Here is a short documentary on the artist Patty Chang. I'd like you to use the article and the interview to discuss the work you see in the video. See you soon!
In this documentary about Patty Chang, especially regarding the works "Fountain" and "In Love," Chang seems to be commenting about the nature of (or different kinds of) love and what people will endure for the sake of love. Specifically, she focuses on what Eve Oishi calls “the exact line at which discomfort crosses over to pain – both for herself and the audience.” (Oishi, 121)
With “Fountain,” Chang is laying on the ground facing a reflection of herself but, in the video, it appears as if she is facing her reflection upright. Chang looks almost simultaneously critical and lovingly at her reflection in the pool of water covering the mirror. She sporadically sucks water from the surface and, in the process, looks to be kissing herself while disrupting the reflection of her face in the process. Chang described it as “the physical inevitability of being drawn to drink in yourself.” (Oishi, 123) To me, it seems to speak about the narcissistic nature of people, and perhaps even social stigmas of womanly beauty.
Regarding humans as an art objects, Willoughby Sharp notes that, “The artist's own body is not as important as the body in general. […] The personality of the artist refines itself out of the work.” (Sharp, 231) While this may be true on occasion, I don't believe that this would be the case with Chang's piece “In Love.” I believe that knowing the relationship to the artist (specifically) with that of her subject(s) is paramount to the interpretation of this piece. Because Chang likes to hover around issues of discomfort, this piece wouldn't be interpreted the same without knowing that the subjects in the piece are her parents. The intimate act of kissing and the painful act of eating/sharing a raw onion becomes all the more uncomfortable to the audience – more than if just two seemingly unrelated persons would have shared it. With the title “In Love,” it makes me think of what people will endure for the sake of love.
The short clip of “Loosing Ground” seemed to deal with issues of discomfort, as well. It seemed to highlight how difficult it can be for someone to stay standing (or to keep moving along) with the world moving wildly around them – all the while, the audience attempts to focus on the wavy, dizzying video.
The works presented in this short documentary about Patty Chang all represent the three types of body-specific performance art that Sharp discusses in his 1970 essay, “Body Works: A Pre-critical, Non-definitive Survey of Very Recent Works Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof.” According to Sharp, the three functions that the body enacts in performance art are the body functioning as a tool, the body functioning as a place and the body functioning as a prop. What I find interesting about Chang’s work is that she simultaneously represents these functions within her various performances. I will focus on Chang’s two performance pieces “Shaved” and “Melons” to discuss her use of her body as a prop and as a place of action.
In these two performance works, the most obvious function of her actions would be the use of her body as a prop. As she shaves her pubic hairs while wearing a Victorian costume, and slices into her cantaloupe breasts, Chang submits her audience to witness her female body engaging with dangerous activities, indicating that women have been and continue to be confronted with dangerous acts. Sharp highlights in his essay that, “the artist generally presents his body in certain circumstances and certain costumes in order to indicate how the work should be understood.” (Sharp 232). By using her vagina and breasts as her props to get this message across, her body parts become props for her message.
These two performances, “Shaved” and Melons,” also represent the body as place. Sharp notes that, “when the body is used as a place it is marked.” (Sharp 232). The actions are directly executed onto the body, thus making the body the place where the work exists. In “Shaved,” this marking is easily identifiable, but with “Melons,” this marking onto the body is complicated because her melon breasts are not real. The melons are used as a symbol, thus extending the body beyond a prop and representing the body as a metaphorical place. As Eve Oishi accurately explains in the introduction to an interview with Chang, “…the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled.” (Oishi 120). Chang represents an action or mark on her breasts by slicing into them, which are obviously fake, but “troubles” this action by performing such a visceral and horrific gesture. We cringe at the sight of the knife cutting into her body, imagining the pain that she would feel if she missed the melon and cut herself. We cringe at the idea of what this action represents within a broader, conceptual context. In this way, Chang successfully complicates the roles of the body as a place of action and the body used as a prop for an action.
In Patty Chang’s performances the process and purpose of the work are more important than the end result. According to Sharp, Chang is using her body as place; “When the body is used as a place it is marked. …this is an unavoidable consequence of the work rather than a desirable effect”. (Sharp, p.128) This is most clear in “Shaved” where the purpose of the piece is the act of shaving her pubic hair in a Victorian costume while blindfolded not to have a clean-shaven vagina. In this way performance art is most radically different from other art forms. The process in all other forms of art, while perhaps visible and important, is just a way to get an end result.
