l’oeuvre dans sa globalité. Carolee Schneemann privilégie, comme dans Meat Joy, le processus actif de création (ce qui se passe) au résultat final (ce qui est advenu). Dernier détail, son chat Kitch apparaît subrepticement dans la vidéo. Cette présence tutélaire revient fréquemment dans ses oeuvres, le félin est perçu comme un spectateur objectif et muet de la vie de l’artiste. Il apparait dans Fuses en 1967, témoin des ébats entre Schneemann et son compagnon ou encore dans Kitch’s last meal en 1978. (Laetitia Rouiller)

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Division and Rubble, 1967.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Night Crawlers, 1967.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Ordeals, 1967.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Round House, 1967.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Snug Harbor, 1967.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Snows, 1967. (happening).
1967, 20:30 min, color and b & w, silent, 16 mm film on video 

This is a newly restored version of documentation of the 1967 group performance Snows, which was built out of Schneemann’s outrage and sorrows over the atrocities of the Vietnam War. An ethereal stage environment combining colored light panels, film projection, torn collage, hanging sacks of colored water, « snow, » crusted branches, rope, foil and foam was the set and setting in which an audience-activated electronic switching system controlled elements of the performance/installation. Images from film, slide and live action propel silent, ghostly performers to become aggressor and victim, torturer and tortured, lover and beloved, as well as simply themselves in this breakthrough mixed-media film performance. (The film Viet-Flakes is a central element). 

In 2007 EAI received a grant to preserve this work through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the NFPF. Camera: Alphonse Shilling. This film was preserved through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the NFPF.

Carolee Schneemann / Snows 

D’une durée de 17 minutes, Snows est la vidéo d’une performance de Carolee Schneemann enregistrée au Martinique Theater de New York en 1967. Initialement filmée sur une pellicule de 16mm, cette captation est ensuite transférée sur support vidéo et mélange images en couleur et en noir et blanc. 

Les actions se déroulent dans un décor à dominante hivernale : sur des branches, sont accrochés des représentations de flocons de neige. L’utilisation du papier d’aluminium et de la mousse renforce la sensation de froideur qui se dégage de la mise en scène. La dominante chromatique blanche est atténuée par la présence de sacs remplis d’eau colorée suspendus au dessus de la scène et de panneaux lumineux de différentes couleurs. 

Dans cet environnement, évoluent six performeurs qui se manipulent les uns les autres comme des marionnettes. La fluidité de leurs mouvements est perturbée par l’utilisation ponctuelle du stroboscope. Leurs corps sont filmés en gros plan et le montage rapide accentue l’aspect énergique de leurs actions. 

Sur les tableaux vivants composés par ces performeurs, est projeté un film de Carolee Schneemann, Viet Flakes, datant de 1965. Pour réaliser ce dernier, l’artiste américaine collectionne pendant plus de 5 années les images des atrocités de la guerre du Vietnam dans la presse de l’époque. Elle filme ensuite cette collection d’images avec une caméra super 8, en les survolant comme si elle voyageait de l’une à l’autre. 

En parlant de cette oeuvre, Schneemann évoque clairement ses intentions et s’inscrit dans la tradition d’un art engagé politiquement : « Snows s’est construite à partir de ma rage, de mon indignation et de ma peine pour les Vietnamiens. »1 (Laetitia Rouiller)

1 : site internet de l’artiste http://www.caroleeschneemann.com/snows.html (traduction de l’auteur)

- SHAW Jeffrey, Corpocinema, 1967 (happening-expanded Cinema).

- SHAW Jeffrey, Movie Movie, 1967 (happening, expanded cinema).

- WEIBEL Peter, Synthesis, 1967 (action).