{"id":1258,"date":"2018-01-10T06:34:11","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T06:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2018-05-22T20:34:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T19:34:52","slug":"performancemuseumspractice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/2018\/01\/10\/performancemuseumspractice\/","title":{"rendered":"Performance\/ Museums\/ Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Acatia Finbow<\/a>, \u00a0Collaborative Doctoral Award Student, University of Exeter and Tate.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Performance\/Museums\/Practice\u2019 is a monthly research seminar which considers the overlapping and intersecting practices around performance and museums, in all their complexity and richness. It is an interdisciplinary group, open to academics, practitioners, and those with a general interest in the topics, and seeks to stimulate discussion and debate around these areas of research.<\/p>\n

The first session, held at King\u2019s on December 4th<\/sup> 2017, considered \u2018Collaborations and the Expansion of Performance\u2019. The seminar usually involves two key texts and one case study which form the basis for the conversation during the seminar. In this first session, we looked at Simon Martin\u2019s \u2018Painting the Stage and Screen: Burra and Performance\u2019, Robert S. Mattison\u2019s essay on \u2018Sleep for Yvonne Rainer\u2019, and looked at the work by Robert Rauschenberg, \u2018Sleep for Yvonne Rainer<\/a>\u2019, currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.<\/p>\n

\"Robert
Robert Rauschenberg, Sleep for Yvonne Rainer, 1965, detail.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the big areas of discussion which came out of this first session was around \u2018spectatorship\u2019, inspired by Simon Martin\u2019s observations of Edward Burra\u2019s focus on drawing and\u00a0painting audiences\u00a0<\/a>at theatrical and musical events, but also by our own responses to the Robert Rauschenberg work ‘Sleep for Yvonne Rainer’, our case study. Linking to Burra\u2019s voyeuristic tendencies, we looked also at his similarities to the works of\u00a0Edward Hopper<\/a>, but also the more contemporary works of\u00a0Yayoi Kusama<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Thomas Struth,<\/a>\u00a0in the prevalence of photographs of people engaging with art or art spaces in their works. This led to a very interesting discussion around the problems and possibilities of engaging with art experiences through social media, and the anxieties and pressures of enjoyment and participation within this.<\/p>\n

\"Left:
We should all be taking selfies in Kusama’s installations. Left: Yayoi Kusama in “Phalli’s Field”, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, via Huffington Post. Right: Katy Perry in \u201cThe Souls of Millions of Light Years Away\u201d, via Instagram.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our discussions around spectatorship and participation in Rauschenberg\u2019s work also strayed into the territory of documentation and museumification, particularly of historic works with previously interactive or moveable elements. This also led us to consider the prevalence of the term \u2018choreograph\u2019 within descriptions of audience interaction with changeable works such as\u00a0Sleep for Yvonne Rainer<\/em>, as opposed to \u2018curate\u2019 or \u2018interact\u2019, an issue that will hopefully continue to be debated throughout the seminar series. The challenges of works entering a period of \u2018stasis\u2019 within the museum, as a result of preservation, conservation, and curatorial practice, is something which we are sure will also be a point of consideration in session two, which will look at curating performance and time-based media.<\/p>\n

Another strong thread throughout our discussions were around ethics, labour, and capital, particularly linking to body-based artistic activity. This led us to considerations of how participation can challenge our sense, as an audience, of the social contract and demand unexpected labour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We also took an interesting diversion into looking at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA\u2019s) recent acquisition of works by choreographer and dancer\u00a0Simone Forti\u00a0<\/a>and their transmission by a trained and experience instructor of the work.<\/p>\n

\"Roller
Simone Forti’s Roller Boxes (1960), performed at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2004. Photo: Carol Peterson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We considered the issue of remuneration for knowledge, rather than for labour, and how this might intersect within the discipline and practices of dance. There was a nice sense of circularity within this, pointing back to an earlier consideration of the arts market\u2019s influence on Burra\u2019s career, in his cross-disciplinary work between theatre and visual arts, where his scenographic work often supported his other artistic activities.<\/p>\n

Performance\/Museum\/Practice is a reading and discussion group founded by Bryony White (King\u2019s College London), Ellie Jones (King\u2019s College London) and Acatia Finbow (University of Exeter). The next seminar will be held in the Virginia Woolf Building at King\u2019s College London, Monday January 15th<\/sup>, from 6.30pm. More details can be found on the Facebook group (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/1809478739311127\/<\/a>) or on our website (https:\/\/performancemuseumpractice.wordpress.com\/<\/a>) where the readings for each session are also listed in advance. The group is open to everyone, regardless of research interests or expertise, and we hope to see you there!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Featured image: Detail, Robert Rauschenberg, Sleep for Yvonne Rainer<\/a><\/em>, 1965; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; \u00a9 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation \/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY; photo: Ian Reeves https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/artwork\/FC.695.A-D\/essay\/sleep-for-yvonne-rainer<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

You may also like to read:<\/p>\n

Reimagining the Witness in the Eternal City<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Early Modern Verbatim Theatre<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Blog posts on King\u2019s English represent the views of the individual authors and neither those of the English Department, nor of King\u2019s College London. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Acatia Finbow, \u00a0Collaborative Doctoral Award Student, University of Exeter and Tate. \u2018Performance\/Museums\/Practice\u2019 is a monthly research seminar which considers the overlapping and intersecting practices around performance and museums, in all their complexity and richness. It is an interdisciplinary group, open to academics, practitioners, and those with a general interest in the topics, and seeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":1262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,31,4],"tags":[406,411,408,407,412,409,413,410],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary","category-performance-research-group","category-visual-and-material-culture","tag-edward-burra","tag-moma","tag-museums-and-performance","tag-performance-research","tag-reading-group","tag-robert-raushenberg","tag-seminar-series","tag-sleep-for-yvonne-rainer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}