Reading Response #4:A Cacophony Concert that Ends in a Cage Made by Coco
What can I say? I began reading Roselee Goldberg’s “Performance: A Hidden History” and thought I grasped the idea of performance art. Performance art began in the 1930’s as an artform celebrating the How and not the What of art. John Cage’s experimental music movement using beer bottles, flowerpots, cowbells (insert Christopher Walken voice “More cowbells!), and anything they could find. I thought, a-ha! I have seen this before. In the 90’s my partner was part of a musical group called Crevice and they were known for their performances where anything could happen. At the Texas Psychedelic Music Festival in Houston, Texas there was a wild cacophony of records being broken, theremin, keyboards, guitars, vocals, and more being performed while dressed as cowboys. Why? A whim and a nod to Texas. It was very much the “anarchic” event.
Fast forward to post World War II and performance art sought to tackle the politics of the day and questioned longstanding standards of art and power. Artists such as Yoko Ono with her performance/interactive piece, Cut Pieces, 1964 questioned the use of atomic bombs, while audience members were invited to cut pieces of her clothing---an act that would leave Yoko left wearing remnants that resembled a bomb victim Coco Fusco’s article: The Other History of Intercultural Performance recalls the diverse reactions to the performance piece she collaborated and performed as an indigenous woman on display in a cage. Her performance sought to do something, I am not sure what, bring to the surface humanities (specifically Western cultures) inherent racist thoughts and behaviors? The reading reads like an anthropology/sociology experiment where everyone reacts to the performance of her and her collaborator as indigenous peoples from an undiscovered isle in the Gulf of Mexico on display in a cage pretty much the way that would be expected based on race, class, and gender.
Did this performance make me uncomfortable? Yes! Why? Reading Fusco’s article made me wonder what the correct reaction was supposed to be since Fusco seemed to respond condescendingly to all the reactions, even the responses from viewers that were compassionate and outraged. I did agree with Fusco’s assertion that her ability to psychologically shutout the negative reaction to being objectified while in the cage was easier for her then her male collaborator, because she is a woman. If the results of this performance are not shared and the duplicity and “othering” by white culture not exposed, then what is the purpose of the performance?
