Week 1- Futurism, Happenings and Performance Art

Manifesto Futurism:

The manifesto futurism is an interesting view of looking at art because it focuses on the extremes of human emotion. Struggle is a powerful message that can be conveyed through art, but how is that any different from past artists? There has always been acts of courage for causes worth dying for, so it must of been illustrated in past artworks. Thus, how is it futuristic to portray something overdone in the past?

I do love their views on museums because they are like specters of the past looming over the artists of today. They are the bar that is set for any future work of art because people always expect better and newer concepts and techniques but no one could ever surpass the supremacy of the Renaissance artists to the average person. So in that sense, it "destroys" the modern day artist because it limits us in what we potentially can do. But, it also helps inspire artists to take things to the next level because those past ideas are the foundation that we build our skills and ideas from. So in that sense, museums can give birth or kill an aspiring artist.

I thought it would be interesting to put up a video link of the 2006 Olympic opening ceremonies in Torino, Italy because they had a a whole show based on the Italian arts. It seemed only fitting they would have a section on futurism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjAx52xefHo
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Interview with Alan Kaprow:

It was intriguing to read about the man who was a colleague of many artists that we had studied in previous art classes. He explained happenings, installations and performances pretty well, giving me a better understanding to the previous reading. He explained the evolution of the idea of happenings into performance art in which it may not necessarily be as mind provoking as before. I do think it has a lot more to do with the interaction of the audience than the actual art or artist themselves making the work.

http://www.ubu.com/historical/kaprow/index.html
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Performance Art:

This article was interesting because performance art considers the artist and the audience as a part of the artwork instead of the traditional viewing of a two dimentional piece.

I agree with the effects of performance art upon the audience because it is to "create confusion" so that the audience would question the meaning behind what they had seen. Although, thinking as a person outside the art world, sometimes it might be shoved off to the side as something random that happened during their day and nothing more.

I also find it interesting as I read this line, "In my experience, performance artists are not the kind of people who wish to be discovered working in garrets but, rather, hope to change the world." because when I realized that I wanted to be an animator, I wanted to influence the world by illustrating or animating stories yet to be told. Perhaps all artists secretly wish this but have different ideas in how to do this, thus creating all these different types of artists.

And here's a fun site I find inspirational for performance art:
http://www.improveverywhere.com/