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	Department of Art History and Musicology
	Department of Art History Hans T Sternudd Proposal: An adjusted sign model for action art Example o. m. theatre Introduction Action art: a short history and terminology The semiotics of theatre Hermann Nitsch The semiotics of o. m. theatre The intention References Notes Introduction The purpose of this text is to discuss the phenomena of actions, especially the type of action that is found in what is known as the "art world". (1) In the following text this special kind of action is named action art. Central questions to this discussion are: 1. How should action art be categorized? Is it a special kind of theatre or dance? 2. Are there similarities between action art and other forms of human activities? 3. And finally, what is the intention of the use of action art as expression? The actions of the Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch, The Orgies Mysteries Theatre (o. m. theatre), are taken as the point of departure for this article.   Action art: a short history and terminology The work of Nitsch belongs to a branch of modern art history in which artists use their own or other’s bodies, in different kinds of actions (usually before an audience). This tradition has a history that goes back to the action painting, tachism and happenings of the 1950’s.(2) The fundamental aspect of action art is an actor who acts, or executes actions. Usually the actor follows a prescribed script or score (free improvisations are very rare in connection with action art). The nature of action art actions is real, rather than representative. The use of real actions as a tool for expressing ideas, thoughts or opinions is not something which is unique to action artists. Groups that try to influence the public opinion, like Greenpeace, the Ploughshare movement and militant vegans, often use similar methods as a way of communicating. The activities of these groups often reach the recipients in mediated form through mass media. A brief look at history reveals many examples of the ways that real actions have been used as a form of communication, although the purposes and contexts in which they have taken place are very different. Even in ancient Greece there are examples of how the Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (about 410-320 B.C.) used direct action in many stagings in the public squares of Athens. When written down as a score, a popular form for the action artist of the late 20th century, there are striking similarities between Diogenes’ actions and the action art of our own time. "One day Diogenes was seen sitting in the public square all afternoon gluing shut the pages of a book." "He would walk backward through the city streets." "One day he sat down and held his breath until he died" (McEvilley 1983) Compare this with scores from Fluxus artists, such as the following poetic suggestions signed by Yoko Ono: "PAINTING TO SEE THE SKIES Drill two holes into a canvas. Hang it where you can see the sky. (Change the place of hanging. Try both the front and the rear windows, to see if the skies are different.) 1961 summer" "PAINTING TO EXIST ONLY WHEN IT IS COPIED OR PHOTOGRAPHED Let People copy or photograph your paintings. Destroy the originals. 1964 spring" (Ubi Fluxus … 1990. p. 238-239.) Or the drastic scores of the Japanese artist Takehisa Kosugir: "MUSIC FOR A REVOLUTION Scoop out one of your eyes 5 years from now and do the same with the other eye 5 years later" (happening & fluxus 1970. No pagination.) In a religious context it is not difficult to find many examples of these kinds of actions throughout history, for instance the sacred hermits and the flagellants. The motives behind these different kinds of direct and/or real actions have been varied, for instance a will to prove the strength of one’s faith or the righteousness of one’s cause. Although action as an expressive device has a long previous history, action in an artistic context must be regarded as a new phenomenon, originating in the 1950’s. The breakthrough for actions in the "art world" is due largely to the Zen-orientated musician John Cage. He was a central figure in the development of action art in the USA. Many of the happening and Fluxus artists who later became famous participated in his lectures at Black Mountain College and in New York during the 50’s. A performance initiated by Cage in 1952 anticipated the stagings which became famous as happenings later that same decade. A lot of musicians, visual artists and dancers followed the Cage lectures, but not many theatre people. The fact that visual artists were interested in performances was nothing new, there have always been artists with this interest. For instance, Kurt Schwitters, with his proposal for a Merzteater in the 1910’s which was never realised, is often regarded as a forerunner to happenings. Many aspects of Schwitters’ theatrical ideas were carried out in the late 50’s. The fact that the stage became a possible working space for the visual artist was possibly the most important contribution from the theatre and dance experiments of the avant-garde artists from the symbolists to the Bauhaus School. (3) The differences between the traditional and the avant-garde stage were not large; the representative mode of expression was still dominant. It was the development of abstract, action painting that put the focus on real actions and started the development of action art. Since the 1950’s, several different distinct forms of action art have developed. The happening, which has already been mentioned, is one of these. Allan Kaprow, an American artist, is regarded as the father of this particular type of action art. Inspired by the Cage lectures and the action painting and artists of the early 20th century, he staged the first happening, 18 Happening in 6 Parts, at the Reuben Gallery in New York in 1959. A happening can be described as a collage which has been expanded in time and space. The elements (objects, actions, words and sounds) of the performance are, as in collage, arranged side by side. There is no causal connection or relation between the elements, the structure is often randomly generated and there is no fictional dimension. During many happenings the audience is active, in one way or another. They can be forced to move around during the performance (as in the first happening) or be a central part of it, as in Kaprow’s later performances during the 60’s. The desire to blur the border between art and life was one of his major concerns and eventually the concept of the audience disappeared