I would also argue that Chang also uses her body as a prop. In her work “Melons” she uses her body as an object interacting with other objects. “ The body as prop is related to the use of the body as a backdrop in that the body is presented in relation to other physical objects.” (Sharp, p. 128) When Chang takes a knife to her breast and slices into it she alters our understanding of her breast from part of her living body to inanimate object. The effect is disorienting and articulates the absurdity of referring to parts of a human body as inanimate objects, because normally we would not treat then as such. -Anna Helgeson
The documentary opens with Chang speaking about her parents. She talked about her artwork and which pieces were seen by her parents. I think this opening conveys her appreciation and admiration for her parents in a sentimental way. Her artwork shown in the documentary and written about in the interview expressed sadness, anger and pain. But when she spoke of her parents those feelings were exchanged with love. The pain expressed in Eels, for example, was felt by the audience as much as it was for Chang. The interview we read spoke with concern for the eels but my concern was for Chang and myself. The eels, although I do not promote animal cruelty, was far from on my mind. Eve Oishi explained Chang’s work the best when she said, “Chang has the ability to find the exact line at which discomfort crosses over into pain-both for herself and for the audience-and to hold that line exactly one second too long.” Her motives and use of specific objects are purposeful and concrete story tellers in and of themselves. Although Oishi explains the objects Chang uses in her performances as inanimate, Changs use of the objects transforms them into extensions of her body giving them life. In the interview Oishi talked to Chang about the process of conceptualizing her art and the performance endurance she portrays in some of her time extended pieces. Though, Chang seemed to grow comfortable in the interview, at this time, the lack of artistic value seem to drop off. Chang spoke of an imagery of her artwork and valued the concept in her head but rarely rehearsed her performances prior to the first performance. I think the lack of preparation lacks professionalism and dedication. For example, Chang’s response to Oishi comment, “I would be afraid that a lot of pieces couldn’t be done. Like the peppermint one.” Her response was not only juvenile but questions her ability to define art. Chang said, “But the first time I did it, I had no idea if it would actually work.” After I read this response I lost interest in her art.
The use of the artist's own body, as a tool to push boundaries and see past the use of reformed materials is an interesting aspect in performance art. However the use of the body as an art mdeia is as though the artist is not putting in the work, as though they need to be working with amterial and take the time to develop an object. This is a socially constructed ideal that has been placed in my head through hears of schooling in were we are taught to plan and work material to make a piece of art. Examining the video further and seeing other performance art pieces in where the body is the main media makes me curious as to "Why not the body?" For this reason I feel using the body as an art medium adds to Patty Chang's work because of the way she blurs the social boundaries that we as a society have constructed. The use of paint and other refined materials is a socially constructed ideal and using her body breaks that ideal because it is "unnatural" in societies eyes. In the article "Body Works:A Pre-critical, Non-definitive Survey of Very Recent Works Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof" by Sharp he writes that " in focusing on the creative act itself, body works are yet another move away from object sculpture." In the article Interview with Patty Chang they write that "Her performance pieces can be best described as balancing acts, not only in the way she manipulates her body but in her ability to create works that juxtapose absolute stillness with explosive tension." Performance art is always making the viewer think and using hte body as a medium makes the viewer think because it is not "normal" it creates that tension with the viewer since it is not an object.
In Patty Chang’s work she demonstrates her ability to utilized her body in several ways. As stated in “The Artist’s Body” by Willoughby Sharp “young artists have turned to their most readily available source, themselves, for sculptural material with almost unlimited potential, capable of doing exactly what the artist wants, without the obduracy of inanimate matter.” (231) Chang proves to be an excellent example of an artist exploring the boundaries of her body in the use of art. In “Fountain” Chang zooms in on her face holding the attention to the action and expression conveyed. There is a sense of intimacy and odd interaction as we watch her drink from the water below, in a sense consuming and interacting with herself in a unique way. In her piece “In Love” there are a mix of emotions being displayed and a variety of reactions brought to the viewer. In Eve Oishi’s interview the term “passionate interaction” is brought up as it “perverts and troubles the lines between ecstasy and torture, and between desire and anxiety.” (121). This can be related to “In Love” by the way a kiss is thought of as being intimate but by knowing the other participant are her parents there is a discomfort brought by the overly intimate act. Further adding to the discomfort they share the act of eating a raw onion. Chang’s videos show how the use of one’s body can be powerful to a viewer as we all relate to the feeling of a situation. -Kelly Shinabargar
The videos by Patty Chang are about using the artists’ body as an immediate resource to generate work. Chang uses “the body as Tool”(Sharp, 231) to create. She uses her body as an effective means of getting whatever she is presenting at any given time. Although she uses the body, it doesn’t mean that her work is about the (female) physical body. In “fountain”, the work isn’t about Chang drinking water from a reflective pool; but the relationship of the give and take between her precieved or reflected self and actual self. It makes me ask the question, who is drinking who. Is she taking from the world around her, or is she being sucked up by her environment. Chang’s idea of the perceived self is in contradiction with Sharp’s article. “The artists own body is not as important as the body in general”(Sharp 231). I think this is where Chang’s work is different from other performance pieces. Chang’s doesn’t generalize herself into something that everyone will connect with. She creates intimate situations and then shares them with her audience, she doesn’t hold back anything from anyone; not even her parents. In “In Love” she is forcing herself into an uncomfortable situation with people she admits the situation would be the most uncomfortable to perform with and then she films it and shares it with her audience. This work is about her and the relationship has with her parents and becoming closer with them. “Sharing an awful experience with another person binds you together” (Oishi 124). This peace is about experiencing something terrible and coming away with a stronger relationship than before.
Artist Patty Chang literally draws herself and others into the making and the viewing of her work. “In all of her work, the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled” (p. 134). For example, one of her pieces depicts her cutting into her own breast while she’s actually cutting into a watermelon to eat it. This draws a thin line between what the actual object is. Is it her body or is it the watermelon? Other pieces that Chang has created really uses her body as the main medium. For example, in one piece she shaves while blind-folded, and in another she sews words into her own neck. The second piece was actually fake considering it was not her own neck but she made the viewers feel as if it was. Her body language depicted pain and discomfort. This was touching base on how women go through the pain of beauty in their everyday lives. Chang likes to add this level of discomfort even though many people live through their own discomfort in different ways. People do things that are unnatural so they can have that image of beauty. It is interesting to see how much Chang touches on this idea and on the idea of love and how it is different for everyone.
