Performance & Intervention II

The readings for this week were generally regarding how artists intervene with the public space of the city. This tactical way of working is a form of disruption within social order. It is slightly manipulating the strategies of the urban planners, in that it alters the image of the city based on the ideas of those who dwell within. The most direct ways to alter this image is through graffiti. In this way of working, the artist's marks literally remain on the public space until someone else intervenes by removing or painting over it. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti art is a form of protest by using the public space as his own to exclaim a message.

Here we have a very direct message addressed to the public. Basquiat was specifically addressing the "hegemonic forces within the art world" and uses the public space as his way of protesting. The images we see of Basquiat's art are simply representations. The work is intended to be seen by the general public. 

While Basquiat's graffiti art is more about the message and its actual space, Robin Rhodes interventions are more about creating the image.

Robin Rhode intervenes and interacts with the public space to create an image. Without the presence of the artist in the photograph, the drawings on the wall would not make any sense. While this form of art making is similar to graffiti, it is less concerned with making a statement to the public and more about using the public space as a canvas to create an image with. Here is an image by Rhode, with bad photoshop representation of what the space might look like after he is gone.

compared to:

Once Rhode is not in the space, it becomes entirely different. Rhode's art is primarily the image; it is the documentation from a specific perspective to represent his interaction with his drawing. This would be related to more of a counter culture than a protest culture. Rhode is not using the public space as a way of making claims or statements to the public. Unlike the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, there is not a direct or confrontational message that remains on the space after the artist has left the site. 

Rhode uses the literal public space, performance, and the photograph to create his work. Another form of intervening with the imagery of the public space is through Andy Warhol's Birmingham Race Riot in which he mass-produced an image of police setting their dogs on protesters.

It is still a form of intervention within the public space but it is through wide-spread imagery and not the literal, physical public space. The public space goes beyond the sidewalks within a city. Warhol is intervening with the image-circulating public space of news and media. In relation to the distinctions between the protest culture and the counter culture, Birmingham Race Riot seems to be a part of both. The way in which Warhol mechanically produced the work would relate more to a counter culture, in that it is an art making practice that, at the time, was very oppositional since the artist was not physically creating the work. The content that Warhol is working with, however, is at the top of protest culture - an actual protest that has led to violence.

In attempt to further understand the differences between the protest culture and the counter culture through performances and interventions of the public space, I have made a diagram including some of the artists in these readings and where I think they would fall in these categories.

In the more performative works such as David Wojnarowicz and Nikki S. Lee, there is a difference between intervening with the public space and the public audience.

Although there may be other people in the images or around the masked figure, Wojnarowicz is much more concerned with the space than those who are in the space. The figure is not addressing the public audience but is addressing the camera. The two-dimensional mask is clearly aligned with the camera. Similar to Robin Rhode, Wojnarowicz is making an image where he is using the public space, he is not confronting public space when the image is made.

In Nikki S. Lee's photographs, the artist is interacting and intervening with an unknowing public audience. This performance, though still not directly confrontational, would be closer to the protest culture because it is directly including the public audience. This is similar to the graffiti art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in that it seems to be less about the construction of the image and more about the performance and the relation with the public audience.