artperformance

1970

- ACCONCI Vito, DILLON Kathy & OPPENHEIM Dennis, Applications. 1970. Chicago.
19:32 min, color, silent, Super 8 film. A woman kisses Acconci's body, covering him in red lipstick traces. Acconci then rubs his body against another man (Dennis Oppenheim), transferring the stains onto him.

- ACCONCI Vito, Breath-Through. 1970. 3 min. Color. Silent. Super 8 on video.

Super-8 camera held out before him as shield and surrogate, Acconci pushes through a landscape of dense reeds and overgrowth. Break-Through records this search for a pause or clearing in what, for the viewer, amounts to an abstracted and scarcely differentiated visual field.

- ACCONCI Vito, Corrections. 1970. 12 min, b&w, sound, Super 8 film

Unavailable until now, Corrections is Acconci's first single-channel video. Back to the camera, with only his head and bare shoulders visible, Acconci lights a match and brings it around to the nape of his neck. The lights dim as the flame nears his body hair, which briefly flares in the darkness, at which point Acconci shakes out the match. This action is repeated for the duration of the piece. Corrections introduces themes that typify Acconci's body-based performance work of the 1970's.


- ACCONCI Vito, Digging Piece. 1970. 10 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video.

Standing alone among beach dunes, Acconci begins to kick at the sand below him. Over the course of the film’s ten minutes, this repeated action displaces sand at a steady rate : as the artist sinks lower into the hole he creates, the mound of sand before him grows in correspondance.

- ACCONCI Vito, Filling Up Space.  3 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video. A view of a brick wall : the artist enters and walks from side to the other, back and forth, row after row.

- ACCONCI Vito, Flour/Breath Piece. 1970. 3 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video. The artist, covered in flour, tries to blow the flour off his skin.

- ACCONCI Vito, Gargle/Spit Piece. 1970. 3 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video. The artist, sitting naked, takes water from a pot into his mout hand gargles ; he spits it out onto his stomach and groin, transferring the water from one « container » (the pot) to another (his body).

- ACCONCI Vito, Open/Close. 1970 (action-vidéo). Ce montage de deux séquences propose un schéma d'oppositions dialectiques. Open montre l’artiste se masturbant avec une tomate. Ce symbole résiduel de la féminité ou cet objet fantasmatique signifie l’imbrication de deux opposés dans la définition d’un mode de la sexualité masculine, que Close va spécifier : cette deuxième séquence présente l’artiste se plâtrant le sillon des fesses, et matérialise par l’action autoréférentielle le refus de l’homosexualité. Ce refus du même introduit ici la conception de la structuration individuelle selon Vito Acconci dans l’opposition de la différence, et l'hétérosexualité. Mais paradoxalement, si les objets utilisés à la fois dans le premier acte puis dans le second décrivent bien des qualités attribuées respectivement au féminin (ronde, rouge, liquide) et au masculin (solide), il n’en reste pas moins que l’autre, qu’il soit femme ou homme, est physiquement absent.

Le body art (art corporel) se définit par l’action de l'artiste sur son corps, en considérant un élément humain commun à d'autres, sous l'aspect du sien propre et dans un rapport à soi. Mais cet espace individuel supposément clos sur soi fait resurgir l’altérité - bien qu’absente dans l'action, au sens artistique du terme - comme élément de structuration du psychisme, de l’identité. Dans le rapport du médium au sujet traité, l’onanisme, existe un brouillage narratif instauré par l’émotion donnée à voir à travers le rythme et les détails de l’action filmée en temps réel. Open-Close fait surgir agressivement l’intime dans l’espace public. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 6:40 min, color, silent, Super 8 film

In this performance based tape, Acconci uses his body to explore notions of opening and closure.

- ACCONCI Vito, Openings. 1970.
 1970, 14 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film

Acconci's body-based performances are often willfully provocative in their testing of physical limits and controlled actions. Here, as the camera frames Acconci's stomach in close up, he painstakingly pulls out each hair from the skin around his navel.

- ACCONCI Vito, Rubbings. 1970.
 Rubbings est représenté par une métaphore un processus d’intégration d’une réalité extérieure à soi. Vito Acconci est nu, allongé sur le dos. Le cadrage coupe sa tête au niveau du nez. Il se frotte le ventre latéralement de la main droite - ce mouvement conduit le spectateur à se concentrer sur la densité du corps. Sa main droite quitte l’écran un instant et recommence le frottement. Il soulève légèrement sa main en mouvement et nous donne à voir un parasite urbain très présent à New York, un cafard, qu’il écrase au cours de ce pétrissage. Progressivement, plusieurs de ces insectes apparaissent sur son corps, vivants ou inertes, mais toujours à la merci de l’artiste.

Celui-ci entend insister sur l’idée du mélange des cafards à son propre corps, puis sur le processus d’ingurgitation et de digestion par un gros plan métaphorique sur son estomac. Comment le comprendre, sinon par ce qui n’est pas donné à voir : le déploiement de la pensée de l’artiste après une action sur lui-même. Vito Acconci expose ce processus qui se situe entre le physique et le mental. L’action réalisée et l’objet extérieur impliqué laissent leurs empreintes dans le corps et l’esprit de l’acteur, qui les analyse ou les pétrit à son tour dans leurs différentes significations. Le frottement apparaît également dans une performance antérieure de quelques mois à Rubbings : Rubbing Piece (mai 1970). Lors d’une réunion d’artistes performeurs dans un restaurant, Vito Acconci s’assied à une table et se frotte l’avant-bras avec la main pendant une heure. Une manière dans ce lieu public d’écarter autrui et de marquer sa place, d’objectiver son corps, de signaler la souffrance créée par la construction de soi.