Chang’s performance work focuses entirely on the human body. From watching the documentary, the aspects of discomfort and the body being used a prop seem to stick out. Chang places an incredible amount of focus on discomfort both for herself and the audience. This can be seen in Eels where she places several live eels in her shirt while an audience looks on. The discomfort is clearly seen on the face of Chang as the eels writhe around on her chest. In the documentary clip, Chang also mentions the upset reactions of the audience when watching this performance. She cites the troubled attitude of the audience to her treatment of the eels, though I think the audience was less concerned with the eels and more disgusted by the fact that Chang placed the eels in her shirt in the first place. Regardless, Chang achieved her goal of stirring up discomfort within the audience which Eve Oishi cites in her interview, “Chang was the ability to find the exact line at which discomfort crosses over into pain – both for herself and for the audience…” (Oishi, 121) They body as a prop is also a prominent theme. Sharp defines this as, “[being] related to the use of the body as a backdrop in that the body is presented in relation to other physical objects.” (Sharp, 232) Melons is a piece where Chang slices into a melon that is placed on her breast. The effect is perceived as Chang cutting her own breast but instead revealing pieces of melon. The melon becomes an extension of her making herself the prop and the cutting of the melon the focus.
In discussing Vito Acconci’s films "Bouncing Balls" and "Black Balls" Sharp writes, “These two films also show the body used to find out something about itself, exploratory since it is undergoing an experience yielding information about its performance levels and how it functions” (232). I would argue that performance art in general is indicative of this idea, but Patty Chang’s work especially embodies it. In her piece "Fountain" she is testing her body’s endurance to withhold the amount of water she is drinking from the surface of the mirror. In Oishi’s interview Chang states that she had originally intended for the piece to last two hours but had to stop at forty-five minutes because it was too hard on her body. She says, “Endurance is just something that lasts a little too long. The line between comfort and discomfort is slight, and the point is to balance right on it” (124), echoing this in the video that was posted by saying that nothing she does is ever painful, just simply uncomfortable. Chang’s endurance experimentation is pretty straight forward in "Fountain" but it also exists within her piece "In Love" in the form of the uncomfortableness she speaks of. She says in both the interview and video that she chose to create the piece in order to test her own boundaries of comfortability, to push her ideas presented in previous works even further. It also became a performance that yielded information about her relationship with her parents as well as all parties individually. Both Chang and her audience learn that there is a strong love between her and her parents that is evident in their willingness to participate and be vulnerable themselves. The fact that her father doesn’t like onions but will eat one for her is especially poignant. I get the sense that her parents are more conservative in their ideas of relationships by the fact that she says they had a hard time reacting to seeing her previous work, which is about pushing the idea of the norm with her body. This context furthers my notion of their love for her in participating. I would hope that Chang too learned something new about her relationship with her parents and about their levels of comfortability and what it would take to change their ideas on the physicality of bodies. In this way, "In Love" is also about an experience that yields information in order to learn about how something functions. It goes beyond the body itself, while also being about the physical endurance of eating the onion, and speaks to the larger idea of the representation and placement of the body in relation to others within the world, specifically an intimate relationship between family members.
In this documentary about Patty Chang she discusses some of her works; primarily “Fountain” and “In Love,” she seems to be explaining about the nature of her films. She speaks about how provocative some of her pieces are. When she talks about her piece “In Love,” she speaks about how she had an idea for a piece and she needed the help from her parents, and she was nervous to call them because she wasn’t sure that they were going to be willing to help her.
Chang’s video “Fountain”, she is lying on the group facing a reflection of herself, however in the video it looks like she is standing upright. Chang looks at herself very critically at her reflection, also is seems as if she likes what she sees. At times Chang sucks water from the fountain, and it looks like she is kissing herself. Chang describes it as “the physical inevitability of being drawn to drink in yourself.” (Oishi, 123)
In Chang’s videos she manages to demonstrate her ability to use her body in several different ways. As stated in “The Artist’s Body” by William Sharp “Young artists have turned to their most readily available source, themselves, for sculptural material with almost unlimited potential, capable of doing exactly what the artist wants, without the obduracy of inanimate matter. “(231) Chang takes usually intimate or private acts and makes them awkward and public, making the viewer a little uncomfortable and creating a realization that her body can be powerful tool.
After watching the short documentary on Patty Chang I found it very interesting with what she does with her body. "In body works the body per se is not as important as what is done with the body" (Sharp 129). If she weren’t creating interesting ideas to do with her body, they wouldn't captivate the viewer nearly as much. When reading the interview that Chang had with Eve Oishi the question about whether or not she practiced was posed. I felt that with all the things that she was doing with her body of course she would practice, Chang's response was, "I generally don't rehearse my pieces like in theater."(Oishi 123). This got me to think that this creates a whole different viewing experience for both the artist and the viewer. The piece that was focused on in the interview was "fountain". The first time that Chang performed this she didn't know how her body was going to react to drinking water for 45 minutes straight, and either did the audience. This created a what's next kind of feeling for both the audience and Chang herself. I think this adds an additional interest to performance works that are done with the body.
