I've said it once, and I say it again I like to think of my self as a cultured well versed gentleman. I've been known to saunter into gallery spaces and experience the odd performance. But it wasn't till I had a discussion with a client whom is also a artist whom does art installations, that we broached the subject of performance art. Now I normally go for the free cheap booze and the social aspect of it as well. Ok, it's just the cheap(free) booze. But I have had it with these artists whom claim to be deep, thought provoking, and worst of all thinking they are prolific. And when I have a few in me and slightly pickled, well I turn into a art piece myself, or as an ex used to describe me, a piece of work.
Now I am no performance artist and but I can tell what sucks big time when I have to endure 10-20 even an hour of this drivel. There was the drag clown whom spun to circus music while pulling chiffon scarves out his ass in downtown New York circa 1990. Ron Athey's treating the audience to a double ended dildo fuck session cut by a tattooed butler. The green contortionist broad whom bent in all shapes to Burmese music out in Chicago while a projection of vivisection images splashed across her and the stage. Franko B walking a catwalk dripping blood up and down for 14 minutes. And the piece de resistance, a woman covered in leeches fucking her self with some seriously large tailor sheers as the blood soaked leeches poured down her body. That one made me woozy for a week. Flashdance, it ain't!
I mean can you really make a career as a serious artist always pulling things out of your ass?
I read once in Stuart Home's book Defiant Pose about one performance artist whom in the book, took to becoming addicted to heroin of the gallery patrons and the men in the crown would then take turns fucking her. She would suffer for the fact that her body and mind would deteriorate so that you would witness the horror of the drug and depravity first hand. Fair enough, but to me that says something and has a train of thought. I once saw Karen Finley (whom I love) perform and I walked away thinking..."Shessh, the fucking mouth on that broad!" But she still made a point. Okay the apple pie in the pussy was abit too far, but still it was worth the Seven buck shekel I paid to see that. But does the world need another pretentious asshole thinking he's clever by subjecting us to a four minute film of him fondling his moob bolognie tits! Perhaps if your a chubby chaser and you like feeding fat dudes then this is porn for you, but art it isn't.
You know those silly buskers out in South Bank whom pretend to be statues or figures of what can only be described as paper mache costumes to entertain the wayward visitor of London? At least they know that their crap and still make light of the performance cause it's met with humour, followed by the audacity to ask for money. Simply their motive is to make a quick buck and to lazy to get a fucking proper day job. Good on them, make the money, don't let it make you. But I do think most performance art I have seen has been a bit shit and a bit out dated, and getting me drunk isn't going to make the experience that much smoother.
No matter how much I drink. I once went with a friend where we crashed a gallery in my Shoreditch area, as we liked most of the art we made small talk with some of the guests. Good time was had till a hyper morbid Goth was in my path forcing me to loose my balance and place my right leg into what I thought was a multi coloured plexi glass sculpture. Turns out if was paint and paint went everywhere on the gallery floor,grabbing the heaviest thing I could find (her) to counter my balance without falling into the work. The fat goth's dress tore and paint mixed everywhere in the other coloured boxes and her dress. Sadly, hilarity did not ensue. The artist was livid, that fat goth screamed her dress was ruined and the gallery owner thought the whole episode itself was art. Well as I always say, it ain't a party till something's broken. So I offered the fat Goth £5 bucks for her stained muumuu (she refused), and offered to replace the pools of paint to the artist.
Surprisingly, drunk and under due stress I can handle some odd situations quit well. Strangely the footage made it to another gallery on a loop in slow motion then in real time, to most others amusement. Although I am a art school drop out and was actually thrown out of beauty school(long story), I don't pretend to be clever or smart, like some of the shit that's palmed off as high art here.
So yeah, if you're an untalented fat git, whom has no real voice or talent to make an actual point or message. Try performance art. Then why not make an ass of your self and call it art, people will invite you to parties, put you in glossy magazines and call you interesting, just as long as you keep fucking yourself with scissors and wiping shit on your face while reciting Chaucer, your in. Until the next idiot comes and steals your thunder.
But before you think I am opposed to all performances...not true this is how it should be done.
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