Vito Acconci attire ainsi la conscience sur la contextualité et les limites inter-individuelles, et sur ce qui est changé en soi par une action, une interaction ou une relation. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 5:06 min, color, silent, Super 8 film Acconci caresses his torso, then crushes cockroaches into his stomach and rubs them into his skin.

- ACCONCI Vito, See Through. 1970 (action-vidéo).


Dans See Through, Vito Acconci boxe son image devant un miroir. Nous ne voyons que le buste et le reflet de l’artiste. Les mouvements de ses bras ont une faible amplitude. Dans les premiers instants, les coups de poings sont contenus, puis ils heurtent le miroir et le brisent. La durée du film est celle de la montée de cette tension ou colère du moi en lutte avec lui-même. Contrairement à ce que nous pouvons voir dans de nombreux travaux de Vito Acconci, le lieu de cette action n’est pas le corps, mais l’espace restreint entre l’individu et son reflet, dans l’extériorisation du conflit.

Ce sujet a été abordé antérieurement dans Shadow Box (octobre 1970), une performance dans laquelle l’artiste frappe à la fois sur son ombre et sur le mur de la galerie, en cherchant à mettre en évidence tous les effets produits par l’action : le bruit, le déplacement dans l’espace, ainsi que les qualités physiques du boxeur occasionnel. See Through exclut le son, d'une part, la reconnaissance du lieu où l’action se produit par le cadrage en très gros plan, d'autre part, et limite la perception du corps qui est restreint au buste. Le film n’est pas tant la trace d’une performance qu’une sélection des signes essentiels à la création du sens, selon Vito Acconci. Si le miroir a une place importante dans l’art "postmoderne", comme outil conceptuel qui déplace la réalité de façon critique, et comme objet en rupture avec la pensée et les pratiques modernistes, Vito Acconci ne l’utilise pas dans ce sens. Le miroir est ici une matière prise dans l’épaisseur de l’individualité, un référent au mythe de Narcisse et à la psychologie, un lieu de transfert du moi. Dans l’oeuvre de Vito Acconci, la vidéo ou le film Super 8 sont un espace de présentation de processus humains. Leur mise en scène invite le spectateur à réfléchir, à partir de l’énoncé de l’artiste, sur lui-même et sur son vécu. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 5 min, color, silent, Super 8 film. Acconci spars with his close-up image in a mirror. He then breaks the mirror, destroying his image.

- ACCONCI Vito, Step Piece. 1970. (action-vidéo).
In Step Piece Acconci stepped on and off a stool in his apartment every morning at the rate of thirty steps a minute, continuing the effort for as long as possible ; the results of his « daily improvement » were distributed to the art public in the form of monthly progress reports — (Cf. Kate Linker, Vito Acconci, Rizzoli, New York, 1994, p. 24).

- ACCONCI Vito, Three Adaptation Studies. 1970 (action-vidéo).
 8:05 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film

In these early film exercises, Acconci exhibits an almost childlike vulnerability that is at once comic and oddly effecting. In Blindfold Catching, a blindfolded Acconci reacts, flinching and lunging, as rubber balls are repeatedly thrown at him from off-screen. In Soap & Eyes, he tries to keep his eyes open after dousing his face with soapsuds, resulting in a tragicomic clown face. In Hand and Mouth, he repeatedly forces his fist into his mouth until he gags.

- ACCONCI Vito, Three Relationship Studies. 1970 (action-vidéo). 12:30 min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8 film Shadow Play, 1970 (vidéo) ; Imitations. 1970 ; Manipulations. 1970.

In this three-part exercise, Acconci explores the dynamics of the artist's interaction with or manipulation of an other. Each study involves a form of mirroring. In Shadow-Play, Acconci spars with his own shadow image, aggressively confronting himself as other. In Imitations, Acconci attempts to mirror another man's gestures and actions. In Manipulations, Acconci -- seen by the viewer in a mirror -- faces a nude woman and directs the movements of her hands over her body through his own hand motions.


- ACCONCI Vito, Trademarks. 1970. NYC.


- ACCONCI Vito, Two Cover Studies. 1970 (action-vidéo).
Two Cover Studies est un film Super 8 en deux parties. Cette structure est fréquente dans les premiers travaux de Vito Acconci. Ici, il met en parallèle deux actions qui ont pour objectif de protéger un autre agent au moyen de son corps, en le cachant ou en l’enfermant.

La première séquence, Scene Steal, montre l’artiste de dos, se déplaçant et inclinant son corps en fonction des mouvements de la femme, qu’on devine nue. Il cherche à la protéger de l’apparition de son image nue à l’écran et il la contraint en lui dérobant cette possibilité. Elle cherche à se dégager, alors la tension augmente progressivement dans les déplacements et dans ce rapport du masculin et du féminin. Dans la deuxième séquence, Container, Vito Acconci est nu, agenouillé au sol. Il cherche à enfermer un chat en se repliant sur ce corps plus petit que lui. L’artiste laisse l’animal s’échapper à plusieurs reprises ou l’expulse - ainsi le chat sort à reculons du bassin, derrière lui. Par l’introduction de l’image de la maternité, le rôle féminin de la protection est suggéré. L’action se termine sur l’enfermement du chat sous le corps de Vito Acconci. Les mouvements de ses épaules indiquent une lutte dans cet espace clos.

