My Life in [Performance] Art
20.05.12
Performance art is easy. You get onstage, share comic yet painful childhood memories, strip naked, smear chocolate on your body, and you are done. If you want, you can throw in a few innovations. Tell about your painful teen years wearing nothing more than communion wafers on your nipples while sitting in gynecological stirrups strapped to a bobsled dipped in a vat of urine. Anyone can do it. Who are performance artists anyway? Out-of-work actors doing cheap marketing stunts by being provocative, right?
That is what I used to think. I have since discovered that none of these perceptions are true. Performance art is not so simple, and good performance artists are not failed performers vying for attention. They take the “Art” part of performance art seriously. Effective performance artists weave their life experiences into something memorable and meaningful. Smeared chocolate represents layers of difficulty. Communion wafers are a metaphor for a confused spirituality. Performance artists place their othered lives front-and-center in creative, poetic ways. The performances may be uncomfortable and weird, but they are noble. There is a larger purpose to “exposing” yourself and sharing your differences.
Source: Live Arts and Fringe Festival (blog)