Art I Like

Gilbert And George

"The pair regard themselves as "living sculptures". They refuse to disassociate their art from their everyday lives, insisting that everything they do is art."

Tracy Emin

"A poster she photocopied and put up around her home when her cat Docket went missing became an object collected by people, but was excluded by Emin from her canon."

Marina Abramović

(Via Duncan.)

Wikipedia:

Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art". Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.

Proposition

by Paul Knight (via RH).

"Would you have sex with a stranger?

This is the Proposition:

Proposition is looking for two brave adults with a sense of adventure. You can be any age, gender or sexual preference.

We encourage your involvement and input.

The date has been set. Two people is all it takes!

Sunday the 17th of October, 2010.

Sound intruiging? Would you simply like to know more?

Please get in touch!"

Robin Hely

Whatever his shortcomings as a human being, he's undeniably an amazing artist. And his sociopathy and his genius kind of go hand in hand.

"As an artist, I have a big problem," he said to me once. "I don't really like art. I just love fucking with peoples' heads."

Yeah.

"Interventionist performance art", he's calling it now. Previously known as "interactive public theatre". I still like "reality art". Whatever it is, it's something else.

Interesting review of "Sherrie". Origin of the spycam. Missing Person --> Who Is Robert Henley?. Oh, and then there's this. Changed my life, y'know.

I miss the evil bastard. He's never dull.

(Previously.)

Hermann Nitsch

(Via J.)

Specifically the Orgies Mystery Theatre (possibly unstable Google cache link; original is down).

This 6-day play will incorporate all the elements that have made Nitsch so notorious: the slaughter, evisceration and crucifixion of (totemic) animals, the drenching of naked performers in torrents of blood and entrails to a cacophony of revved up tanks, scream choirs and orchestras, interspersed by wandering brass bands playing Austrian tavern music.... Among other materials the artist's palette will consist of 300 actors and musicians, 3 live bulls, a great many slaughtered pigs and sheep, intestines, fresh flowers, 3,000 litres of fresh blood, gallons of paint, etc., and wine enough for continuous intoxication. One must bear in mind that this 'work of art', in a very palpable sense, will also be a public festival: "the participants are sitting in every corner of the fields, the orchards and vineyards, happily eating and drinking wine.....happiness flows rich and intoxicating through our blood...."

Damn.

"the profession to practise art is the priesthood for a new view of existence.....[art becomes]...the means for a profounder, intenser rapture within life and must be intensified to the point of a shameless, analytical exhibitionism, that demands the sacrifice of total self-abandonment." [Nitsch, blood organ manifesto, 1962]

That's what I'm talking about. Or not.

In a strong sense, one has to be there-- and in this being-there lies a subjective moment not readily transformed into discursive language.

Yes.