Ce film fait partie d’un ensemble de travaux dans lesquels l’artiste expérimente son action sur un autre agent, et notamment la problématique du contrôle de l’autre. Ici, qu’elle soit celle du masculin sur le féminin, ou celle du féminin ou du masculin sur le neutre (l’animal et l’enfant sont neutres en anglais), l’action de protéger est placée en rapport dialectique avec le conflit. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 7:46 min, color, silent, Super 8 film. In Scene Steal, Acconci, fully clothed, tries to shield a nude woman from the camera. In Container, he wraps his nude body around a cat as if to totally enclose it.

- ACCONCI Vito, Two Takes. 1970 (action-vidéo).
Contrairement à la majorité des films Super 8 et des vidéos de Vito Acconci, Two Takes est une oeuvre sans émotion, où il traite de la prise de possession en tant que pulsion et non pas sous l’aspect du désir ou du plaisir de l’assouvissement. Les deux séquences présentent deux actions où l’artiste saisit un objet extérieur à lui. Grass / Mouth est un plan fixe en couleur sur le buste de l’artiste, avec en arrière-plan un feuillage vert, sous un soleil d’été. Il se bourre la bouche d’herbe et, malgré des phases de nausée, il continue son action. Il n’avale pas, il accumule cet élément environnemental, naturel et terrestre. La concentration de l’artiste sur l’action n’a d’égal que la densité de la pulsion dans l’absence de distance qui peut caractériser parfois le rapport du sujet aux motivations de son acte.

Dans la deuxième séquence, Hair/Mouth, Vito Acconci se remplit la bouche de la longue chevelure de Kathy Dillon, sa compagne. Le jeu de nausée dépassée existe là aussi. Les visages placés l’un au-dessus de l’autre nous font face en gros plan fixe. Le traitement du film en noir et blanc et au ralenti rappelle les vieux films muets et le retour lent et saccadé d'un souvenir. La scène est donc située dans le passé. Le titre signifie également "deux prises de vue". La technique de l’image transforme la réalité qu’elle saisit. En opposant la couleur et le temps réel au noir et blanc filmé au ralenti, Vito Acconci suggère une antériorité de Hair/Mouth par rapport à Grass/Mouth. Ce que nous pouvons transcrire de la façon suivante : aujourd’hui je prends possession d’objets environnementaux, hier mes pulsions étaient dirigées vers des objets affectifs. Dans Two Takes, le lieu du corps privilégié est la bouche. Elle réfère à la psychologie et à la libido (pulsion sexuelle et pulsion de vie).

Le rapport de Vito Acconci à la performance ou au body art ne relève pas uniquement de l’expérimentation. Dans Two Takes, il utilise la vidéo, le corps et l’action pour une représentation de la pulsion. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 9:40 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film. Acconci oftens performs controlled actions as if he had entered into a contractual agreement to test his physical limitations. In Grass/Mouth, Acconci ingests grass until he chokes; in Hair/Mouth, he fills his mouth with the hair from a woman's head.

- ADER Bas Jan, I'm Too Sad to Tell You. 1970. (action-photo).

- ASKEVOLD David, Catapult, super 8 mm fil transferred to video. Color. Silent. 2.30 min.

- BALDESSARI John, Folding Hat, 1970, videotape. 15', b/w.

- BALDESSARI John, The Excesses of Austerity and Minimalism. June 1971. Film, 3 mins.. Sheet of paper in typewriter on which the title is typed as fast as possible… etc.


- BEUYS Joseph, Arena. 1970.


- BEUYS Joseph, Filz-TV. 1970.


- BEUYS Joseph. Scottisch Symphonie. 1970 (fluxus)


- BRAND Heinz, Eat/Shit. 1970. Rio de Janeiro.


- BREAKWELL Ian, Episode in a Small Town Library. 1970.


- BRUS Gunther, Zerreissprobe. 1970-72 (actionnisme)


- CHICAGO Judy, Boxing Ring. 1970.


- CON Rob, The White Man. 1970.


- D'HOOGHE Alain, Art/Garbage. 1970-73.


- EXPORT Valie, Body Sign Action. Francfort. 1970.
In Francfurt, Export has a suspender belt tattooed on her thigh. « Body Sign Action zeigt das buch als extension des menschen bzw den menschen als symbol- und informationsträger für andere menschen. Auch der menschen ist ein medium der kommunikation, wir das kino » (V. E. Archiv) http://www.valieexport.at/en/valie-exports-home/

The tattooing of the body demonstrates the connection between ritual and civilization. Incorporated in a tattoo, the garter belt signifies a former enslavement, is a garment symbolizing repressed sexuality, an attribute of our non-self-determined womanhood. A social ritual that covers up a bodily need is unmasked, our culture’s opposition to the body is laid open. As a symbol of membership in a caste which demands conditioned behaviour, the garter belt becomes a memento. The female body peels off and discards the imprint of a world which has never been a woman’s world, in order to arrive at a human world in which women can autonomously define their existence. V. E.

The public tattooing of Valie Export on a stage in Frankfurt on 2 July 1970 exemplifies the radical character of her feminist art performances : a garter belt – a fetish of male sexual fantasies – is painfully, indelibly marked on her own body in order to disclose the functionalization and social role of the woman as sex object, and to reflect the social determination by males. At the same time, art is irrevocably engraved on her body.

- EXPORT Valie, Body Tape. 1970 (vidéo) 1. Touching – mit Händen auf glas. 2. Boxing. 3. Feeling – Gesicht auf Glas. 4. Hearing – Ohr auf Glas. 5. Tasting – Zunge auf Glas. 6. Pushing – mit Kopf auf Glasplatte schlagend. 7. Walking – Füsse auf Glas gehend (V. E. Archiv) http://www.valieexport.at/en/valie-exports-home/

Body Tape. 1970, 3:58 min, b&w, sound. In a series of witty, minimalist exercises that are introduced by inter-titles (Touching, Boxing, Feeling, Hearing, Tasting, and Walking), VALIE EXPORT explores the relationship between word and action.

