Zhang Huan and Joseph Beuys
I feel that this week’s visit to the Asia Society was perhaps the most insightful of the trips we have had throughout the semester. I never have been exposed to the concept of performance art and I feel that this type of art stands as a revolutionary art form in itself. Sometimes, I felt that some examples are performance art are meaningless and simple ridiculous. For example, one of the artists on the Wikipedia page, G.G. Allin, defecates and urinates on stage while singing as well as performing fellatio with the audience. This type of art is distasteful and crude. However, Huan’s art felt genuine and often meaningful. I especially related to his art performances involving nature, such as “adding a meter to a mountain” and “increasing the water level in a fishpond”. In my English class, I’ve been reading a lot of Romantic poetry (Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Blake–if you’re interested, it’s Eng 254: Survey of Brit. Lit.) and much of the work involves a personal communication with nature and using nature as an inspirational force. I felt that these works of Zhang Huan embodied these philosophies, which are similar to the teachings of Buddhism and other Asian religions. Huan and the Chinese subjects become one with their surroundings while trying to accomplish a sort of divine feat. I believe Huan draws much of his inspiration from his bodily limitations and the unlimited nature of the soul.
I think the work of a performance artist is to express something that can otherwise not be expressed on canvas or sculpture. Huan’s desire to push his body to the limits cannot be expressed with equal power on a painting. The artist becomes the work, using his body as both creator and creation. Since this type of art is perhaps the most accessible, it usually speaks to those who cannot afford to buy paintings or read books. The artist in a way challenges the oldt view of art. It is revolutionary and often exhibits material and mental concepts that we ordinarily would not think of.
Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist who came to fame in the 1960’s. Like Huan, he was concerned with the politics of the time and also created sculptures and other forms of visual art. After serving as a soldier for Germany in the 1940’s, he turned his interests to drawing and sculpture. He suffered many financial hardships and entered into a depression. His first galley opened in 1965 and was called “How To Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare”, in which Beuys, covered in gold leaf and honey, craddled a dead rabbit and whispered into its ears explanations for his drawings. I see this performance as a comment on ruined ideals. Beuys believed in the power of human creativity, stating that “Every human being is an artist”, and that art held the means for social change.
One of his most famous projects was called “7000 Oaks”, in which he planted 7000 oak trees throughout the city of Kassel, Germany. Beuys viewed this project as a “social sculpture” and “a symbol for this planet.” He calls trees “an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time.” This, as well as his other works, provides incentive for social change and new perspectives on life. It is an active and growing art, as opposed to static and unchanging.