Patty Changs work seems to be pushing the boundaries of cultural acceptability. The piece “In Love” I feel shows this idea perfectly. When you hear her explain that she was so nervous to ask her parents about volunteering to be in her piece, you hear her say she thought of who would be the worst people in the world to do this with and she came up with her parents. After asking her parents she said that the father was not going to like eating the onion. Which seemed to me to be quite surprising with thinking about cultural taboos in society today. Chang’s response to this would be that the only reason they views are that way is because “We have created them …and it speaks to the culture and not the actions.” I do however have to touch on her process. This comment that she made can really express a lot of what I believe she is doing with her work. “Really when it comes down to it you know it’s so horrifying to eat and onion and be crying and be in like miserable pain and kissing your father and mother is really not a big deal at that point. It becomes a part of the process. It just becomes from bad to worse to worse you know it’s all relative really.” I feel the most powerful and interesting part of the statement was when she said that eating the onion was so horrifying that kissing her parents wasn’t a big deal and it was a part of the process. She is really pushing herself in the performance and the viewers watching beyond being uncomfortable and “Chang has the ability to find the exact line at which discomfort crosses over into pain-both for herself and for the audience and to hold that line exactly one second too long.”
My interpretation of Patty Chang’s work is that she is exploring the use of body in performance and the role that the body plays in these pieces. Sharp says, “In body works the body per se is not as important as what is done with the body.” (p. 129) Chang uses her body to perform acts that are normally seen as private. She also uses perspective in her piece “fountain,” where she sips from a pool in a gallery. The viewers can choose to see the live performance, the live video performance or both at the same time. This gives the piece much depth and mystery. Eve Oishi says, “In all of her work, the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled.” In her piece “Melons,” she blurs the line between self-mutilation and fantastic storytelling. It is difficult to focus on either aspect as they both contrast each other. Oishi also says, “The concept of ‘passionate interaction’ perverts and troubles the lines between ecstasy and torture, and between desire and anxiety.” This is evident in a piece where Chang and her parents consume a raw onion, passing it between their mouths to finish it. She speaks of this piece as something that is horrible getting even worse. Not only did the onion bring them to tears, but there is a lot of tension and emotion added when the lips of Chang and her father or mother touch. Much of her work is about a “line.” In the interview with Chang, many of the descriptions include blurring or troubling a line. Chang brings uncomfortable tension into her pieces, and her body is the tool that she uses.
I will discuss two works that are presented in this documentary about Patty Chang, Fountain and In Love, that address the artist’s body. In each of these works, “The artist is the subject and the object of the action.” (Sharp, 231) For the work In Love, the artist enlists her parents to also become subjects and objects of the action. The performance is dependent on what actions are done to the body. (Sharp, 233) As Sharp explains, “...it is impossible to use the body as an object.” (Sharp, 232) In Love is dependent on what is done with the body rather than the use of the body as a tool or an object. The attempt and success of the artist and her parents to withstand the performance addresses Chang’s desire to achieve a balance. It is the desire for balance that requires the artist to address the endurance of the body. Chang defines endurance as, “...something that lasts a little too long. The line between comfort and discomfort is slight, and the point is to balance right on it.” (Oishi, 124)
The act of sharing, using an incredibly uncomfortable method, tests both the artist’s and her parents endurance in the performance In Love. What should be a mundane activity of life, eating, becomes both a physical challenge, the potency of the taste of the raw onion, and a challenge to social boundaries, intimate and physical contact with her parents. I interpret this mutual discomfort between child and parent as a test of loyalty because both participants sacrifice their own comfort to share the task. They stand together and tolerate the experience in order to lighten the load for the other. I think that her father’s participation in this work, despite his dislike for onions as Chang mentions in the documentary and during her interview with Eve Oishi, is an example of this sacrifice between parent and child.
This aspect of endurance is a commonality between these two works and in both pieces the duration of the performance is dependent upon the artist’s body. Chang says of her work Fountain, “I could only do forty-five minutes.” and “It was painful...”. (Oishi, 124) I think the unrehearsed aspect of this work is especially important when considering the role of endurance. She describes how the process for actualizing her works is always different and it is evident from these performances that endurance influences the outcome. In the video documentation of this performance, the pull of gravity visible to the artist’s face as she balances herself over the mirror of water contributes to my interpretation of this work as one concerning endurance. In this way, the work is again dependent on what is done to the artist’s body.
In Patty Chang’s performances the process and purpose of the work are more important than the end result. According to Sharp, Chang is using her body as place; “When the body is used as a place it is marked. …this is an unavoidable consequence of the work rather than a desirable effect”. (Sharp, p.128) This is most clear in “Shaved” where the purpose of the piece is the act of shaving her pubic hair in a Victorian costume while blindfolded not to have a clean-shaven vagina. In this way performance art is most radically different from other art forms. The process in all other forms of art, while perhaps visible and important, is just a way to get an end result.
I would also argue that Chang uses her body as a prop. In her work “Melons” she uses her body as an object interacting with other objects. “ The body as prop is related to the use of the body as a backdrop in that the body is presented in relation to other physical objects.” (Sharp, p. 128) When Chang takes a knife to her breast and slices into it she alters our understanding of her breast from part of her living body to inanimate object. The effect is disorienting and articulates the absurdity of referring to parts of a human body as inanimate objects, because normally we would not treat then as such.
