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Dragster
and drag queens, beatification and beating off
Simon Herbert
There was a brief period at the beginning of the Nineties in the United
States, partially fuelled by a presidential election contest desperately
looking for defining issues, when the matter of whether taxpayers monies
should be used to support public artworks that offended (some) mainstream
sensibilities was whipped up into a coast to coast media circus by a number
of high profile conservatives, including Senator Jesse Helms and Reverend
Don Wildmon of the American Family Association. As George Bush discovered
to his chagrin, it was the economy, stupid, that was foremost in voter's
minds, and not whether photographers displaying self-portraits of rectally
challenged whips or performance artists covering themselves in chocolate
and alfalfa constituted a capital offense. Nevertheless, for a short period
the marginal and the mainstream found themselves in a strange and frantic
arm lock, a magnified coalescence of all the mutual distrusts and loathings
that continue to bubble through the two polarised camps. Performance artists
took to the streets and pleaded their case, stigmata arrayed against stigma,
preaching words of compassion, whilst crazed southern gentlemen strode
marbled floors, theatrically ripping up 'obscene' photographs
and casting them to the four corners of the senate. It was the Sixties
Lite; protestors encamped outside the gates of power, bloated incumbents
sending out the attack dogs, both parties fighting for the spiritual futures
and bodily fluids of the people.
Steven Durland, then editor of High Performance (based on the West Coast
of the United States), neatly summed up both the passion and the farce
of the period in his observation that "the performance artists had
become the evangelists, and the evangelists had become the performance
artists." It was a typical observation, characteristic of a consistent
editorial style during the twenty year run of High Performance (from the
late Seventies to the late Nineties) that usually cut to the heart of
serious issues whilst retaining a sly objective distance; an analysis
of the theatre of the absurd with a concomitant sense of absurdity. High
Performance was a revolutionary magazine in a number of ways. It embodied
founder Linda Frye Burnham's commitment to the political and philosophical
underpinnings of the counter-culture, a mapping of guerrilla activity
that erupted from, and then fed back into, the cultural fractures of the
Sixties onwards. Each issue covered as wide a range of activities as could
fall under the rubric of experimental art, mixing review and information
sections with extended essays on thematic or social concerns of the time.
It was utterly unique as a magazine; as an organ of analysis and advocacy
for the kind of marginal art that was not normally covered, its priorities
shifted over the years, both as a matter of editorial imperative and as
a nod to the chameleon nature of its core constituency.
In the introduction to "The Citizen Artist - An Anthology from
High Performance Magazine 1978-1998" Durland sums up the magazine's
mission statement as follows:
"Throughout its twenty year history High Performance magazine has
been a journalistic home for new, unrecognized and innovative work in
the arts. From its beginnings in performance art to its last few years
covering community-based art, the magazine maintained a steady focus on
art that was serious in its personal artistic intent and underappreciated
in public perception... We considered our editorial approach to be a useful
foundation for, and precursor to, the development of critical discussion
around the art we covered. And when the form such as performance art became
validated to the point of being part of the critical discourse, it was
time for us to look in new directions."
His conclusion that "Our editorial journey took us down some roads
that later became freeways, and some roads that are now overgrown with
weeds", and that the cover of the first issue featured artist Suzanne
Lacey sitting on a dragster, sums up the metaphorical tone of this anthology.
The majority of artists included demonstrate the kind of hope that lies
at the heart of that most American of myths: the road movie. Most have
worked, or are working, in a US context - whether this be within the
diaspora of race or the advocacy of health issues - and, although
the individual contexts may be radically different, they share the commonality
of a personal artistic quest.
The title "The Citizen Artist", with its suggestions of responsibility
and a causality between personal and communal activity, is both provocative
and contentious. After all, much art activity that has come from the live
art and multi-disciplinary arena has not exactly been fuelled by notions
of benign participation or the democratisation of creative processes.
