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Jack Parrott

Documenting Performance

Practice and Theories of Display

2014

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List of Illustrations

Figure 1: Chris Burden, 1970, Shoot – Image available at:

http://www.transpositions.co.uk/2012/10/risk-to-life-ethics-of-chris-burdens-shoot/

Figure 2: Yves Klein, 1960, Leap into the Void – Image available at:

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1992.5112

Figure 3: Jill Orr, 1980, She Had Long Golden Hair – Image available at:

https://www.academia.edu/3370153/Performance_Art_and_its_Documentation_A_Photo_Video_E

ssay

Figure 4: Jill Orr, 1980, She Had Long Golden Hair – Images available at:

https://www.academia.edu/3370153/Performance_Art_and_its_Documentation_A_Photo_Video_E

ssay

Figure 5: Jill Orr, 1980, She Had Long Golden Hair – Image available at:

https://www.academia.edu/3370153/Performance_Art_and_its_Documentation_A_Photo_Video_E

ssay

Figure 6: Sol Lewitt, 1982, Wall Drawing #366 – Image available at:

http://www.visible.org/site/cornish/slide_lectures/sol_le_witt/

Figure 7: Marina Abramovich, 2005, Seven Easy Pieces – Image available at:

http://www.shinyawatanabe.net/en/writings/content57.html

Figure 8: Bruce Nauman, 1974, Body Pressure – Image available at:

http://www.warmenhoven-venderbos.com/body-pressure-conceptual-performance-art-by-bruce-

nauman/

Figure 9: Marina Abramovich, 2005, Seven Easy Pieces – Image available at:

http://www.shinyawatanabe.net/en/writings/content57.html

Figure 10: Vitto Acconci, 1972, Seed Bed – Image available at:

http://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/12-performance/deck/886031

Figure 11: Marina Abramovich, 2005, Seven Easy Pieces – Image available at:

http://www.shinyawatanabe.net/en/writings/content57.html

Figure 12: Valie Export, 1969, Action Pants; Genital Panic – Image available at:

http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol0902/allantaylor/home.html

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In this research project I intend to investigate several of the arguments that exist within the history

of documenting performance art. Through looking at performance artwork examples and their

relationship with their documentation, I mean to investigate what constitutes a live performance

act. I will then examine whether the resulting documentation that is produced can ever truly

represent the live act, or if you have to be there to interpret it. If a piece of artwork can be

documented it also means it can be re-created. I aim to explore what happens to a piece of artwork

when it is recreated, in the context of performance art, using Marina Abramovich’s series of

performances Seven Easy Pieces as a case study.

In Phillip Auslander’s ‘The Performativity of

Performance Documentation’ he describes the two

different categories of documenting performance.

He labels these categories as ‘the documentary’

and ‘the theatrical’ (Auslander, 2005). The

documentary is the traditional relationship

between performance art and its documentation in

which the performance event is recorded in a purely representational manner. This is done so that it

is possible for the artist, or any other artist wishing to interpret the piece in their own way, to re-

create the performance. It is also conducted this way to serve as evidence that the live act they

performed in front of an audience actually happened. A single shot camera recording a live event

was the typical way 1960s and 70s performance and body art was documented. An example from

this era is Chris Burden’s 1971 piece Shoot, which involves him being shot in the arm with a rifle by a

friend while standing in front of a white wall in the presence of a small audience. Figure 1 is a

photograph documenting Burden’s performance. An eight second film shot with a Super-8 camera

on 16mm film also documents that this piece occurred, making the documentation of this piece fall

under the category of the documentary (Burden, 1971).

Figure 1

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The theatrical categorises a performance that has been staged purely to be documented. The live

event is not meaningfully presented to an audience, so the document becomes the only space in

which the performance occurs (Auslander, 2005). A photograph or film could be the documentation

of a performance event that never took place. Yves Klein’s

piece Leap into the Void is photographic documentation of

a performance that never happened. Figure 2 shows the

photograph that supposedly documented Klein’s

performance of him leaping unprotected on to the street

from a second-story window. It was later discovered that

Klein staged the whole performance and that the

documentation was merging of two different photographs

that made him very realistically appear to be jumping out the window (Auslander, 2005). If a

performance like Klein’s is documented in a theatrical form to the point where a live act did not

occur in any form whatsoever, it brings up the argument of whether the piece still qualifies as a

performance. If it is concluded that Klein’s piece is not a performance piece, what then does its

documentation become? ‘Performed photography’ is a term that this type of documentation could

be labelled with, but a term such as this could be used to describe any photo shoot in which the

photographer sets a specific scene to achieve the photograph they desire (Auslander, 2005).