Over all Chang does not fit neatly into any of Sharp’s categories. “In Love” is a good example of using her body in all the ways that Sharp describes. Her teeth are used as a tool to destroy an onion, her body is the place of action, and her body is a prop interacting with inanimate objects and other people to produce a dramatic event. This complication is compelling. The joy of viewing Chang’s work is pulling apart the layers of meaning, and shifting uncomfortable from clarity to confusion, that lasts long after viewing. -Anna Helgeson
Artist Patty Chang literally draws herself and others into her artwork. She is not only the artist, she is the object of what the viewer is seeing. “In all of her work, the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled” (p. 134). Chang’s body is used like a blank canvas in many of her pieces. She either performs and act for the video or performs and act upon herself for the video. For example, one of her pieces depicts her cutting into her own breast while she’s actually cutting into a watermelon to eat it. This draws a thin line between what the actual object is. Is it her body or is it the watermelon? Chang keeps that line very thin as she crosses over multiple times. Chang’s body is the main medium for most of her pieces. For example, in one piece she shaves while blindfolded, and in another, she sews words into her neck. The sewing was actually fake considering it was not her own neck but she made the viewers feel as if it was. Her body language and performances normally touch base on how women go through the pain of beauty in their everyday lives. Chang likes to add this level of discomfort even though many people live through their own discomfort in different ways. She also adds the element of “surprise” in her videos, as most of her work is unplanned. She likes to have the viewers see what she can and cannot do while she discovers it at the same time. Chang does not know how much her body can endure and does not know how her pieces will turn out. She will not stop making a piece because she does not like it, she will finish the work and then will create another piece that may improve upon her earlier ideas. Her process ends up being like trial and error which is very unique and interesting to watch.
In this documentary about Patty Chang, especially regarding the works "Fountain" and "In Love," Chang seems to be commenting about the nature of (or different kinds of) love and what people will endure for the sake of love. Specifically, she focuses on what Eve Oishi calls “the exact line at which discomfort crosses over to pain – both for herself and the audience.” (Oishi, 121)
ReplyDeleteWith “Fountain,” Chang is laying on the ground facing a reflection of herself but, in the video, it appears as if she is facing her reflection upright. Chang looks almost simultaneously critical and lovingly at her reflection in the pool of water covering the mirror. She sporadically sucks water from the surface and, in the process, looks to be kissing herself while disrupting the reflection of her face in the process. Chang described it as “the physical inevitability of being drawn to drink in yourself.” (Oishi, 123) To me, it seems to speak about the narcissistic nature of people, and perhaps even social stigmas of womanly beauty.
Regarding humans as an art objects, Willoughby Sharp notes that, “The artist's own body is not as important as the body in general. […] The personality of the artist refines itself out of the work.” (Sharp, 231) While this may be true on occasion, I don't believe that this would be the case with Chang's piece “In Love.” I believe that knowing the relationship to the artist (specifically) with that of her subject(s) is paramount to the interpretation of this piece. Because Chang likes to hover around issues of discomfort, this piece wouldn't be interpreted the same without knowing that the subjects in the piece are her parents. The intimate act of kissing and the painful act of eating/sharing a raw onion becomes all the more uncomfortable to the audience – more than if just two seemingly unrelated persons would have shared it. With the title “In Love,” it makes me think of what people will endure for the sake of love.
The short clip of “Loosing Ground” seemed to deal with issues of discomfort, as well. It seemed to highlight how difficult it can be for someone to stay standing (or to keep moving along) with the world moving wildly around them – all the while, the audience attempts to focus on the wavy, dizzying video.
The works presented in this short documentary about Patty Chang all represent the three types of body-specific performance art that Sharp discusses in his 1970 essay, “Body Works: A Pre-critical, Non-definitive Survey of Very Recent Works Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof.” According to Sharp, the three functions that the body enacts in performance art are the body functioning as a tool, the body functioning as a place and the body functioning as a prop. What I find interesting about Chang’s work is that she simultaneously represents these functions within her various performances. I will focus on Chang’s two performance pieces “Shaved” and “Melons” to discuss her use of her body as a prop and as a place of action.
ReplyDeleteIn these two performance works, the most obvious function of her actions would be the use of her body as a prop. As she shaves her pubic hairs while wearing a Victorian costume, and slices into her cantaloupe breasts, Chang submits her audience to witness her female body engaging with dangerous activities, indicating that women have been and continue to be confronted with dangerous acts. Sharp highlights in his essay that, “the artist generally presents his body in certain circumstances and certain costumes in order to indicate how the work should be understood.” (Sharp 232). By using her vagina and breasts as her props to get this message across, her body parts become props for her message.
These two performances, “Shaved” and Melons,” also represent the body as place. Sharp notes that, “when the body is used as a place it is marked.” (Sharp 232). The actions are directly executed onto the body, thus making the body the place where the work exists. In “Shaved,” this marking is easily identifiable, but with “Melons,” this marking onto the body is complicated because her melon breasts are not real. The melons are used as a symbol, thus extending the body beyond a prop and representing the body as a metaphorical place. As Eve Oishi accurately explains in the introduction to an interview with Chang, “…the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled.” (Oishi 120). Chang represents an action or mark on her breasts by slicing into them, which are obviously fake, but “troubles” this action by performing such a visceral and horrific gesture. We cringe at the sight of the knife cutting into her body, imagining the pain that she would feel if she missed the melon and cut herself. We cringe at the idea of what this action represents within a broader, conceptual context. In this way, Chang successfully complicates the roles of the body as a place of action and the body used as a prop for an action.
-Kate Brandt
In Patty Chang’s performances the process and purpose of the work are more important than the end result. According to Sharp, Chang is using her body as place; “When the body is used as a place it is marked. …this is an unavoidable consequence of the work rather than a desirable effect”. (Sharp, p.128) This is most clear in “Shaved” where the purpose of the piece is the act of shaving her pubic hair in a Victorian costume while blindfolded not to have a clean-shaven vagina. In this way performance art is most radically different from other art forms. The process in all other forms of art, while perhaps visible and important, is just a way to get an end result.
