I think I get you a little more Amelia Jones.

Amelia Jones in Postmodernism, Subjectivity and Body Art: A Trajectory seeks to revise the 1980s views of body art.  As a starting point, Jones uses artists and theorist Mary Kelly’s anti body art argument as the start of her argument.  Mary Kelly, artist and theorist.

Mary Kelly, Installation view of Interim Part I.
Bellow detail of Menace from Interim Part I.

Kelly makes the argument that body art is problematic referring to body art as “naïve essentialism,” fetishsizes the human form, specifically perpetuating the objectification of the female form and as body art enters into the mainstream is generalized as allegorical.   Kelly uses Ana Mendieta, performance artist work Silueta as an example.  According to Kelly, Silueta is essentialist in that Mendieta’s work embraces her female form for what it is, “take my body for what it is” all the while the nudity in her work seduces the viewer, further perpetuating the objectification of the female form.  And lastly Mendieta’s Silueta is interpreted through the allegorical lens, Mendieta being associated with Tiano goddesses of the earth. 

Ana Mendieta's Silueta.

Jones understands Kelly’s warning but strives to argue that even within Kelly’s artwork, which completely excludes the female form is more akin to Mendieta’s Silueta. 

Body art, the body art that Kelly was referring to in her argument is using the body as the medium. Jones argues for a broadening of the definition of body art.  One way to broaden the definition is to understand that majority of how body art is viewed is not in actual performance but rather in documentation through photographs and film.  The artist is not actually present then.  And instead the artist is instead embodied in the photographs and film.  Jones argues that this is similar to Kelly’s work, that she her self is embodied into the tattered and worn purses in her series Interim Part I: Corpus.  Jones goes as far to argue that Jackson Pollock’s work is body art.

Jones also believes that Kelly’s blanket statement that body art should is essentialist and or allegorical is detrimental. Jones in response, “Kelly’s wholesale rejection of all body art as necessarily essentialist, while it was strategic at the time, failed to account for Kelly’s own investment- as an embodied artists and critic reacting to the messy and , in her view, ideologically problematic effects of other artists’ bodies in performance – in interpreting them (essentializing their meanings) in this way” (30).  

Jones lastly argues that body art should be allowed to be seductive, radical and harness the positive power of narcissism.   Especially for feminism, the female form needs to exposed, needs to be seen, must become public, “the personal is political,” and furthermore the importance of women taking control of the image in which they disseminate into society. 

I kept Jones’ argument in mind while watching the Marina Abramovic documentary The Artist isPresent.  Much of Jones’ argument is echoed when Abramovic explains the body art she had done in the earlier part of her career.  To Abramovic, her body is a stand in for us, for society and is often a projection of our own ideas and thoughts.  In her performance The Artists is Present, Abramovic  specifically states “I am the mirror of their own self.”

Her colleagues talk about the charismatic, seductive nature of her personality, and how Abramovic uses that to pull in her audience, to make her viewer fall in love with her, to bring them in.  Abramovic describes making ones own charismatic space. 

What difference greatly from Jones argument and Abramovic is the real.  The performance is everything to Abramovic.  There is an intimacy and an intensity she strives for her in her performance.   In the documentary The Artists is Present, Abramovic is talking with her gallerist about her meeting with illusionist David Blaine and how he proposed the ending to her exhibition.  Blaine wanted to stage Abramovic’s death at the end of her exhibition.  Her gallerist advised her that she should not because the thread that ties her work is the real, what makes her performance captivating and powerful is that it is real.  Working with an illusionist, staging an illusion would take away from the realness of her performance.  Abramovic agrees instantly. Telling him that he is right and drops the idea immediately.  I understand the power in the real for Abramovic.  The documentary includes the workshop Abramovic hosts for the 30 artist who will reenact her previous performances for her retrospective that coincided with her own performance pieces. 

Abramovic states, “in performance you have to have an emotional approach. It’s a kind of direct energy that with the public and the performer.  And if you are performing in that way, that you are there, in this 100%.  There is an emotional moment arrives to everybody.  There is no way out.  Everybody feel. “  The performance, the interaction with viewer the energy that is being shared by both parties is what is most important, a feeling that cannot be transcended through photographs and even film.

At the point, I am torn with whether to include performance into my own work.  The more I research performance art the more I become frightened with the idea.  I appreciate the Abramovic’s physical and emotional stamina.  It is something I cannot fathom doing.  The level of intimacy is daunting; being so vulnerable both physically and mentally makes me anxious.  Another reason I straw from using my self/body in my work is because although my work appears to lack the personal (my work being more akin to Kelly’s) all the works steam from a personal experience.  In a sense, each piece is autobiographical, but I have actively decided to remove my self/body from the work.  For me including my self/body would be too much.  My aim is to talk to a broad demographic; to be inclusive with my message and using my self/body makes me feel like the work is only autobiographical.  

Marina Abramovic, Nude with Skeleton.

One of thirty artists asked to recreate Abramovic's performance works for Abramovic's retrospective at New York MOMA.