Allan Taylor: Performance photography

Artist Allan Taylor shares his performative photography experiments, in which the still image acts as a site for performance and performs to the viewer

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Crying Over Spilt Milk (2017)

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Wrapping Oneself In Cotton Wool (2016) This was a really interesting shoot that tested me. I thought perhaps the cotton wool would either be blood-curdling or easy, but what struck me the most is how hot I got the more layers I strapped to myself. After three rolls of cotton wool, I started wrapping myself in bubble wrap and it became harder and harder to breathe - I was poking holes in the bubble wrap to get fresh oxygen in all the time. At times I thought I was going to suffocate. At first, the action was going to be me wrapping myself then falling over in the studio with all this bubble wrap and cotton wool to protect me. After I tried falling unsuccessfully, I was getting very hot and bothered, so I decided to rip the wrap off. However, I decided to document this process and what happened was a lovely ‘emerging’ from this cotton wool cocoon. In the bottom large picture, you can see it almost looks like I’m wearing a dress and I am experiencing an ecclesiastical rapture, or even a rebirthing. It’s clear there is some kind of struggle with the sweaty head and pained expression.

I’m also starting to become interested in the performance ‘leftovers’. If the last photographs of the action are seen, does the process matter or is the performance process an integral part of getting to the ‘end scene’? How would it be received if it was displayed only as the ‘leftovers’ or ephemera? What is the relationship between process and product here?

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I Wish I Could Live In Andy Warhol’s Dream Of America (2016) I conceived this photograph about 3 months ago, but decided to take the plunge. At first I somehow imagined a teal motif, but as the sense of Warholia grew, it seemed to be the red, white and blue hyper-real American motif that led the look, including the red, white and blue of the suit. The fake nails served two purposes: firstly, it mae tasks like eating, opening a can of coke and using a tin opener very difficult, but secondly it also gave Warhol a ‘wraith-like’ appearance. It’s almost as if this is a ‘queer zombie apparition’ of Warhol rather than an imitation, parody or direct copy. The excessive consumption alludes to the idea of high capitalism and high commercialism in his art, and the way it embodied the American ideal. Of course, Warhol has used these motifs himself in his work, including Campbells and Coca Cola, while he has commented on McDonald’s. There was also a strong ‘red’ colour throughout the brands. Surprising if this colour is the epitome of socialism.

The act of consumption is, in itself, gross and grotesque. The “Warhol wraith” devours the goods, making the food go from neat and ordered to messy and discarded. It seems in itself needless, messy and greedy. There is a question behind it, leaving the act seem ultimately unfulfilling and selfish.

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Painting A Bowl Of Fruit Will Reveal The True Self (2015)

I was talking about having artistic block with an artist friend of mine and he said to me: “Why not paint a bowl of fruit?” I said, “What? Why?” And he replied, “Painting a bowl of fruit will reveal the true self.” I was amused by this statement and took it on to perform as an action in the studio. I wanted to set up the shot to make it look like a Caravaggio-esque piece, ready to be painted in a serious still life manner. Of course, the statement is taken literally where the fruit itself is painted. The ‘natural beauty’ of the fruit is replaced by murky poster paint colours that make the fruit matte and lifeless. The painter at first seems pleased with his creation, but the ‘true self’ emerges - that of frustration, anger and dissatisfaction of not achieving the artistic ideal.

The sequence is actually 42 images long, and this adds to my interest in using multiple imagery and sequencing. I am starting to think the sequencing constructs the performative statement as if it were a ‘sentence’ that has its own syntax and logical progression. While an ending is dictated, simultaneously the sentence is also never finished and the statement is caught in its own performative loop. It’s also interesting to note that adding images or taking them away lengthens or shortens the performance, but however many images there are there are still always gaps for the spectator to fill in.

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Duet (with Sian Bonnell) (2015)

For our upcoming residency, Sian Bonnell and I had to create an image. This was our outcome, using only the props we had in the studio. Echoing Imaginary Winds, I asked Sian to actually pull on me and for me to support her in this shot. I think the tension shows in the photograph, but looks more like a poetic ‘duet’ or choreographic dance. The unintentional but interesting use of colour also highlights the contrast in this picture

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The Cack Swan (2015) More test looks in the studio

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GNDRFK/FKGNDR (2015) Doing some test looks in the studio

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Apply/Re-apply

I wanted to start experimenting with sequencing in order to gauge how images can be read in relation to one another, as well as how placing the photographs in an intentional order may extend or limit the duration of the performance. In this sequence, I applied and re-applied make up four times and continuously photographed myself performing the actions of this 'routine-like' gesture. What I found interesting in placing the pictures (the true series is double the length at 18 images), is that I could give the impression that the action was longer by posting another row different shots from the same sequence of actions. There is also a very intentional sense of 'completeness' to this gesture. There is a very clear starting point and the collection illustrates the linear, sequential effect of the performance action. However, there is no clear end point – there is a feeling or insinuation that this act could go on forever, urging us to question whether a definite end point is required to the sequence. Tangentially, the act of applying and reapplying exposes the ugliness of the beauty regime – the final effect of putting on make up is one of a flawless finish. However, there is a time and process cost to this effect, one that is filled with ridiculous actions, funny faces and questionable practices. The shot-by-shot nature of the sequence intentionally highlights the absurdity of the practice of putting on make up, emphasised by the fact that the artist never quite achieves the full flourish of the finished effect, made even more impossible by his gender.

