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A table with a eg handsaw “that one can use on me as desired” is very different from a hunting rifle on a wall. The sign explicitly encourages people to use the
by skrebbel 3y ago
A table with a eg handsaw “that one can use on me as desired” is very different from a hunting rifle on a wall. The sign explicitly encourages people to use the items on the artist. It’s really not far off from literally spelling out “please attack me”.
Of course that doesn't excuse people who do so in any way, they’re still the perpetrator. But I think your hunting rifle comparison isn’t very good.
- EatingWithForks 3y agoI would still disagree. Someone apparently drank her blood which is totally out of pocket with seeing a knife on a table, honestly, and is not justified by "well there was a knife there".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- esrauch 3y agoI don't know, it seems pretty in pocket with seeing "this is an art exhibit and I want wild shit to happen". Comparing it to a normal real world interaction where you expect people to just hang out and chat is ridiculous, if people just chatted it would be a totally failed set piece.
- EatingWithForks 3y agoI dunno, when I saw this, I wanted to draw flowers on her skin instead, since she provided the rose as reference, and I do a bit of art myself. If people instead painted her, put her in robes, braided her hair or something else nonviolent, wouldn't that also be a spectacle?
- esrauch 3y agoIt absolutely would not be a spectacle to the degree of being discussed on a technology site 50 years later if people braided her hair. It's not an accident that she put a number of violent items out and had her assistants riling people up, something like "someone drank her blood" is exactly what it takes to make it into art history.
- burkaman 3y agoOk, what about songs titled "Rape Me" or "Kill Me". When you heard "Try That in a Small Town", did that inspire you to go to a small town and actually try it? Does it confuse you when people attending a live Papa Roach show don't actually try to cut his life into pieces? I mean he literally just told them to, how could it be any more spelled out? Maybe music doesn't count for some reason. How about something more interactive, like those "living history" reenactment villages (https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/ https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/). An actor comes up and challenges you to a duel. Do you accept and actually fight them? Someone on a soapbox in the town square is exhorting listeners to take up arms against the redcoats. As a matter of fact, you just toured an armory, and you see a patrol of British soldiers a few hundred feet away. Do you go arm yourself and attack the soldiers? Can you point to something concrete that differentiates these live interactive performers from Abramovic? Is there any other piece of art where you'd take the content literally and attack the performer? Actually it's more than that, because if I took these instructions literally I still wouldn't attack her, since I don't desire to. You are making a leap that I still don't understand from "use as desired" to "well obviously anyone would desire to hurt her".
- Joeboy 3y agoYou are either pretending, or refusing, or failing, to understand subtext and intent.
- burkaman 3y agoYes I am failing to understand the subtext other people are reading into this piece, and haven't seen a single comment attempt to explain it. What is the chain of logic that leads from "it says to do whatever I want" to "I will attack"?
- Joeboy 3y agoI wasn't there and didn't attack anybody, but the chain of logic suggested is that Abramović was known for works involving bodily discomfort, injury and risk, and that it was reasonable to assume she intended this piece to be in a similar vein. In that context, placing dangerous objects on a table and saying "one can use [them] on me as desired" is not just saying the objects exist, in the same way that saying "do you have any ketchup?" is not just asking whether your host possesses ketchup. I can see why somebody might be uncomfortable with the general shape of argument from a "victim blaming" point of view. If you genuinely don't understand it then again, not trying to be a dick here but perhaps you don't understand subtext and intent in the way most people do.
- UncleOxidant 3y ago> A table with a eg handsaw “that one can use on me as desired” Does that not reveal the desires of the people who used the implements on her? (such as the one who cut her throat and drank her blood?). People could have chosen to not use the implements on her.
- joemi 3y agoI agree. I think the fact that people had a choice _not to_ use an implement is just as important as the fact that they had a choice _to_ use an implement. Also important: _how_ the implement was used. When I read about this performance, it's pretty immediately evident that the choice was a large part of this performance.