Page 40 - Studio International - December 1974

Vito Acconci's approach has been quite
different. Two prints from the same year as
Dennis Oppenheim's read as an essay in the
possibilities of interaction of print and
performance. Trade-marks and Kiss off both
contain elements of three types: photographic
record, written description and material traces
or by-products. Both were pieces devised for
other contexts (the former for an exhibition in
the College's own Mezzanine Gallery) and both
involve the mouth. In Trademarks he bites
various parts of his body; then covers the bites
with ink and stamps them onto various surfaces;
in this instance, the surface of stone. In Kiss-off
he put on lipstick — 'putting on female lips' —,
then 'kissed' it onto his hand; and thence wiped
his hand on the stone — 'rubbing off my female
characteristics'. Both prints relate to graphic
layouts used elsewhere by the artist, but now
generally tidied up and achieving in Kiss-off an
unprecedented visual impact.
A year later, in 1972, Vito Acconci made a
third print and it marks a closer integration of
performance with the lithographic medium.
In Touch-stone for L. he massages the stone
while mentally transforming it into the body of
a woman. At the same time, he records the
thoughts that occur to him; in the final print
they appear hand-written over appropriate parts.
A good deal depends on the verbal pun of (Above) Gene Davis Prince Edward 1971
'touchstone' and the nomenclature of the One-colour lithograph, 31 x 38 in.
(Left) Vito Acconci Kiss-off 1971
materials contributes further: the ink with
Two-colour lithograph, 30 x 22 in.
which he marks up the stone is 'rubbing ink'. (Below) Joyce Weiland making 0 Canada 1970
Joyce Weiland's 0 Canada lithograph may be
(Opposite page top) John Bladessari
her best work, perhaps the best work produced
I will not make any more boring art 1971
in the shop, and it seems to resolve a certain One-colour lithograph, 22 x 30 in.
(Centre) Sol LeWitt (draughtsman Jon Young)
awkwardness that remains in Kiss-off over the
Within a twenty inch square area, using a black, hard
resolution of performance and print, but in fact
crayon, draw ten thousand straight lines of any length,
it was produced some months earlier. The at random 1971
Two-colour lithograph, 28 x 28 in.
artist actually applies her lips to the stone,
(Bottom) Claes Oldenburg
marking the mouth positions for each syllable The Office: A Typewriter Print 1974
of the Canadian national anthem. The piece Five colour lithograph with boxed copy of Raw Notes.
relates to others she began to do at this time,
but if the same image embroidered onto silk
still conveys the interest in the juggling of
modes of spoken word, written word and
picture — of sound, sight and concept — it loses
there the directness of evident contact with
artist's mouth, and totally fails to catch either
the erotic innuendo of the kiss or the ritual act
of homage of its application to the stone. Joyce
Weiland would not generally be ranked as a
performance artist, but the production of this
piece attains a power as act that transcends the
circumstances of its application.
The making of any lithograph is in itself a
sort of performance, and that performance
may be creatively re-scripted. Patrick Kelly's
Shot in the Dark (1971) uses an image of an
intersecting horizontal and vertical. It was
printed twice, but on the second run he laid
the paper himself attempting, without guides,
to achieve an exact registration with the first.
Two Stones (1971) by Robert Ryman is just
that: two small lithographic stones clamped
together, inked and printed, producing two
closely grouped irregular rectangular shapes in