ReplyDeleteI would also argue that Chang also uses her body as a prop. In her work “Melons” she uses her body as an object interacting with other objects. “ The body as prop is related to the use of the body as a backdrop in that the body is presented in relation to other physical objects.” (Sharp, p. 128) When Chang takes a knife to her breast and slices into it she alters our understanding of her breast from part of her living body to inanimate object. The effect is disorienting and articulates the absurdity of referring to parts of a human body as inanimate objects, because normally we would not treat then as such.
-Anna Helgeson
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ReplyDeleteThe documentary opens with Chang speaking about her parents. She talked about her artwork and which pieces were seen by her parents. I think this opening conveys her appreciation and admiration for her parents in a sentimental way. Her artwork shown in the documentary and written about in the interview expressed sadness, anger and pain. But when she spoke of her parents those feelings were exchanged with love. The pain expressed in Eels, for example, was felt by the audience as much as it was for Chang. The interview we read spoke with concern for the eels but my concern was for Chang and myself. The eels, although I do not promote animal cruelty, was far from on my mind. Eve Oishi explained Chang’s work the best when she said, “Chang has the ability to find the exact line at which discomfort crosses over into pain-both for herself and for the audience-and to hold that line exactly one second too long.”
ReplyDeleteHer motives and use of specific objects are purposeful and concrete story tellers in and of themselves. Although Oishi explains the objects Chang uses in her performances as inanimate, Changs use of the objects transforms them into extensions of her body giving them life.
In the interview Oishi talked to Chang about the process of conceptualizing her art and the performance endurance she portrays in some of her time extended pieces. Though, Chang seemed to grow comfortable in the interview, at this time, the lack of artistic value seem to drop off. Chang spoke of an imagery of her artwork and valued the concept in her head but rarely rehearsed her performances prior to the first performance. I think the lack of preparation lacks professionalism and dedication. For example, Chang’s response to Oishi comment, “I would be afraid that a lot of pieces couldn’t be done. Like the peppermint one.” Her response was not only juvenile but questions her ability to define art. Chang said, “But the first time I did it, I had no idea if it would actually work.” After I read this response I lost interest in her art.
The use of the artist's own body, as a tool to push boundaries and see past the use of reformed materials is an interesting aspect in performance art. However the use of the body as an art mdeia is as though the artist is not putting in the work, as though they need to be working with amterial and take the time to develop an object. This is a socially constructed ideal that has been placed in my head through hears of schooling in were we are taught to plan and work material to make a piece of art. Examining the video further and seeing other performance art pieces in where the body is the main media makes me curious as to "Why not the body?" For this reason I feel using the body as an art medium adds to Patty Chang's work because of the way she blurs the social boundaries that we as a society have constructed. The use of paint and other refined materials is a socially constructed ideal and using her body breaks that ideal because it is "unnatural" in societies eyes. In the article "Body Works:A Pre-critical, Non-definitive Survey of Very Recent Works Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof" by Sharp he writes that " in focusing on the creative act itself, body works are yet another move away from object sculpture." In the article Interview with Patty Chang they write that "Her performance pieces can be best described as balancing acts, not only in the way she manipulates her body but in her ability to create works that juxtapose absolute stillness with explosive tension." Performance art is always making the viewer think and using hte body as a medium makes the viewer think because it is not "normal" it creates that tension with the viewer since it is not an object.
ReplyDelete-Alex Ninneman
In Patty Chang’s work she demonstrates her ability to utilized her body in several ways. As stated in “The Artist’s Body” by Willoughby Sharp “young artists have turned to their most readily available source, themselves, for sculptural material with almost unlimited potential, capable of doing exactly what the artist wants, without the obduracy of inanimate matter.” (231) Chang proves to be an excellent example of an artist exploring the boundaries of her body in the use of art. In “Fountain” Chang zooms in on her face holding the attention to the action and expression conveyed. There is a sense of intimacy and odd interaction as we watch her drink from the water below, in a sense consuming and interacting with herself in a unique way.
ReplyDeleteIn her piece “In Love” there are a mix of emotions being displayed and a variety of reactions brought to the viewer. In Eve Oishi’s interview the term “passionate interaction” is brought up as it “perverts and troubles the lines between ecstasy and torture, and between desire and anxiety.” (121). This can be related to “In Love” by the way a kiss is thought of as being intimate but by knowing the other participant are her parents there is a discomfort brought by the overly intimate act. Further adding to the discomfort they share the act of eating a raw onion. Chang’s videos show how the use of one’s body can be powerful to a viewer as we all relate to the feeling of a situation.
-Kelly Shinabargar
The videos by Patty Chang are about using the artists’ body as an immediate resource to generate work. Chang uses “the body as Tool”(Sharp, 231) to create. She uses her body as an effective means of getting whatever she is presenting at any given time. Although she uses the body, it doesn’t mean that her work is about the (female) physical body. In “fountain”, the work isn’t about Chang drinking water from a reflective pool; but the relationship of the give and take between her precieved or reflected self and actual self. It makes me ask the question, who is drinking who. Is she taking from the world around her, or is she being sucked up by her environment.