- EXPORT Valie, Kontext – Variationen : Zustandsveränderungen Bedeutungsveränderungen. 1970-1971.

- EXPORT Valie, Mann und Frau und Animal, 1970 (1973 ?) (action-cinéma).

- EXPORT Valie, Split Reality, 1970. A COMPLETER
 http://www.valieexport.at/en/valie-exports-home/

- FOX Terry, — Cf. Terry Fox. San Francisco, Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue ; includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon.

 - FOX Terry, Asbestos Tracking. Reese Palley Gallery. Monday May 18. 1970.

— Willoughby Sharp, « Body Works : A Pre-Critical, Non-Definitive Survey of Very Recent Work Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, pp. 14-17. Extrait :

« During the morning of Monday May 18, just prior to the opening of his one-man show at the Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco, Terry Fox executed a three-part piece Asbestos Tracking. In one part, Skipping, he laid down a broken line of black foot marks on the gray concrete floor… »

— Cf.« Galleries : Reese Palley, San Francisco », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, p. 11. Includes a photo of a Terry Fox installation/exhibition at Reese Palley, May 18/June 13, 1970. Works shown in photo : Pusten, A Sketch of Impacted Lead, and Asbestos Tracking.

- FOX Terry, A Sketch for Impacted Lead. Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970.  « I wanted to do a work with lead using physical forces, and I thought of bullets. When a bullet is fired through the barrel of a riffle, it spins at an incredible rate, moving forward faster than the speed of sound. On impact, the lead changes its shape, just from the pure force of that energy. Hopefully the way I’m going to execute this piece at the Reese Palley Gallery is to fire the bullets close together in a straight horizontal line. Then they might form a small, fragile bar of lead. » (Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51. Essay on Fox, illlustrated with photos by Barry Klinger of Fox’s works : Free Flying Polyethylene Sheet (1969), Defloration Piece (1970), Air Pivot (1970), Liquid Smoke (1970), A Sketch for Impacted Lead (1970), What Do Blind Men Dream ? (1970), Push Piece (1970).

— (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

- FOX Terry, Breath, San Francisco, 1970. Super 8 film. 3 mins., color.

- FOX Terry, Corner Push. 1970. Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco.


- FOX Terry, Defoliation Piece, University Art Gallery, Berkeley, Ca., 1970. Fox with flame thrower burns rare flowers before an unsuspecting audience. "This was my first political work. I wanted to destroy the flowers in a very calculating way. By burning a perfect rectangle right in the middle, it would look as though someone had destroyed them on purpose. The flowers were Chinese jasmin planted five years ago which were to bloom in two years. It was also a theatrical piece. Everyone likes to watch fires. It was making a beautiful roaring sound. But at a certain point people realized what was going on - the landscape was being violated; flowers were being burnt. Suddenly everyone was quiet. One woman cried for twenty minutes."(Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51.)

— (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon) Defoliation Piece 1970 Anthology 374

- FOX Terry, Environmental Surfaces : Three Simultaneous Situational Enclosures. 1971.

— « A discussion with Terry Fox, Vito Acconci, and Dennis Oppenheim », Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, pp. 86-89. An interview with the three artists on the occasion of Environmental Surfaces : Three Simultaneous Situationnal Enclosures, Reese Palley Gallery, New York, January 16, 1971. For Fox’s one man show, he invited Acconci and Oppenheim to participate in an event in which the three presented performances related to the body. Extrait :

« At the far end of the 20’ by 80’ room, the floor of which was covered with white paper, Fox had set up a tent-like environment with a square piece of canvas, hung five feet from the floor, under which he performed a series of actions involving different elements : a bar of white soap, a pan of water, two flashlights, two bags of flour, a strainer, a box of Fab, a small bench, a piece of bent wire, smoke from a cigarette, and a scratched mirror attached to a wooden spool of twine. The amplified sound of his breathing during the performance was counterpointed by a tape of himself breathing…

« (T. Fox) : My artistic concerns are very old-fashioned and romantic. What I am involved in is creating certain kinds of spatial situations. I am dealing with objects in a space and their relationships to each other, and with how my mood alters them. The way I move a flashlight is going to affect not only the quality of the light but also my relation to it. Two flashlights aimed at a bar of soap mean much more to me than anything the spectator could imagine. They create a certain translucence, a modification of materials that I find very interesting, like a idea of two flashlights eventually melting the soap. »

- FOX Terry et BEUYS Joseph, Isolation Unit. Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Allemagne, 1970. Fox made an action with sounds and iron pipes ; Beuys made an action that « was a kind of dream about a dead mouse he had, like a funeral. » A record was produced from this event (— Cf. Fox Terry. « Joseph Beuys and Terry Fox : Action/Fotodokumentation », Interfunktionen 6, Cologne, September 71, pp. 34-54).

« On November 24 (1970) at 7 p.m., after spending four hours alone together in the cellar of the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie, Joseph Beuys and Terry Fox carried out Isolation Unit, a half hour performance, for an audience of about thirty friends. The event acted as a requiem for a pet mouse kept by Beuys for three years which had just died. Clad in his special felt suit, (a Block multiple) Beuys gave the mouse a ride on a tape recorder reel, and then stood gently cradling it in one hand while he ate an exotic fruit and spat the seeds into a silver bowl. A 33 rpm record, with Beuys on one side and Fox on the other, has been made of the event. »(« Rumbles ; Exhibitions, Terry Fox » Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, p. 5. Description of Isolation Unit. Excerpt.)

