Existing comment:
SHOOT, BURN, RESIST: THE BODY
With news about death and physical injury a heavy presence in the media during the Vietnam War, the vulnerability of the human form became a widespread preoccupation in art. This was most strikingly addressed in the field of performance art, which tapped into the immediacy and visceral power of live experience.Body-based work by Chris Burden and Yoko Ono focused attention on the psychological and ethical dynamics of aggression and spectatorship. Performance photographs by Judy Chicago and Dennis Oppenheim reference imagery of burnt flesh associated with the self-immolation of protesters and the use of napalm in Vietnam. Yvonne Rainer mobilized the body in her choreography as a potential instrument of either warfare or dissent. In insisting on the continuity between life and art, and foregrounding the body as both subject matter and political means, performance is deeply characteristic of art formed in the crucible of the Vietnam War years. |