John Cage
An American composer most famous for his composition, 4’33”.
“4′33″ challenges, or rather exploits to a radical extent, the social regiments of the modern concert life etiquette, experimenting on unsuspecting concert-goers to prove an important point.”
Due to the concert location and the setting of where the piece is played, the audience would already have a high expectation for the piece. Hence, they would be more focused, and would listen to it as intently as they would with any of the other compositions played during the performance. The audiences are also restricted by the rules of being in a concert theatre, and are kind of forced to listen to the piece quietly, as it is part of the concert etiquette.
The piece also causes the audience to behave in a certain manner. After listening to the piece, the audience could possibly feel cheated, having listened to nothing for the entire duration. The irony is that the audience are also part of the piece, since it consists of environmental noise and silence.
An installation designed for the piece that is displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 4’33” (In proportional Notation) consists of “three pieces of 11-by-16-inch paper that Cage folded in half. Then he drew a single (sometimes a double) vertical ink line descending down successive pages. The vertical line is an instruction that describes an “action” that consists of doing nothing. The action is “performed” by having a pianist (or any other instrumentalist or any combination of instrumentalists) sit silently during three “movements” totalling 4 minutes and 33 seconds, the duration specified by the ink lines. The intention, clearly articulated in Cage’s writing, is that each performer will quietly listen with full awareness to the sounds audible at that moment.”
This piece is controversial because it defies the essence of music. It is a participatory form of endurance art, where it not only engages the public as an audience but also as part of the art. It also provides them the time to reflect and think about themselves and the environment around them for the entire duration.
Emma Sulkowicz
A young art student most known for her performance piece, Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) (2014-15), which contributes to a national conversation about rape on college campuses. The basis of the performance stemmed from being sexually assaulted during her first year in university. After filing a complaint and having investigations done by the school, the man was found not responsible. The performance is a protest on what she describes as “Columbia University’s mishandling of her sexual assault complaint”. The performance was done as part of her senior thesis, where she carries a mattress with her everywhere she goes within her University campus until the man who raped her gets expelled from her school and leaves the country.
In her performance piece, she sets a parameter for herself: “One of the rules of the piece is that I am not allowed to ask for help in carrying the mattress, but others are allowed to give help if they come up and offer it,”. I interpret this in the symbolism of people coming up to offer help to a rape victim, to help lift up some of her burden (aka the mattress).
Sulkowicz told New York magazine:
I thought about how … the mattress represents a private place where a lot of your intimate life happens; and how I have brought my life out in front for the public to see; and the act of bringing something private and intimate out into the public mirrors the way my life has been. Also the mattress as a burden, because of what has happened there, that has turned my own relationship with my bed into something fraught.[
This performance work is an optional participatory form of endurance art, where it engages the public to question her actions and encourage them to willingly be a part of the performance. The unusual performance also piques curiosity among the audience and brings about awareness of a cause to the public.
Ai Wei Wei
A Chines artist-activist famous for using highly political art to denounce his country’s oppressive government. His works are often related to the society, politics and economy in China. He has produced many controversial works, such as Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995), Study of Perspectives (2017) and Sunflower Seeds (2010).
‘Sunflower Seeds’ is a commentary on globalization, mass production and the cheap labour industry in China. It consists of a piece of art that is made up of many pieces of tinier art. “As a singular tiny sculpture, every seed is submerged by a hundred million ones with subtle nuances, similar yet each unique, just as 1,600 workers in Jingdezhen performing repetitive duties… Through a sunflower seed, Ai Weiwei triggers a Domino effect, enlarging the lengthy, complicated and exquisite process by 100 million times. Devoting unimaginable patience, time and energy, he brings into focus the significance of individuals, and the imposing strength when they gather together.”
As ironic as it sounds, ‘Sunflower Seeds’ provided work for 1,600 artisans in Jingdenzhen, which is actually a reflection of reality. “The layers of seeds, though simple in form, embody multiple meanings. The sunflower seed is a common street snack in China, an everyday object from the artist’s childhood. It evokes the memory of hardships and hunger during the Cultural Revolution, and the era of socialist planned economy with the collective worship of the ”sun” – Chairman Mao.”
I like that this piece of art is interactive in the sense that the audience can engage in the artwork, and take on the role of the consumers of this mass production. By looking at the audience engage in the work, it really shows how consumers literally get to enjoy the fruits of the labourer’s labour. I also love the idea of it being a tiny piece of art that forms up to a larger whole, encouraging viewers to look at the bigger picture. Initially, I thought that this work was meant to be something purely out of aesthetics, little did I expect that it would mean something on a much deeper level and very relevant to the current world we live in. The controversy in his work, unlike the other two, is not in the execution of the art, but rather the connotations and meanings that it represents.
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED.
This article contains some of the most extreme and bizarre forms of performance art I have ever heard of (some of which I don’t dare to open because cringe): https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/14-of-the-most-extreme-performance-art-pieces/
