The Body In Contemporary Art

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[neshamama]

ana mendieta bird transformation 1972

[papillonnne]

ANNIE HSIAO-CHING WANG

ARTIST

[merzka]

Robertas Antinis, 2002

[bodyincontemporaryart]

Possibilities of fingers, Robert Antinis (2002)

[bodyincontemporaryart]

When I think about my existence in space, I have the feeling that we are just witnessing our body in time. For me nothing dies or is born, it just appears for a while. It is a transformation of energy. And we are a witness.

Death is the absence of life. Through this performance I try to come to terms with the enigma of life and time, the presence and absence of the body, a form disappears, both images represent this duality.

At a time when we are exploring the idea of an expanding universe, the big bang theory, the black hole mystery that represents absence. This mystery in my imagination represents death. In the performance both figures are connected in that they are an imprint of death,, the white cloth covering the body represents death in Hinduism and the outline of a body filled with seed that slow disappears, absence. Both exist and at the same time do not exist. The act of the pigeons eating the seeds is a metaphor

[arterialtrees]

Kooi Lydia Schouten, 1978, 17'41’’

For this live performance, Schouten has shut herself in an iron cage of about two by two metres. Coloured crayons and chalks are attached to the bars of the cage, at equal distances from each other. Schouten is dressed in a tight-fitting white ballet outfit, which she rubs against the bars to colour herself. In the documentary De vernietiging van het valse vrouwbeeld/The destruction of the false female image (1978), Schouten tells us that she used the performance Cage to make a comparison with those women who, at that time, were stuck inside their homes, spending all their time running their households and looking after husband and children. It was not that they did not want to get out into the outside world, but they did not know how. When they eventually vetured out, female participation in a male-dominated society turned out to be impossible. Bearing this in mind, we see how the performance runs parallel to the experience of these women. Initially Schouten moves about the cage in a composed and self-conscious manner. Her movements are elegant and controlled. This refers to the women who were content with their role in the home, because that was all they knew. During the course of time, woman began to feel more and more closed in and stifled by their four walls, while at the same time there was growing excitement about the idea of getting out. They were literally and figuratively preparing to start exploring the outside world. At this stage, Schouten is moving faster and more wildly about the cage, looking for a way to escape. Meanwhile, the colours are spreading over her clothing and body. After the fiasco, the frustrations strike home. The women have found out for themselves that home was the only place for them. The question of whether this will ever change causes a panic. After running around the cage like a desperate maniac, Schouten collapses in the middle of the cage, totally disillusioned. (Esther Kunkels)

[tomakeyounervous]

Matthew Barney. BLIND PERINEUM, 1991. 

[tomakeyounervous]

Günter Brus, Zerreißprobe, 1970

[arterialtrees]

Rebecca Horn. Still from performance of Körperfächer, 1972, from Performances II, 1970-73. Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.

[tonguedepressors]

Denis Beaubois In the event of Amnesia the city will recall… 1996 – 1997

[hifas]

La Araucana 81

Elías Adasme

[jarchiving-blog]

Lee Kun-Yong, The Logic of place, Photographed: 1975; Printed: 1970s link.

[raveneuse]

Senga Nengudi, from the R.S.V.P. series, c. 1970. 

[p9sh-blog]

“Asemie”, the inability of expressing oneself through facial expressions. Valie Export, 1973.

[standingatthefence]

Untitled. Liliana Maresca in front the National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1984

[lormiguel]

Liliana Maresca en Desaparición del Cuerpo Humano, MNCARS, Madrid

[mitjaissick]

Simone Leigh and Chitra Ganesh

still from My dreams, my works must wait till after hell…, 2011

Video, 7:14 minutes

[earwormwax]

Artist: Hannah Wilke | Gestures, 1974

“Gestures is a series of performance-based works in which Wilke faces the camera in extreme close-up and performs repetitive or durational physical actions. At times she kneads and pulls her skin as if it were sculptural material. Often her gestures — rubbing her hands over her face, smiling so hard that she appears to be grimacing, sticking out her tongue — take on a loaded significance when seen in the context of gender performance.”