(Fox) « I came to Dusseldorf and I wanted to do something, to make an action, and I didn’t have the space. So I went to Beuys and met him the first time and he showed me all the rooms of the Academy where it was possible to make an action. Then we went to the cellar and it was wonderful there : so I decided to make an action with sounds and iron pipes (like bells) in the cellar because the sound was very good there. One or two days before he asked me to do something together and he made something too. But I didn’t ask him what he was going to do. His action was a kind of dream about a dead mouse he had, like a funeral for the mouse together with the sound, and fire, and ashes. Beuys too made sounds, we have a record we made of them. » (Terry Fox, extrait : Achille Bonito Oliva, « Terry Fox », Domus, April 1973, p. 45.)

- FOX Terry, Levitation. Richmond Art Center, Richmond, Ca., 1970. Fox attempts to levitate while lying upon ½ tons of earth in the middle of a circle holding four clear polyethylene tubes filled with blood, urine, milk, and water. Afterwords there was an imprint of his body on the earth.

— McCann Cecile N. « Autority and Art (Again) », Artweek, v. 1, October 3, 1970, p. 2. Article describes Terry Fox’s Levitationat the Richmond Art Center, Richmond, Ca., on September 17, 1970, and the ensuing problems with Richmond City Administration officials who declared the work a fire and health hazard and ordered it to be removed from the gallery by curator Tom Marioni. A COMPLETER FOX

Levitation 1970 Anthology 374

— McCann Cecile N. « Terry Fox Sculpture », Artweek, v. 1, May 30, 1970, p. 1. Review of an installation/performance at the Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco, in which Fox works with four elements : earth, air, fire and  water. Excerpts : « An important aspect of Fox’s work, as Willoughby Sharp pointed out in an excellent catalogue essay, is that : « The inspiration for much of Fox’s work stems from direct perception and heightened awareness of ordinary events. » (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

— « Terry Fox…’I Wanted My Mood to Affect Their Looks’ », Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, pp. 70-81. An interview. Extrait :

(Fox, on his work Levitation) : I wanted to create a space that was conductive to levitation. The first thing I did was to cover the sixty by thirty foot floor with white paper and to tape write paper on the walls. The floor had been dark, but it became such a brilliant white that if you were at one end of it, it glared, it hurt your eyes to look at someone standing at the other end. I twas such as buoyant space that anyone in it was already walking on air. Then I laid down a ton and a half of dirt, taken from under a freeway on Army Street, in an eleven and a half foot square. The mold was made with four redwood planks each twice my body height – I used my body as a unit of measure for most of the elements in this piece. The dirt was taken from the freeway because of the idea of explosion. When the freeway was built, the earth was compressed,  held down. You can conceive of it expanding when you release it rising, becoming buoyant. Of course, it’s physically impossible. But for me the mere suggestion was enough. I was trying to rise too. I fasted to empty myself… I drew a circle in the middle of the dirt with my own blood. His diameter was my height. According to the medieval notion, that creates a magic space. Then I lay on my back in the middle of the circle, holding clear polyethylene tubes filled blood, urine, milk, and water. They represented the elemental fluids that I was expelling from my body. I lay there for six hours with the tubes in my hand trying to levitate. The doors were locked. Nobody saw me. I didn’t move a muscle. I didn’t close my eyes. I tried not to change my focal point… »

- FOX Terry, Liquid Smoke. Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970. (Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

« Throwing liquid smoke against the wall was really an anarchistic gesture, like throwing a Molotov cocktail. But it wasn’t really that at all. As soon as the glass vial exploded on the cement, it became an aesthetic event. Exposed to the air, the liquid began to smoke until it had completely evaporated. I twas so extraordinary and so unrelated to any previous ideas you had about that material that it became art. You would never think of a cement wall smoking, and to see it happening was stunning. » (Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51.)

- FOX Terry, Push Piece. Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970. « When we were moving Tom (Marioni?) out of his studio, I noticed a brick wall in an alley. I went over and started feeling it. Then I started pushing. When I did that, I realized what that wall was, what material strength it had. I don't think I could say what that meant to me right now. » (Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51.)

— « Terry Fox…’I Wanted My Mood to Affect Their Looks’ », Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, pp. 70-81. An interview. Extrait :

« (Avalanche) : What do you see as your earliest body work ?

(Fox) : The Push Wall piece. I twas like having a dialogue with the wall, exchanging energy with it. I pushed as hard as I could for about eight or nine minutes, until I was too tired to push anymore…

(Avalanche) : What other work out of that…

(Fox) : Pushing myself into a corner at Reese Palley in San Francisco. That was the negative of the Push Wall piece. A corner is the opposite of a wall. That was a short piece, it was hard to do. I was trying to push as much as of my body as I could into the corner. My feet got in the way. I tried to stand on my toes, but I didn’t work. You lose your balance. »

— (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

- FOX Terry, Rain, New York, 1970. Super 8 film. 3 mins., b/w.

- FOX Terry, Sweat. 1970. Super 8 film. 3 mins., b/w.

- FOX Terry, Tonguings, New York. 1970. Videotape, 30 mins. Reflecting a duality typical of the body-based video of the 1970s, Tonguings is at once conceptuel and sensual. The viewer sees Fox’s open mouth in extreme close-up, as he proceeds through an exhaustive demonstration of positions of the tongue in relation to the lips.