The destructive urge - or at the very least a kind of interrogative
nihilism - has been referenced in critical analyses of the field almost
as a matter of course. The controversial live works of Chris Burden, which
interrogated aspects of obligation by the creation of direct risk, or
the grotesque debasements of Paul McCarthy, which were both regularly
covered at length in the pages of High Performance, are significantly
absent from this collection. However, any fears that "The Citizen
Artist" is a form of selective cultural neutering are allayed by
a number of factors. Firstly, as Durland points out "...we realised
that there was no one anthology that could both reflect the history of
the magazine and at the same time exist as a coherent book. So we settled
for the fact that this is an anthology... not the anthology from High
Performance". Secondly, there is already a profusion of reference
books on the viscerally subversive aspects of live art (such as the excellent
series of Re/Search publications which also emanates from the West Coast).
Frye Burnham and Durland's criteria for reprinting essays seems to
have been motivated by a desire to address questions of artistic production
that are far more interesting than retreading the familiar paths that
chart ad nauseum the schism between the provocative art guerrilla and
a reactionary mainstream. The real issue, whether voiced explicitly or
hinted at, is how, through one's practice, to self-determine and,
by extension, assist in the self-determination of others. In effect, what
constitutes radical practice now, and how has this been effected by what
was previously considered radical practice?
"The Citizen Artist" attempts to broadly depict the changing
definitions of the margins over the last twenty years by structuring the
anthology in three distinct sections: "The Art/Life Experiment",
"The Artist as Activist", and "The Artist as Citizen".
Each section is generally chronological (although Durland is quick to
point out that such a linear approach is overly simplistic, and certain
motifs recur throughout): "The Art/Life Experiment" covers the
early pioneering work of artists who for the first time attempted to break
down distinctions between Art and Life, resulting in projects such as
the body art of artists Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh (who spent a
year tied together by an eight foot length of rope), the rise of eco-art,
and most significantly the initial development of feminist art practice:
"The Artist as Activist", charts the following phase, when artists
began to engage with the development and maintenance of ideologies specific
to both a variety of identities - multi-cultural, gender, sexual - and
objectives - empowerment, protest, education, advocacy, etc: "The
Artist as Citizen", the final and most expansive section, contains
what one imagines is Frye Burnham's paradigm - an artist or artists
located in a specific community and working in tandem with its members
in a microcosmic sense in which relationships are finite and local. As
such, interviews are featured with artists working at a grass roots level;
in the contexts of prisons and community centres, or organising workshops
for doctors and nurses ("Caring for the Carers").
The arc of the three sections is one which reinforces the editor's
prejudices in suggesting a gradual sea change of artistic consciousness
over two decades, from the establishment of artistic communities and the
process of self-realisation, to the use of interventionist practice to
either represent or involve communities traditionally perceived as distinct
from - or ignored by - historical Eurocentricity, through to surrendering
at least some measure of artistic autonomy in preference to initiating
more organic forms of collaborative practice. As a scenario it has its
attractions, but it remains a wistful blueprint, full of inherent stresses.
Whilst "The Citizen Artist" does not attempt to disguise that
a kinder gentler artist is the preferred role model du jour, it also allows
individual contradictions or disagreements to become apparent (thereby
maintaining the flavour of the original High Performance magazine).
The central irony of the concept of the Citizen as Artist is that even
those artists who are committed to leaving their ivory tower often have
to contend with a certain amount of initial mistrust or hostility in the
bigger badder world. The label of citizen may be adopted autonomously
by any old artist, but it only becomes resonant when conferred, in part,
by the external benediction of non-art communities. What is fascinating
is how the terms and conditions of these negotiations have changed over
the last two decades, and why this anthology very nearly ends up confirming
popular prejudices about crazy artists as much as it demolishes them.