completely — everyone who experienced the actions was also involved in them. The event is another type of action art and was developed by the artists in and around George Macunia’s Fluxus group. One way of describing an event is to regard it as one of the actions that make up a happening. An event is often short, minimalistic and with a touch of humour. A Fluxus festival was composed of many short events, sometimes no more than a few seconds long, executed by performers wearing tuxedos (like classical musicians). The activities of both happenings and events are prescribed in a score. Like a piece of music, these scores can be executed by anyone, and are not dependant upon the presence of the artist, the creator of the piece. Today, a very common term in action art is performance art or simply performance. Performance art was developed during the late 1960’s, when action artists began to create works with stronger emphases on the artistic subject. Some important forerunners of this signature art are Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman. (4) A creative artist in performance art, who often works with a personal iconography, has replaced the simplicity of the events and chance operations in happenings with the notion of the skilled artist and a reinforced border between the stage and the audience. By around 1970, all the mentioned types of action arts had been established, and often the works of individual artists are a mixture of the different categories of expressions. This decade also saw the development of a special type of art that focusses on the body as a tool for expression — body art. During the postmodern climate in the 1980’s, the seemingly subject-orientated genre of action art was ill famed. Instead, the decade promoted more textually orientated works. A renewed interest in action art could be seen during the last century’s final years and the so-called abject art, often with action-orientated works, was a significant influence upon the art scene. Many different terms have been coined which propose to describe those activities labelled here as action art, such as visual theatre, performance theatre, live art. The categories described above all have their characteristic trademarks, while other hybrids of combinations of words are quite impossible and inaccurate. With the exceptions of dramatic works and radio theatre, the visual aspect of theatre is significant for all theatre, which rules out the tautology visual theatre. The same objection can be raised against the combination performance theatre; the performance is an essential part of every experience of theatre. One of the problems with the term performance (art) is that it is so very popular today, the word performance can be used to address as different subjects as a car's performance, social behaviour or fire brigades putting out a fire. This overall term covers the operas of Robert Wilson, Laurie Anderson's concerts, etc. These forms of expression have strong similarities with the previously mentioned work developed by avant-garde artists (symbolists, futurists and so on) and are basically no different from the contemporary theatre stage, even if the difference is large if you compare the narrative structure and other formal aspects. Live art, used by among others RoseLee Goldberg (the famous writer of the history of visual artists' work with scenic expression), incorporates too many types of expression to be useful. Her latest book, Performance, Live Art since the 60s (1998), contains a mixture of everything from Fluxus events and staged photography to rock videos. The term action art focusses on the actual action which takes place, and is open to interesting parallels with activities outside the "art world". Moreover, it is often used within the German and French speech areas. The first contact with action art can be a rather bewildering experience for someone who is a trained actor or dancer. At theatre and dance classes a lot of the work, except the purely physical training, focuses on questions concerning how something is done. How is it, for instance, possible for the actor to fill the character with life, to give life to the dramatic text and bring authenticity to the play? The way in which these tasks are carried out is of utmost importance for the spectators' experience. In dance the problems are similar to those in theatre although the focus is on another means of conveying meaning, the dancers’ movements. The how seems to be central to both of these performance practices. In action art the expression has a different kind of quality, in these works the major concern is what is being done on the stage. It is often striking how mechanically the action artist performs and how unfocussed and absentminded he/she seems. Watching a Fluxus festival can remind the spectator of painful experiences from school theatre in the lower grades (you need to be one of the parents to be able to enjoy it). Another feature of many action art performances is the objectification of the actor; the participants are treated as objects or props. In 1962, in an article about happenings, Susan Sontag wrote that: "the performer frequently is treated in the same fashion as a prop or a stage effect". And finally, a third feature that is often emphasised in the rhetoric surrounding action art, the activities staged in an action art piece are real, not representative. In an interview broadcast on Swedish television in 1998 Marina Abramovi´c said that: – The big difference between the actor and the performer is: the actor is acting and the performer is doing the real thing. (5) This is a very important difference between theatre and action art. It is common to speak of the imaginative power of the theatre. In a play the actor can be transformed into a king, a dragon or a little house in the forest, sometimes during the same performance. This is not the case in action art. In summary, it is what, rather than how, that is important in the actions, the actors are objectified and there is an emphasis on real action. Looking more closely at these very intuitive characterisations of action art, these tools for understanding are rather blunt. The way in which the Fluxus artists act, unfocussed and absentmindedly, is also a part of the expression (focussing on the action rather than the acting). And what is the difference between a real and a theatrical action? Both are actions executed by an actor. In an attempt to define the characteristics of action art we shall start with a closer look at the theatrical sign. Page 2 >>
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