- FOX Terry, What Do Blind Men Dream ?, Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970. "This was the second in a series of Public Theater events. I discovered a beautiful blind lady and asked her to sing on a San Francisco street corner near a gigantic open pit, from 5:30 p.m. until dark. Announcements were send out and a lot of people came. We made a recording of the work that I still have." (Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51.)

(See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

A COMPLETER FOX

Asbestos Tracking 1970 anthology p. 372

Push Piece 1970 anthology 372

Corner Push 1970 Anthology 372

- FRIED Howard, ALLMYDIRTYBLUECLOTHES. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. Catalogue of an exhibition, June 16-July 11, 1970. Text is divided into « accumulation », « establishment », and « disestablisment » ». Excerpt from « establishment » :

« Formerly, my blue clothing and the symbols that best identify them to me were in a position of constant arbitration. My object is to retire the elements of this piece and protect them from unsolicited physical arbitration. By tieing the clothing one to the next and by drawing the symbols on the wall, a gesture to finalize their arrangement is made. Simply placing the clothes and symbols in a room wouldn’t reduce their mobility sufficiently. A shirt might be kicked across the room or symbols might be rearranged altering the function of the clothing and/or the meaning of the symbols. While a tied shirt might be untied and then kicked across the room, this would be in conscious and direct violation of my implicit intentions which are apparent both in the performance and the resulting piece. A minor rearrangement such as a chance kick without first untieing the clothes would not castrate my intention or after the piece’s function. A more drastic measure to render the relationship static would only serve to enunciate my intent while actually still failing to achieve it since total control is impossible. »

— Jean Jaszi, « Allmydirtyblueclothes », Artweek, v. 1, June 27, 1970, p. 3. Review for a performance at Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco. Extrait :

« Howard Fried wrote about his work, « The subject of the performance and the resultant piece is all my dirty blue clothes and those symbols which best identify these clothes to me. These symbols are letters of the English alphabet and arabic numerals ». Fried arranged the clothes on the floor and marked the symbols on the wall in a carefully reasoned sequence… In summing up his description of the work « Allmydirtyblueclothes » Howard Fried also stated : « Everyactionisapotentialmistake ». »

- GILBERT & GEORGE, Singing Sculpture. 1970.


- GRAHAM Dan, Body Press. 1970-72.


- GRAHAM Dan, Roll. 1970.

Shortly after Homes of America the human body begins to feature in Graham’s work, starting with the artist’s own body in the video’s Roll(1970) and Body Press (1970-72). In these works graham filmed – in the first person so to speak – rolling through the autumn leaves in Central Park (Roll), while the second video (Body Press) registers the same action from an external point of view. The videos in turn are projected on separate walls, forcing the spectator into yet amother point-of-view of the event. This relation between spectator/partiticipant and the event itself can be found in many of the works.

Dan Graham second-guessed the supposed objectivity of the camera by giving the device to actors who performed simple movements (rolling across the floor, circling one another).

(Filming Process. 1970, André Goeminnie, Nazareth, Belgique)

- HENDERSON Mel, Event for Sound Sculpture As. MOCA San Francisco. 1970.
 Event for Sound Sculpture As consisted of pacing up and down MOCA (Museum of Conceptual Art) with a 30 caliber rifle and firing a single shot at a projected image of a tiger.

- HENTZ Mike, Performances. Années 70.

- HERSCHMAN Lynn, Roberta Breitmore, 1970-79.


- HORN Rebecca, Arm-Extensionen. 1970.


- HORN Rebecca, Cornucopia-Seance for Two Breasts. 1970.


A poetical construction that makes one think of a fabulous nurse machine, of a creative form lending the nourishing function of the female body a meaning that also comprehends the self-referentialism of the adult. From this perspective, the idea of self-nourishment takes on a vital dimension whose other, more constricting side is revealed by the usage of the black tape and the ligature with the head. Mythological figure, poetical construction and purpose – free object – these attibutes of so many of Rebecca Horn’s works can be associated with this object, which bears a close relation to the performances shown in the films « Performances I », 1972, and « Performances II », 1973.

- HORN Rebecca, Unicorn, 1970-72.


Unicorn is one of Horn’s best known performances pieces. I twas one of a series of performances concerned with the cultural aspects of the numerous body extensions thematized throughout her career collectively presented in the films Performances I, 1972, and Performances II, 1973. ‘Einhorn’ (‘Unicorn’) – super 8mm, color, 12 minutes – tells of a woman who walks through the countryside for 12 hours with the ‘Unicorn’ object on her head and demonstrates Horn’s interest in the poetical/mythological figures.

In the shimmering heat

In the billowing field

A small white point

Moves towards you…

- Rebecca Horn –

The woman is described by Horn as ‘very bourgeois’, ’21 years-old and ready to marry. She is spending her money  on new bedroom furniture’, walks through a field and forest on a summer morning wearing only a white horn protruding directly from the front of the top of her head and the straps holding it there. These straps are almost identical to the ones worn in Frida Kahlo’s painting Broken Column. The image, with wheat floating around the woman’s hips, is simultaneously mythic and modern.

- JONAS Joan, Mirror Check. 1970 (action) Ace Gallery. Los Angeles.


In her performance piece Mirror Check (1970), Jonas stood nude with a small, round mirror and examined details of her body looking into the entire time, seeing ‘a succession of places unfolding in time’, while the audience watched from a distance of thirty feet. The audience, unable to see the reflected images, had to experience them vicariously through Jonas’s description and reactions. Jonas has said, « It’s the shamanistic idea – the performer goes through the actions so that the audience can experience them also. It takes you into a space that you wouldn’t otherwise be in ». The artist was greatly struck by the discrepancies between what the mirror, the camera and the viewer saw.