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Levitations (2015) In this experiment, I jumped up while the cloth moved down, given the temporary sense of levitation. At first I did it clothed, but then – as I did it naked – it too on other connotations as I tried to hide my genitals and body. The result seems to convey both an ecclesiastical sense of levitation and divine power, while communicting a sense of human guilt and shame. I’d like to continue this with different coloured net cloths and different directions of levitation. This also emphasises the importance of body-object activation and the reliance of one on the other to produce the ‘illusory effect’ of instantaneity. 

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Proper Papal Posing (After Francis Bacon) (2015)

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Almost too beautiful for words: The Life and Death of Marina Abramović—Robert Wilson’s landmark work—in its U.S. premiere at the Armory.

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Robert Wilson's work is instantly recognisable

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Scarf Dance (2015)

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Silkscreen Superstar (2015) Continuing my series on appropriating art, I attempted to replicate Warhol's silkscreens. But instead of using the silkscreen to add colour post production, I painted myself pre production in order to anticipate putting the colours together in various arrangements. My aim was to show that the body cannot mechanically reproduce in the same way a silk screen can. I would do the same pose over and over, but each time there are subtle differences: the head might have been tilted further right or the make up is not exactly replicated in each photo. The effect I wanted to give is that, when exhibited at large scale and far away, the pieces look relatively similar or the same. But on closer inspection, the pictures have many differences. The shoot took over five hours and each time I struck the pose I would try to go back to 'blank' and do the pose from memory/body memory. The result shows that even though the body feels it is replicating exactly, the results continuously differ. But how 'different' does it need to be for the casual observer to recognise it as different, or is 'similar' good enough? I feel I need to do more work to replicate the 'silkscreen' look. However, 'half-remembering' has become a part of this investigation. For Warhol, it is the lurid colours and the pose that stays in my mind rather than the silkscreen effect. For Magritte, the blue sky, apples and bowler hat. When I looked at the real paintings that inspired these, they were quite different, offering my own half-remembered, half-referenced version of these works.

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Ceci N'est Pas Une Magritte (2015) Carrying on from my last investigation, I started to think my action painting referenced Cy Twombly and it got me on a thought trail of how things are refernced and whether we performatively 'utter' other works of art, whether consciously or subconciously. I decided to actively acknowledge and appropriate a series of works, envisaged to be limited to gay painters or queer artists. I would re-enact their works with my own body, take a photograph and then the work of art would be recontextualised in its new form. I started with Magritte, whose themes and semiotics are instantly recognisable. The blue sky, the apple, the pipe and the man in the bowler hat all actively acknowledge his work, but I play with these symbols, jumble them up and re-document it. The viewer is then not only asked to reconsider Magritte, but also what the work says both about me and Magritte. Paintings are stuck in their own performative loops and performance and photography offers a way to break this loop and start another looping nexus, adding to and feeding from each other in order to perpetuate art history and appropriation.

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If You Can't Make A Piece Of Art, Be One (2015)

This session, I decided to try some 'action-style' painting, sort of like Jackson Pollock or 'Shooting Picture' by Nicki de Saint Phalle. The body was meant to create the painting, and therefore there was no foresight or planning to the end piece. Simultaneously, the body was also meant to become a part of the picture.

As the painting continued, more and more layers were put on the body and it seemed the picture was two dimensional and the body was three dimensional. Both elements were then made two dimensional again by the photograph, making the resulting 'artefact' an amalgamation of spontaneous action painting and body movement/living pose/gesture. Again, an interplay and interaction between elements occur: the interplay between paint and 'canvas', paint and body, body and painted canvas, and finally the combination of these interplay with the camera.

The paint acts as a camouflage so there is no distinction between body and painting 'artefact' – they become a scenic landscape. In the present, the painting no longer exists and neither does the living action. The title plays with on this dilemma: the work of art is not the painting or the body, but the resulting combination of the two that form the final photograph.

The action also calls upon the wider relationship between performance and the visual arts, with painting as a performance practice and echos classical sculptural poses to suggest an interplay between performance, painting and the sculpture.

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A Breach of Etiquette (2014)

This session started off with me setting myself an impossible task – trying to drink a glass of wine using only my feet. Then the performance expanded to being able to feast off the table but without sitting in the chair. The setup was supposed to be a series of breaches on table etiquette.

What struck me most is that the piece became an interplay between all of the objects, but the most successful shot – the first one pictured in this series – seems to capture something else. Here, I decided to whip my head round as if I had been 'caught' eating with my hands and in this fashion. The spaghetti also has motion, caught in between my mouth and the action of my head. There is an excessive greed aspect here. The wine is spilled but never drank and the spaghetti is shovelled rather than savoured, indicating the figure is more interested in indulgence than nourishment. Even before he has finished his mouthful he is ready to shovel another handful of spaghetti. Equally, he holds a glass of wine but there is no indication he wishes to drink it, merely throw it around.

The wider pictures also suggest a conflict between the pleasure and pain of excess and absurdity. The food and drink are used as objects of pleasure that bring discomfort, rather than for their nutritional or restorative value.