Zhang Huan/ Yoko Ono
First of all, I’d just like to say I did enjoy Zhang Huan’s work, mainly for its strong emotional intensity and creative forms of presentation. One of the most interesting aspects of his work is that it’s certainly open for interpretation. According to Huan himself, he is the only person to truly understand his work. That leaves viewers an immense doorway of possibilites, getting what they wish out of the work.
My favorite piece was ‘My America’, mainly for the awesome nature of what was presented. Seeing a person being the target of pain and suffering was a difficult image to digest. In this particular work, the shock value was highly effective. Like I said in class, I believe the work represents humanity’s natural tendency to commit evil. Huan explores the realist perspective on human nature: that people are naturally evil and have a need for it. The fact that one person suffers while the vast majority inflicts pain on him without hesistation is a clear example of this ideology.
After looking through the list of performance artists, Yoko Ono caught my attention. Although I know her for being married to superstar John Lennon, anything besides that was virtually unknown. I had vaguely heard of her work as a painter and musician, mainly due to her occasional exhibits in the city and her collaborations with Lennon. Curious to learn more about her, I decided to do some research.
Born in 1933 in Tokyo, Yoko Ono had a comfortable childhood, coming from a wealthy family of bankers. However, World War II proved to be a heavy blow for her when she and her family were forced to shelter in a special bunker in the outskirts of Tokyo in 1945. Her father remained in the city and was later incarcerated in a prisoner war camp in China, a fact that the family was unaware of. In this period, Ono says she developed an agressive attitude and began to understand the ” outsider” perspective of life, often feeling isolated and secluded. This attitude would later influence her work.
After the war, Ono moved to Scarsdale, New York. She was an early member of Fluxus, an organization influenced by Dadaism, a cultural movement that concentrated its anti-war politics on untraditional art methods. The art itself focused on being against the traditional artistic expressions of the time, adopting an anti-art, avant-garde attitude through unconventional techniques.
Ono also explored performance art, most famous for a work called “Cut Piece”. The performance consisted of her sitting on stage and inviting the audience to cut off her clothing with scissors until she was naked. Ono was also a filmmaker between 1964 and 1972, most famous for a 1966 film called “No. 4″. The film consisted of “a series of close-ups of human buttocks as the subject walks on a treadmill. The screen is divided into four almost equal sections by the elements of the gluteal cleft and the horizontal gluteal crease. The soundtrack consists of interviews with those who are being filmed as well as those considering joining the project.” (Wikipedia, Yoko Ono)
Personally, it appears as if the environment Ono worked in had a strong effect. In the peak of the Hippie movement with the widespread anti-war sentiment, her works are certainly influenced by the ideals reflected in that era. Her depictions of nudism certainly express the revolt against society’s impositions at the time. They are used to encourage people to liberate themselves from society’s limitations and emphasize individual liberties.
I find that she had a positive impact on what was going on at the time, which explains why she and John Lennon had such a strong connection to each other. Both were strong activists for peace and human rights and they important roles in characterizing the Hippie era of the 1960’s. I admire her work as an individual for promoting these ideals.
Artists have the mission of propagating ideals they find worthwhile. Whether they be political or entirely spiritual, I find that their work expresses important aspects of human nature. Art can be a very powerful form of expression because it allows us individuals to present messages in unique, yet very realistic ways. What can’t be expressed in words, for example, can be done so through an image or song. Thus artists are there to help viewers understand and reach those otherwise unreachable emotions.
Performance art today is very political. We live in an age where there is intense criticism of government and where advertisement of ideas to the masses is highly regarded by our society. Art appears to be the perfect form of letting the world know what you think.
I think the picture of the “Tank Man” in the Tienanmen Square Massacre of 1989 is a perfect example of what political art can do. A performance art work I imagine being created today would be highly influenced by the photograph I uploaded. I imagine a stage with an ordinary man in a ragged, dirty clothes. In the background, viewers would see a battlefield scenario with a series of men in military uniforms shooting at each other. In the middle of the crossfire, the ordinary man would be standing, seemingly unaware of the chaos that is going on in the background. The man would simply look at the audience with a serene expression. Strong red lights would focus the audience’s attention on the same man, with the intention of highlighting the individual over all the chaos that characterizes his environment.