Burden’s piece, unlike Klein’s, is staged predominantly for an audience, and the documentation is

secondary to the live act. It could therefore be reasoned that the main difference between the two

types of performance documentation is the presence of an audience. Klein’s piece was witnessed by

those involved with the photo shoot, but they did not witness the event that was depicted in the

documentation (Auslander, 2005). Burden’s piece was witnessed by an audience, but in many ways

the live act was still staged. Amelia Jones analyses Burden’s work in Dis/playing the Phallus: Male

Artists Perform their Masculinities and states that Burden ‘carefully staged each performance and

Figure 2

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had it photographed and sometimes filmed; he selected usually one or two photographs for display

in exhibitions or catalogues’ (Jones, 1994). It can be argued then that both types of documentation

incorporate performance pieces that have been staged to be documented. This need for

documenting comes from performance artists seeking to mediate their work to an audience beyond

those observing the live act, as much as it was about proving evidence that the live act occurred. Like

Burden, it was needed to make their work reproducible so that they might ‘display in exhibitions and

catalogues’ (Jones, 1994). Jones also states that performance artists had a ‘dependence on

documentation to attain symbolic status within the realm of culture’ (Jones, 1997). Theatrical and

documentary documentation both attempt to ‘attain symbolic status’ by the use of photography and

film so that their work might be preserved and exist in the history of performance art. The presence

of an audience then becomes less fundamental than it had once seemed. In the 1970s, Valie Export

conducted a series performances in which she ‘went to bed wearing various costumes and physical

restraints’ to see in what ways different outfits would affect her dreams (Export, 2013). These

performances involved no audience, but exist in ‘symbolic status’ because of their documentation

(Jones, 1997). It could be rationalised then that the foremost difference between these two types of

documentation is whether the act existed in a particular space and point in time, in which case it

would be categorised as the documentary.

If a performance piece’s documentation falls under the category of the documentary, in that it

documents a live act that existed in a specific place and point in time, can the resulting

documentation ever truly represent the live act of the piece? In the study of performance history, it

seems art historians divide on the point of whether it is necessary to have seen a performance event

to interpret and critique it, or whether it can be equally interpreted through surviving

documentation. At first it seems an inane argument as documentation is integral in the history of

performance art, due to the ephemeral nature of the medium. RoseLee Goldberg, director of the

non-profit multi-disciplinary performance arts organisation PERFORMA, states that ‘the history of

performance can be reconstructed only from scripts, texts, photographs, and the description of

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onlookers’ (Goldberg, 2013). If it is argued that to critique a performance you have to have been

there, then the history of performance furthermore becomes significantly limited to the point where

it is unchronological.

However, despite these points, it can be, and is, argued that it is not possible for documentation to

truly represent a live performance. Co-founder of Australian video art archive Videoartchive Anne

Marsh states in in her journal article Performance Art and its Documentation: A Photo/Video Essay

that ‘performance art is a visual art practice which is located in a specific time and place and involves

the presence of the artist before his/her audience’ (Marsh, 2008). Marsh’s reference to performance

art being ‘located in a specific time and place’ is a leading argument for why documentation cannot

truly represent a live act. How can ‘live’ be reproduced in the form of documentation, as surely this

is contradictory to the very definition of ‘live’? Goldberg also reasons that the whole basis of

performance art comes from artists who are ‘against the strict confinement of museums and

galleries,’ and that a performance ‘calls on the audience to experience the making of an artwork

rather than contemplating static objects within an exhibition framework’ (Goldberg, 1984). This

contrasts with Jones’ idea of performance artists having a ‘dependence on documentation’ so that it

is possible for their work to be displayed in exhibitions and catalogues. To Goldberg, a true

performance artist does not wish to have their work confined within a museum or gallery space so

that it might be considered as a ‘static object’ (Goldberg, 1984). Goldberg also highlights the

importance of audience experience, which to her is that the audience must witness the process of

the artwork being made. If the values that Goldberg describes are so engrained in the definition of

performance art, then it could be considered that documentation has little or no value in reference

to a performance piece.