- JOSEPH Carol, Living Room. 1970.


- KAPROW Allan, A Sweet Wall. 1970. Block Galerie. Berlin.


- KAPROW Allan, Don't. 1970. Los Angeles County Parks Dept. Californie.


- KAPROW Allan, Graft. 1970. Kent State University. Ohio.


- KAPROW Allan, Level. 1970. Aspen. Colorado.


- KAPROW Allan, Pose…, NYC : Multiples, Inc., 1970. Artist book.

- KAPROW Allan, Publicity. 1970. California Arts. Burbank. Californie.


- KAPROW Allan, Sawdust. 1970. Cologne. (Kölnischer Verein).

- KOS Paul, Quid Pro Quo. Process Sculpture, 1970, Richmond Art Center, Richmond. Ca. Kos’ contribution to the Annual 1970 catalogue, James McCready, Paul Kos, Terry Fox.

« Remove the ‘object’ in art, or so de-objectivity it, that the passing of money between patron and artist becomes the art. Process becomes art. Patron becomes artist. Artist becomes patron. Banks become museums.

1. Cut out above checks.

2. Fill in your appropriate banking information.

3. Inscribe any amount of money you desire, which may be charged to your account.

4. Endorse the check.

5. Your cancelled check will be your art. Not valid unless cancelled.

6. I will in turn send you a check for the exact amount you need me.

7. Mail to : ‘non-object’ Paul Kos

     c/o Richmond Art Center

     Richmond, California. 94804

8. Your check will be exhibited in Richmond’s Sculpture Annual, and deposited in my account at show’s close, at which time you will receive your ‘cancelled art’, and the check from me for the same amount. » (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)

- KOS Paul, Event for Sound Sculpture As. MOCA San Francisco. 1970. utilizing 11 boom microphones to record the sound of two pound blocks of melting ice.


- LE VA Barry, Velocity Piece #2. La Jolla Museum of Art. L.A.,1970 : « One of Le Va’s more recent works was his contribution to ‘projections : Anti-Materialism’ at La Jolla Museum of Art, which consisted of the artist running at top speed along a fifty-foot room and throwing his body into the far wall as hard and as long as he could stand it. Besides the physical activity and strain of the work, which resembled an athletic event – Le Va succeeded in leaving his mark on the wall. » (— Willoughby Sharp, « New Directions in Southern California Sculpture », Arts Magazine, v. 44, Summer 1970, p. 38. Discussion of Barry Le Va’s « body sculptures » although a major part of the article discusses more traditionnal L.A. sculptors, such as Robert Irwin and Larry Bell. Excerpt.)

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish), Pissing. MOCA. San Francisco.
1970. Performed in the MOCA series Sound Sculpture As, Marioni after drinking beer all day pissing into a tub and « the sound pitch went down as the water level went up. »

- MARIONI Tom (as Fish Allan). The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art. Oakland Museum of Art, 1970. In a Museum gallery, Marioni drank beer with friends and the remaining residue was the exhibition on view

— (Cf. Tom Marioni, Beer, Art & Philosophy, Crown Point Press, 2004. Writing on Art. Tom Marioni. 1969-1999, Crown Point Press, 2000).

« …work by Allan Fish… celebrated the artist’s contention that « the Act of Drinking Beer with Fiends is the Highest Form of Art. » Created one Monday afternoon when the museum was closed to the public, a pile of empty beer cans, torn papers and cigarette butts – a contemporary midden of sorts – testified to the involment of some twenty artists in a minor rite of creation-destruction-consomption. » (— Cecile N. McCann, « Fish’s Beer-Based Concept », Artweek, v. 1. November 7, 1970. Brief description.)

- MAD MINA, Demonstration. 1970. Amsterdam.


- McLEAN Bruce, Pose Work for Plinths. 1970. Londres.


- MELCHERT Jim, — Cecile McCann, « Melchert Games », Artweek, v. 1, February 21, 1970, p. 1, 16. Review of exhibit at the San Francisco Art Institute in which the letter « a » (verbal and visual puns) was used for large-scale environmental works. Viewers were invited to enter the structure and to intermingle with the environment. 

- MILLER Roland & CAMERON Shirley, Railway Images. 1970.


- MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE, Improvisations. 1970.

- NAUMAN Bruce, L.A. AIR. Los Angeles : self-published, 1970. Artist book.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Live-Taped Video Corridor, 1970. Cf. Media art net


- NAUMAN Bruce, Studies for Hologram. 1970 (silkscreen on glossy cover stock. 26’’ x 26’’ (série Making Faces).


— Willoughby Sharp, « Body Works : A Pre-Critical, Non-Definitive Survey of Very Recent Work Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, pp. 14-17. Extrait :

« The previous year (in 1968), Bruce Nauman made a series of eight by ten inch holograms, Making Faces. On the afternoon of Tuesday May 12, 1970 he went into a vacant Pasadena lot and clapped his hands… »

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Parallel Stress. 1970. action. Long Island. NYC.


- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Reading Position for a Degree Burn. 1970 (action-photo).


- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Stillsfrom Gingerbread Man. 1970-71.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, The Residue (waste products) becomes the finished work Micro-Projection-Feces. 1970.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Compression-Fern (Hand). 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Compression-Fern (Face). 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Compression-Poison Oak. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis,  Extended Armour. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis,  Fusion Tooth and Nail. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis,  Glassed Hand. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Identity Transfer. 1970 (film)

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Lead Sink For Sebastian. 1970. Vidéo

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Material Interchange. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Nail Sharpening. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Pressure Force 1. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Rocked Hand. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Rocked Stomach. 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Toward Becoming a Devil. 1970. Vidéo.

