Page 57 - Studio International - September October 1975

irrelevant. The idea stands alone and the Performance also reflected anti-object attempt to describe under the following
action is performed mentally. precepts. It moved away from terms : constructed space and powerfields
2. These instructions may be executed `manipulating the body or sound as (Nauman, Acconci), natural space
by an artist on a lonely beach accompanied sculptural elements,' as in the early works (Oppenheim), body space (Simone Forti,
only by a photographer who documents of Yvonne Reiner, Steve Paxton, Steve Trisha Brown, Yvonne Reiner), spectator
the skin burning around the book, in Reich, Trisha Brown and others, to less space (Graham), or even work which was
detailed colour photographs. The structured and exploratory work. presented as a critique of the uses of
photographs may then be exhibited in a Yvonne Reiner said of her work that she public and private space (Buren,
gallery (with or without the original wished to use a different point of view Dimitriejvic).
instructions), as a record of a live event. about her body, so 'that it could be
This would probably be discussed in handled like an object, picked up and Powerfields
relation to body art. carried, and so that objects and bodies In his early works Vito Acconci used his
3. But it could also be presented as a could be interchangeable." But to
body to provide an alternative ground to
piece of land art, if the indentations made consider the body and object as the 'page ground' he had used as a poet.
by the artist's body in the land were interchangeable inevitably emphasized He described these initial attempts as very
recorded and this information presented the body itself as the individual measure much oriented towards defining his body
in a gallery. of space: as our first means of perceiving in space.
4. The piece could be differently space.
Rather than use the body as a narrative
constructed by dancers, using their element or in order to 'go beyond the
bodies to suggest the feel of the action and Space as praxis
object,' he was concerned with describing
so symbolically recall the body's This recent insistence on the body as a an area which he calls the `powerfield.'
relationship to the terrain. This could be means of experiencing space leads to This notion, taken from Kurt Lewin's
performed in a gallery, and would be spatial notions very different from the three-part principle elaborated in The
discussed under the general heading of ones we have come to know through Principle of Topological Psychology,
`performance art.' painting and sculpture. Rather than assumed a circle or a power-field which
From this exercise we can deduce that simply delineating the limits of spaces, included all possible interaction in
the attitudes of the various artists bear `space as praxis' extends our perception physical space.6 In this sense his pieces
comparison while the actual works differ of space itself and body space. For it is were less concerned with locating his
considerably. There is an overall in space that we experience the effects of body in space, but rather with implicating
insistence within these four possibilities
on the experience of time, material and these art propositions. For example, those people in the space through their own,
artists who began with the premise of the
and his, actions. He did not wish the
space rather than on a representation in 'artist-as-art' (Manzoni, Brus, Gilbert audience to merely empathize with him,
formal terms. and George) focused on their own but was concerned with 'setting up a field
So while some 'conceptual' artists were persons, so that the viewer could respond in which the audience was, so that they
refuting the art object, others saw the with a like body-awareness. But the became a part of what I was doing . . .
experience of space and of their body as private consciousness of the body, in they became part of the physical space in
providing the most immediate and these instances, had little to do with wider which I move." In Seedbed, therefore,
existentially real alternative. Much of spatial experience. when Acconci masturbated under a ramp
conceptual art, when presented as either Only subsequent works presented a built into a gallery over which passers-by
`land,' body,' or 'performance' art, new sense of space, which I shall walked, there occurred a curious
implied indirectly or directly a
particular attitude to and investigation of
the experience of space. This experience
may seem to have little to do with the
intentions or the meaning of a piece, but
from the viewer's standpoint the
experience of the piece sets up a new set
of responses to the perception of space.
Whereas earlier representations of space
in art have been discussed variously from
the simple planes of gothic paintings to
the disappearing perspectives of early
renaissance and renaissance art, or
from the surfaces of cubist painting to the
enormous space obstructions of minimal
sculpture, much recent art has insisted on
the body as a direct measure of space. The
relationship between the viewer, the
artist and the art work then became an
important one, since the viewer would
have to put together the indeterminate
elements of the space in order to fully
perceive the piece.
This move from objective
consideration of objects in the early
sixties, to the mingling of experience,
precepts and concepts generally conceded
by the 'conceptual movement,' became
a wave engulfing all kinds of creativity,
not only those aspects of 'fine arts' where
the anti-objectivity could be most
specifically 'seen.' In music, too, space
was the medium for less structured sound.
John Cage referred to a 'diffuse
acoustical space'. 'In recent years my
musical ideas have continued to move
away from the object (a composition Vito Acconci Seedbed 1971
having a well-defined relationship of Sonnabend Gallery, New York, January 15 - 29
parts) into process (nonstructured (Top) Acconci masturbating
(Above) Girl sitting on ramp in gallery
activities, indeterminate in character).' 4
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