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Australian performance artist Jill Orr also believes that

documentation cannot truly represent her live

performances. Orr explains when documenting her

performances ‘the camera’s viewfinder has no peripheral

vision so it records a flattened reality… The time based

image becomes lifeless’ (Marsh, 2008). In the journal

article mentioned previously, Marsh discusses a particular

performance of Orr’s which she witnessed at the Adelaide

Festival of Arts in 1980 entitled She Had Long Golden Hair

which is most famously document by three photographs

(Marsh, 2008). In the particular performance Orr walks on

to a stage to the repeated chanting of ‘witch, bitch, mole,

dyke; witch, bitch, mole, dyke; witch, bitch, mole, dyke’

(Marsh, 2008). Orr’s recorded voice then begins to

narrate stories of various women who have had their hair

forcibly cut. She ties parts of her hair to six chains hanging

from the ceiling and then invites audience members to

cut her hair free from the chains. She finishes the

performance by rubbing her hands through her hair and

shaking her head rapidly, thus releasing the loose cut

hair. Due to this particular aspect of the performance, it

could only be performed once making the documentation far more integral to the piece compared

with more easily reproducible performances.

The three photographs most associated with the performance can be seen as Figure 3 and Figure 4.

Despite her admiration of the piece, Marsh describes the photographs that documented the

performance as when ‘read out of context and without embellishment don’t convey the depth nor

Figure 4

Figure 3

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the context of the event’ (Marsh, 2008). She goes on to describe this situation as ‘an issue that

plagues performance art’ (Marsh, 2008).

However, there was also a singular video that recorded the event. The video was shot by the

Experimental Arts Foundation as part of their documenting of the 1980 Adelaide Festival of Arts. The

video was shot in a singular viewpoint from amongst the audience, which Marsh calls a ‘real time

dumb witness’ (Marsh, 2008). The

video was shot in very poor quality

and stored in an obscure format that

was almost impossible to play. Orr

herself indicated she ‘was not

interested in such bland recording and

eventually the technology was

redundant and the work remained

unseen’ (Marsh, 2008). But in 2008, as

part of her work with the Australian

video art archive Videoartchive, Marsh and other members of the Videoartchive team recovered the

tape and after putting it through an extensive chemical process, made it playable again. The

chemical process left the tape almost completely un-representational as can be seen from the video

still in Figure 5. The tape skips and jumps when the audience cut her hair, making the hair seem to

attach and re-attach itself back to her scalp. The sound of ‘witch, bitch, mole, dyke’ is also forcibly

repeated over the entirety of the video (Marsh, 2008). But to Orr the damage was a positive

outcome. From Marsh’s correspondence with Orr after the restoration of the video documentation,

Orr declares that ‘the damage has re-energized the work – and edited it – creating a random rhythm

relevant to the medium’ (Marsh, 2008). Therefore, it can be reasoned that the less representational

documentation of the video conveys more about the performance than the highly representational

photographs. This instance is an example of the complex relationship that exists between

Figure 5

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performance art and its documentation. To an extent, the context of this piece can be interpreted

from its less representational video documentation, but due to its ephemerality as a live act and its

incorporation of audience participation it still cannot truly be interpreted by anyone who did not

view it.

When dealing with the documentation of any artwork, it also brings up the possibility of the artwork

being re-created based on the document. The re-creation of an

artwork based on documentation has been done as a way for

artists to interpret other artists’ pieces in their own way in many

different forms. The most recognised form being the re-performing

of a piece of music based on the score written by the composer,

instructing musical concepts to the performers. John Cage’s 1960s

experimental music pieces are still performed to audiences today

and are also newly interpreted. Sol LeWitt’s instructional wall

drawings confront the idea of what happens to one of his pieces

when it is re-created through instruction. LeWitt’s wall drawings

are documented by small diagrams, which he describes as ‘scores,’

with instructions of how to create one of his wall drawing pieces

(Weber, 2000). Figure 6 is one of these instructional documents

entitled Wall Drawing #366 (Weber, 2000). The instructions on the

document are simple in their directing; ‘black arcs using the height

of the wall as a radius, and black arcs using the midpoints of the

wall as a radius. The arcs are filled in solid and drawn in India ink’

(Weber, 2000). These instructions are so simple that it would be

possible for anyone to follow them, which was LeWitt’s specific intention. A piece of documentation

such as this brings up many arguments, the first being whether the documentation is the artwork or

any wall drawing that is subsequently created from its instruction. It also brings into contention the

Figure 6

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authorship of work, but the point that is most relevant to the subject of this research project is what

happens to a wall drawing when it is re-created from the instruction. Are the re-constructions

extensions of the piece as a whole or do they become new pieces in themselves? In the context of

performance art documentation, these points will be explored through Marina Abramovich’s series

of performances Seven Easy Pieces (2005).