- PANE Gina, Terre Protégée. 1970. Italie.


- PAZOS Luis, Ritual. Performance. 1970. Paris.


- PIPER Adrian, Catalysis III. 1970-71. NYC.


- PIPER Adrian, Catalysis IV. 1970-71. NYC.


- RINKE Klaus, Mutation. 1970.


- RINKE Klaus, Wand, Boden, Raum. 1970.

- RUPPERSBERG Allan, — see Willoughby Sharp, « Outsiders : Baldessari, Jackson, O’Shea, Ruppersberg », Arts Magazine, Summer 1970, p. 42.


- SHERK Bonny, Portable Parks. 1970.

Portable Park No. 2. San Francisco, Ca., 1970. In the Portable Park Series, nos. 1-3, turf, palm trees and livestock were installed for brief periods of time at unlikely places. Site for Portable Park No. 2, Mission Street freeway off-ramp.

— Jerome Tarshis, « Portable Park Project 1-3 », Artforum, v.9, October 1970, p. 84. Extrait :

« … ‘Portable Park Project 1-3, « in which turf, palm trees, and livestock were set down for brief periods at three unlikely places… Miss Sherk has said she is no longer interested in the kind of object art that is shut up in museums, but in environmental art that confronts people who do not necessarily go out in search of art. »

- SHERK Bonnie, Sitting Still. No.1, San Francisco, Ca., 1970. Performance by the artist appearing formally dressed and seated in a stuffed chair situated in a flooded city dump. San Francisco.


P.380 anthology A COMPLETER

- SMITH Barbara, White Meal. 1970.

- SPOERRI Daniel, Cannibal Dinner. 1970.


- STOCKHAUSEN Karlheinz, Spherical Concert Hall. 1970. Tokyo (musique)

- THE COCKETTE, Madame Butterfly. MOCA. May 18, 1970 (« Museum MOCA, San Francisco », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, p. 10. Photograph of The Cockettes’ performance piece, Madame Butterfly, at MOCA, May 18, 1970) 


- URIBURU Nicola Garcia, Coloracion del Gran Canal. 1970. Venise.


- WEIBEL Peter, TV News (TV Death 2). 1970-72 (action-vidéo).

- WILEY William T., The American Dream. University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, opened 1970. Director : Peter Selz, Curator : Brenda Richardson.

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.

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.

- 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, 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)

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 movng 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).


- 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.

- 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, 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 an dits 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.


- CARPI Carlo, Egg One Egg Zero. 1972.


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


- CHIARI Giuseppe, Gestures on the Piano. 1972.


- CHICAGO Judy, Womanhouse. 1972.


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


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)

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


- CLAM Giorgio, Attempt to Enrich Ciam's Personnality. 1970 (photo)


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

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

- 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, 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.

- 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, Out of Sight Out of Mind. 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.


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


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

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

- HORN Rebecca, Finger Gloves, 1972.


- HORN Rebecca, Kopextension. Documenta 5. 1972.


- HORN Rebecca, Pencil Mask. 1972.


- HORN Rebecca, White Body Fan. 1972.


- 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 ans 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 ».

- JOURNIAC Michel, Body Contract. 1972.


- JOURNIAC Michel, Hommage à Freud. 1972.


- KAPROW Allan, Calling. 1972.

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

- KAPROW Allan, « The Education of the Un-Artist, Part II », Art News, v. 71., May 1972, pp. 34-39.

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

- KOS Paul, Mar Mar March 1972-73. Video., 12 mins., b/w.

- 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, 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.


- LE VA Barry, Velocity Piece No. 2. 1972. Los Angeles.


- MARIANI Elio, Ambiences. 1972-73.


- 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. Updated Edition, Edited by Carl E. Loeffler and Darlene Tong, Last Gasp Press and Contemporary Arts Press, San Francisco, 1989 (First Edition : 1980), p. 375)

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

- MAURI Fabio, Ebrea. 1972.

- McCARTHY Paul, Meat Cake. 1972. Newscape Gallery, Los Angeles, Ca., performed for video in one room while the audience could watch the event on a monitor in another room.

- 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.


- MONK Meredith, Education of a girl-child. 1972.


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


- NAGASAWA Hidetoshi, Sans titre. 1972.


- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Three Stage Transfer Drawing. 1972.

- PANE Gina, Je, action, Bruges. 1972.

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


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


- RINKE Klaus, Primmärdemonstration. 1972.


- ROSENBACH Ulrike, Drawing Hood. 1972 (vidéo)


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


- SMITH Barbara, Pure Food. 1972.

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


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


- 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.


- 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, Breast Forms Permutated. 1972 (photo).

- FERRER Esther, Infr'action. 2006. Sète. festival d'art performance
- IRWIN Kathleen, Crossfiring/Mama Wetotan. 2006.
- McLENNAN Alistair, Performance, 2006 (Suède).
- ROSSA Boryana D., About the living and the dead. 2006.
- SPRINKLE Annie & STEPHENS Elizabeth, Wedding Portrait. 2006.

- KO Siu Lan, Wait Time, 2009. Paris.
- MIGONE Christof, Hit Parade. 2009. Québec. Montréal.
- O'BRIEN Kate & KING Sinnead, Fake FHM Girls. 2009 
- WEN Lee, Dog Man Domesticate. 2009. Göteborg.