The general urge of artists who wish to be 'contemporary' has
been to hitch their wagons to the nearest zeitgeist, and as new zeitgeists
come along the older ones tend to become a little creaky. Inevitably,
the passing of time has been less charitable to some artistic pronouncements
than others. This is most evident in the first section of the book, the
grand Art/Life Experiment, in which quotes such as: "Thus we have
passed into a new worldview where we have gone beyond our anchor in the
solar system to an even more integrated connection in the galactic core"
in Barbara T. Smith's investigation of shamanic practice; or Rachel
Rosenthal's description of her weekend workshops, in which: "For
a weekend, two days and a half, I am a saint. My aim for that one weekend
is to really take the spirit of the people who are there and give a bath
to the spirit." - tend to (at least to a thirtysomething like
myself) reinforce the cliché of the barking mad performance artist,
complete with West Coast Dawns, Harmonic Convergences, Beautiful Natives,
Earth Goddesses, Cheesecloth, Group Hugs and Candles.
It is easy to take these quotes out of context, and paint a picture of
desperately earnest artists struggling in the tar pits of history (damned
if this West Coast/American stuff doesn't come with a helpful metaphor
every other sentence!), but whilst it is difficult to avoid observing
that other similar examples form a wish list of crackpot aspirations that
would sound cheesy in a Miss World contest, a steelier picture also begins
to emerge as a flipside to the epiphets. Earlier in her interview Rosenthal
paints a vivid and prescient picture of eco-rape that is both concise
and articulate, describing a world that is at least as crazy as her own
artistic universe. Cheri Gaulke's history of "The Women's
Building" may put an inordinate amount of faith in the metaphorical
power of an eight foot papier-maché woman, erected on the building's
roof as "a beacon of women's power to the community", but
then maybe that was the kind of morale-booster that women artists needed
when attempting to establish self-sustaining women's groups at a
time when there were no precedents (let alone state funding).
Certainly, the editors seem confident enough to surrender their charges
and let them take their own chances with the forces of history, and seem
to think that the reader is big enough and stupid enough to draw his or
her own informed conclusions.
The cumulative realisation that gradually dawns whilst reading through
all these documents, testimonials and anecdotes is that what "The
Citizen Artist" achieves most effectively is the way in which it
illustrates just exactly how much artists position themselves in relation
to the realities of their respective time. Priorities shift and rhetoric
changes. Cause and effect is a familiar notion to artists, because they
generally have so many causes and fear in the early hours of the morning
that they may have so little effect.
"The Artist As Activist" section deals with artists whose moral
compass had not significantly shifted - all the same ethical concerns
are evident - but was certainly being pulled by a different gravitas.
This was the era when the issue of identity - who had it, who didn't
have it, who had an inalienable right to proclaim it, who had better keep
his mouth shut - became a key issue for artistic analysis. Identity
could be problematic as well as being positive. How did the identity of
an artist relate to the identity of a non-art community? Could the former
represent the latter? With or without that community's sanction?
Lucy Lippard's coverage of the AIDS awareness projects of David Nash
includes a quote from critic Douglas Crimp which pretty much sums up the
feelings of the time:
"Art does have the power to save lives... But if we are to do this,
we will have to abandon the idealistic concept of art. We don't need
a cultural renaissance; we need cultural practices actively participating
in the struggle against AIDS."
Artists of colour were also working to achieve a level of visibility,
creating broader awareness of the politics of ethnicity and colonialism.
Artists such as Native American James Luna purposefully sought to avoid
the tag of the "exotic", a stubborn refusal to be co-opted easily
by institutional sentimentality:
"That's why I dislike the movie Dances With Wolves. It did nothing
but glorify all the good. It didn't show any Indians mad, or upset...
any Indians fucking up. We're still beautiful, stoic and pretty.
You see the movie and you go out and see a fat, overweight, acne-covered,
poor uneducated person - is that the real Indian you want to see?"
This was a time when the artwork of artists tended to reject the metaphorical
optimism of its predecessors and became more specific, more pragmatic,
more willing to cause offence to some if the process of alienation made
a potent point - all necessary approaches when faced with the disintegration
a singular authentic voice or homogeneous creative creed. As celebrated
performance artist Karen Finley observes:
"Reality is always more shocking than art. I think that shock in
art is followed by some kind of transformation that happens because of
the artist. I mean, you could say that [experiencing the poverty of] Second
Street between Avenues A and B is an artwork, and that's not so.