ReplyDeleteChang’s idea of the perceived self is in contradiction with Sharp’s article. “The artists own body is not as important as the body in general”(Sharp 231). I think this is where Chang’s work is different from other performance pieces. Chang’s doesn’t generalize herself into something that everyone will connect with. She creates intimate situations and then shares them with her audience, she doesn’t hold back anything from anyone; not even her parents. In “In Love” she is forcing herself into an uncomfortable situation with people she admits the situation would be the most uncomfortable to perform with and then she films it and shares it with her audience. This work is about her and the relationship has with her parents and becoming closer with them. “Sharing an awful experience with another person binds you together” (Oishi 124). This peace is about experiencing something terrible and coming away with a stronger relationship than before.
Patrick Walter
Artist Patty Chang literally draws herself and others into the making and the viewing of her work. “In all of her work, the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled” (p. 134). For example, one of her pieces depicts her cutting into her own breast while she’s actually cutting into a watermelon to eat it. This draws a thin line between what the actual object is. Is it her body or is it the watermelon?
ReplyDeleteOther pieces that Chang has created really uses her body as the main medium. For example, in one piece she shaves while blind-folded, and in another she sews words into her own neck. The second piece was actually fake considering it was not her own neck but she made the viewers feel as if it was. Her body language depicted pain and discomfort. This was touching base on how women go through the pain of beauty in their everyday lives. Chang likes to add this level of discomfort even though many people live through their own discomfort in different ways. People do things that are unnatural so they can have that image of beauty. It is interesting to see how much Chang touches on this idea and on the idea of love and how it is different for everyone.
Chang’s performance work focuses entirely on the human body. From watching the documentary, the aspects of discomfort and the body being used a prop seem to stick out. Chang places an incredible amount of focus on discomfort both for herself and the audience. This can be seen in Eels where she places several live eels in her shirt while an audience looks on. The discomfort is clearly seen on the face of Chang as the eels writhe around on her chest. In the documentary clip, Chang also mentions the upset reactions of the audience when watching this performance. She cites the troubled attitude of the audience to her treatment of the eels, though I think the audience was less concerned with the eels and more disgusted by the fact that Chang placed the eels in her shirt in the first place. Regardless, Chang achieved her goal of stirring up discomfort within the audience which Eve Oishi cites in her interview, “Chang was the ability to find the exact line at which discomfort crosses over into pain – both for herself and for the audience…” (Oishi, 121)
ReplyDeleteThey body as a prop is also a prominent theme. Sharp defines this as, “[being] related to the use of the body as a backdrop in that the body is presented in relation to other physical objects.” (Sharp, 232) Melons is a piece where Chang slices into a melon that is placed on her breast. The effect is perceived as Chang cutting her own breast but instead revealing pieces of melon. The melon becomes an extension of her making herself the prop and the cutting of the melon the focus.
-Rebecca Margis
In discussing Vito Acconci’s films "Bouncing Balls" and "Black Balls" Sharp writes, “These two films also show the body used to find out something about itself, exploratory since it is undergoing an experience yielding information about its performance levels and how it functions” (232). I would argue that performance art in general is indicative of this idea, but Patty Chang’s work especially embodies it. In her piece "Fountain" she is testing her body’s endurance to withhold the amount of water she is drinking from the surface of the mirror. In Oishi’s interview Chang states that she had originally intended for the piece to last two hours but had to stop at forty-five minutes because it was too hard on her body. She says, “Endurance is just something that lasts a little too long. The line between comfort and discomfort is slight, and the point is to balance right on it” (124), echoing this in the video that was posted by saying that nothing she does is ever painful, just simply uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteChang’s endurance experimentation is pretty straight forward in "Fountain" but it also exists within her piece "In Love" in the form of the uncomfortableness she speaks of. She says in both the interview and video that she chose to create the piece in order to test her own boundaries of comfortability, to push her ideas presented in previous works even further. It also became a performance that yielded information about her relationship with her parents as well as all parties individually. Both Chang and her audience learn that there is a strong love between her and her parents that is evident in their willingness to participate and be vulnerable themselves. The fact that her father doesn’t like onions but will eat one for her is especially poignant. I get the sense that her parents are more conservative in their ideas of relationships by the fact that she says they had a hard time reacting to seeing her previous work, which is about pushing the idea of the norm with her body. This context furthers my notion of their love for her in participating. I would hope that Chang too learned something new about her relationship with her parents and about their levels of comfortability and what it would take to change their ideas on the physicality of bodies. In this way, "In Love" is also about an experience that yields information in order to learn about how something functions. It goes beyond the body itself, while also being about the physical endurance of eating the onion, and speaks to the larger idea of the representation and placement of the body in relation to others within the world, specifically an intimate relationship between family members.
Laura Bennett
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ReplyDeleteIn this documentary about Patty Chang she discusses some of her works; primarily “Fountain” and “In Love,” she seems to be explaining about the nature of her films. She speaks about how provocative some of her pieces are. When she talks about her piece “In Love,” she speaks about how she had an idea for a piece and she needed the help from her parents, and she was nervous to call them because she wasn’t sure that they were going to be willing to help her.
ReplyDeleteChang’s video “Fountain”, she is lying on the group facing a reflection of herself, however in the video it looks like she is standing upright. Chang looks at herself very critically at her reflection, also is seems as if she likes what she sees. At times Chang sucks water from the fountain, and it looks like she is kissing herself. Chang describes it as “the physical inevitability of being drawn to drink in yourself.” (Oishi, 123)
In Chang’s videos she manages to demonstrate her ability to use her body in several different ways. As stated in “The Artist’s Body” by William Sharp “Young artists have turned to their most readily available source, themselves, for sculptural material with almost unlimited potential, capable of doing exactly what the artist wants, without the obduracy of inanimate matter. “(231)
Chang takes usually intimate or private acts and makes them awkward and public, making the viewer a little uncomfortable and creating a realization that her body can be powerful tool.