Abramovich’s series of performances took place at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, as part of

the Performance Art Festival led by the non-profit multi-disciplinary performance arts organisation

PERFORMA (Watanabe, 2011). Seven Easy Pieces involved Abramovich performing seven different

performances over seven days, with each performance lasting seven hours. However, along with two

of her own performance pieces Abramovich also presented five re- enactments of famous

performances from the 1960s and 70s. These included Bruce Nauman’s Body Pressure (1974), Vito

Acconci’s Seed Bed (1972), Valie Export’s Action Pants; Genital Panic (1969), Gina Pane’s The

Conditioning, First Action of the Self-Portrait(s) (1973) and Joseph Beuys’ How to Explain Pictures to

a Dead Hare (1965).

She insisted upon the series of performances being displayed in the New York Guggenheim so much

that she spent twelve years seeking permission from the Museum. She explains that when originally

constructed, the Museum was designed to showcase ‘spiritual art’ (Abramovich, 2005).The reason

Abramovich wanted to re-create the previously stated performances of 1960s and 70s artists is as a

response to what she believes is wrong with modern performance art. She expresses her anger at

‘everybody who was taking the parts of the 70s performances, not just from my work,

but from all the other artists who worked so hard in that time and putting it in any

other context and not giving any credit where the real material comes from’

(Abramovich, 2005).

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Ambramovic feels she differentiates herself from these performance artists and other people in the

creative media who steal aspects of 1970s performance art, by the conditions she sets when re-

creating a performance piece. These conditions are that permission to re-create the work must be

asked of the original artist, and if they are not living then the foundation that represents them. You

must pay for this permission. You have to understand the original artwork. You can make your own

version, but must always refer back to the original source (Abramovich, 2005). The following images

show the original documentation of three of the 1970s and 60s performances on the right and the

corresponding re-performances shown in Guggenheim Museum on the left.

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 9

Figure 10

Figure 12

Figure 11

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Each performance of Abramovic’s shown in the previous images is a re-documentation of the

original piece. In the case of Nauman’s piece, this is based on instructions given by the artist to

anyone who comes in contact with the piece. Acconci’s and Export’s pieces are re-performed based

on the photographs that documented the original event. Babette Mangolte also composed a 95

minute long film showing parts from all seven performances, which acts as a secondary

documentation to a series of re-documentations (Büscher, 2007). As to whether the series was a

success, Export gives her opinion on Abramovic’s take on Genital panic in an interview stating ‘I think

it was a successful work, but, yes, it was something entirely different from the original action. It was

a different context and a different historical moment’ (Export, 2013).

The history of documenting performance is something that is full of contradictions. Abramovic states

in one interview that ‘performance for me make sense if it’s live and doesn’t make sense if its

documentation. Everything else that’s left over, like photograph or the video, is not the real thing’

and that most valuable form of documentation is ‘the memory of the audience’ (Abramovic, 2007).

Abramovic’s re-enactments are performed live, but would not exist without the documentation of

the original performances. In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Walter

Benjamin discusses how a work of art disintegrates through reproduction, stating that ‘in even the

most perfect reproduction, one thing is lacking; the here and now of the work of art – its unique

existence in a particular place’ (Benjamin, 2008). The ‘unique existence in a particular place’ seems

to be the core problem with documenting performance. No matter what relationship the

documentation has with a live act for whatever reason, it can still be argued that documentation

conflicts with the very nature of performance art. Carrie Lambert-Beatty expresses the futility in

trying to conclude this subject when she declares that ‘to understand performance art of the past is

to grapple with the fact that this art was designed to be lost’ (Büscher, 2007).

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Burden, C., 1971. YouTube. [Online]

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