Subject-Object Body Art
Arts Magazine, Sept. 1971, v. 46, no. 1, pp. 38-42
The author writes that artists, like most advanced thinkers, have reached a level of historical awareness wherein they are no longer passive receivers, but are in constant interaction with their environment. Nemser sees this awareness manifested in the body art of Nauman, Oppenheim, Acconci, et al. Tracing the origins of this work to Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, and Allan Kaprow, she sees body art as the realization of the full incorporation of the body as both "phenomenon" and "activator" in the work. She divides the work of body artists into two overriding categories: that which views the artist's body as a closed system, and that which shows the body interacting with its environment. The author discusses the relation between the physical and the psychological, making reference to a number of specific artworks. She mentions the strain of "bizarre, sado-masochistic exhibitionism" that permeates the work she describes, but argues that this is not generally the intention of the artists, who largely see their work as a kind of research. These artists, she concludes, balance extreme visceral sensation and complete cerebral detachment in order to communicate the dangerous aspects of contemporary culture.
ITEM 1971.007 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
Gauze – Bruce Nauman
Portrait of the Artist as a Fountain – Bruce Nauman
Untitled (1971) – Chris Burden
Roll 1970 – Dan Graham
Tongue Tied – William Wegman
An Individual Demonstration – Allen Kaprow
Tree Man Topples Pole – Allen Kaprow
Velocity Piece #2 – Barry LeVa
Hand Catching Lead – Richard Serra
Body as a Cylinder – Bruce Nauman
Body as a Sphere – Bruce Nauman
Pulling Mouth – Bruce Nauman
Deformity – Dennis Oppenheim
Openings – Vito Acconci
Untitled, four views – Mowry Baden
Rocked Circle – Dennis Oppenheim
Pisces – Terry Fox
Hocus Pocus – Tom Moroni
Correlated Rotations – Dan Graham
Pull – Vito Acconci