It's not enough just to have the shocking thing, disassociated from
everything. The artist frames it or mirrors it with brilliance or timeliness.
I don't know that there's a clear line between what is an atrocity
and what's art. I do know that when Chris Burden shot himself in
the arm it was art, but when my father shot himself it wasn't."
The activist urge sometimes necessitated the identity of the artist to
be almost completely subsumed, as in the work of Mexican artist Fehlipe
Ehrenberg. When the Tepito district of Mexico City was devastated by earthquake,
Ehrenberg undertook a project of reconstruction, organising a volunteer
brigade (Tepitos) to comfort survivors, distributing food and clothing,
opening a bank account administered by the Committee for the Reconstruction
of Tepito. Emily Hicks observes that:
"For him, the goal is not to be a pop star, but a responsible citizen/activist."
Such a goal is at the heart of the final section, "The Artist as
Citizen". It is not necessarily a popular one (savaged by critics
such as Robert Hughes in his critique "Culture of Complaint")
or a desirable one for many artists, not least because it calls for different
modes of critical evaluation to be formulated. The essays in this final
section tend to avoid manifestos in favour of specific detail, and are
far too complex to summarise here (this section alone contains 17 case
studies). Suffice to say that projects such as Marty Pottinger's
multimedia record of the lives of the people involved in making New York's
City Water Tunnel #3 (the largest non-defense public-works project in
the Western hemisphere), intergenerational arts co-ordination projects
such as New York's Elders Share the Arts (ESTA), or Grady Hillman's
"arts-in-corrections" residency schemes, undertaken in over
50 correctional facilities since 1981 (containing the best damn hard nosed
economic riposte to those who believe that prisoners shouldn't benefit
from the arts as school programmes are simultaneously closed down), are,
whilst not quite enough to convince a congenital loner like myself to
enter into the dreaded ambiguity of collaboration, certainly testament
to the diversity of committed and - in its own terms of reference
- clear-sighted public art methodologies.
If I have a specific caveat against this anthology it is that the issues
it raises are so huge that it cries out for a little external contextualisation.
The editors have purposefully focused on interviews with artists, often
by other artists, or first person essays by artists; consequently, as
Durland admits "...sometimes the analysis one expects in an anthology
is left up to the reader." This might be a minor point (although
I would have liked to have seen a few more devil's advocates prodding
their forks into these angels...), given that this is made clear from
the start, but it does impact on certain sections that need clearer contextual
and explanatory text, or even images (maybe not a problem in the original
magazine format). Also, there is a missed opportunity to re-examine the
efficacy of artistic methodologies in retrospect, and test the claims
of artists. For instance, there is mention off the hugely influential
cross-country San Diego/ Tijuana artists' collective Taller de Arte
Fronterizo, but no postscript explaining the circumstances behind the
group's break-up and how this impacted on subsequent post-colonial
strategies. Similarly, I was curious as to how artists working as activists
in the field of AIDS-related health care will have modified their approach
in the late Nineties, in respect of factors such as more efficient medicinal
filter blocks, or increased public apathy towards an epidemic that is
now over a decade old.
Sadly, such questions would still be raised if journalists from High Performance
were still darting around asking the right questions of the right practitioners,
but the magazine ended its run in 1998. This is a shame for too many reasons
to list here, so I will mention just one. Whether one agrees with some
or all of these artistic voices, what is evident is an intention to create
relevant public art that is created from the bottom up. This anthology
is timely given the current UK context of lottery money for the arts,
which is creating definitions of "socially useful" artists from
the top down by attaching conditions of audience development and youth
participation.
The Citizen Artist - An Anthology from High Performance Magazine
1978 - 1998
Edited by Linda Frye Burnham and Steven Durland
ISBN: 1883831–10–5 Published by Critical Press
Available through Distributed Art Publishers, New York
Tel (212) 627 1999 Tel (212) 627 9484
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