After watching the short documentary on Patty Chang I found it very interesting with what she does with her body. "In body works the body per se is not as important as what is done with the body" (Sharp 129). If she weren’t creating interesting ideas to do with her body, they wouldn't captivate the viewer nearly as much. When reading the interview that Chang had with Eve Oishi the question about whether or not she practiced was posed. I felt that with all the things that she was doing with her body of course she would practice, Chang's response was, "I generally don't rehearse my pieces like in theater."(Oishi 123). This got me to think that this creates a whole different viewing experience for both the artist and the viewer. The piece that was focused on in the interview was "fountain". The first time that Chang performed this she didn't know how her body was going to react to drinking water for 45 minutes straight, and either did the audience. This created a what's next kind of feeling for both the audience and Chang herself. I think this adds an additional interest to performance works that are done with the body.
ReplyDeletePatty Changs work seems to be pushing the boundaries of cultural acceptability. The piece “In Love” I feel shows this idea perfectly. When you hear her explain that she was so nervous to ask her parents about volunteering to be in her piece, you hear her say she thought of who would be the worst people in the world to do this with and she came up with her parents. After asking her parents she said that the father was not going to like eating the onion. Which seemed to me to be quite surprising with thinking about cultural taboos in society today. Chang’s response to this would be that the only reason they views are that way is because “We have created them …and it speaks to the culture and not the actions.”
ReplyDeleteI do however have to touch on her process. This comment that she made can really express a lot of what I believe she is doing with her work. “Really when it comes down to it you know it’s so horrifying to eat and onion and be crying and be in like miserable pain and kissing your father and mother is really not a big deal at that point. It becomes a part of the process. It just becomes from bad to worse to worse you know it’s all relative really.” I feel the most powerful and interesting part of the statement was when she said that eating the onion was so horrifying that kissing her parents wasn’t a big deal and it was a part of the process. She is really pushing herself in the performance and the viewers watching beyond being uncomfortable and “Chang has the ability to find the exact line at which discomfort crosses over into pain-both for herself and for the audience and to hold that line exactly one second too long.”
My interpretation of Patty Chang’s work is that she is exploring the use of body in performance and the role that the body plays in these pieces. Sharp says, “In body works the body per se is not as important as what is done with the body.” (p. 129) Chang uses her body to perform acts that are normally seen as private. She also uses perspective in her piece “fountain,” where she sips from a pool in a gallery. The viewers can choose to see the live performance, the live video performance or both at the same time. This gives the piece much depth and mystery. Eve Oishi says, “In all of her work, the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled.” In her piece “Melons,” she blurs the line between self-mutilation and fantastic storytelling. It is difficult to focus on either aspect as they both contrast each other. Oishi also says, “The concept of ‘passionate interaction’ perverts and troubles the lines between ecstasy and torture, and between desire and anxiety.” This is evident in a piece where Chang and her parents consume a raw onion, passing it between their mouths to finish it. She speaks of this piece as something that is horrible getting even worse. Not only did the onion bring them to tears, but there is a lot of tension and emotion added when the lips of Chang and her father or mother touch. Much of her work is about a “line.” In the interview with Chang, many of the descriptions include blurring or troubling a line. Chang brings uncomfortable tension into her pieces, and her body is the tool that she uses.
ReplyDeleteJosiah Werning
I will discuss two works that are presented in this documentary about Patty Chang, Fountain and In Love, that address the artist’s body. In each of these works, “The artist is the subject and the object of the action.” (Sharp, 231) For the work In Love, the artist enlists her parents to also become subjects and objects of the action. The performance is dependent on what actions are done to the body. (Sharp, 233) As Sharp explains, “...it is impossible to use the body as an object.” (Sharp, 232) In Love is dependent on what is done with the body rather than the use of the body as a tool or an object. The attempt and success of the artist and her parents to withstand the performance addresses Chang’s desire to achieve a balance. It is the desire for balance that requires the artist to address the endurance of the body. Chang defines endurance as, “...something that lasts a little too long. The line between comfort and discomfort is slight, and the point is to balance right on it.” (Oishi, 124)
ReplyDeleteThe act of sharing, using an incredibly uncomfortable method, tests both the artist’s and her parents endurance in the performance In Love. What should be a mundane activity of life, eating, becomes both a physical challenge, the potency of the taste of the raw onion, and a challenge to social boundaries, intimate and physical contact with her parents. I interpret this mutual discomfort between child and parent as a test of loyalty because both participants sacrifice their own comfort to share the task. They stand together and tolerate the experience in order to lighten the load for the other. I think that her father’s participation in this work, despite his dislike for onions as Chang mentions in the documentary and during her interview with Eve Oishi, is an example of this sacrifice between parent and child.
This aspect of endurance is a commonality between these two works and in both pieces the duration of the performance is dependent upon the artist’s body. Chang says of her work Fountain, “I could only do forty-five minutes.” and “It was painful...”. (Oishi, 124) I think the unrehearsed aspect of this work is especially important when considering the role of endurance. She describes how the process for actualizing her works is always different and it is evident from these performances that endurance influences the outcome. In the video documentation of this performance, the pull of gravity visible to the artist’s face as she balances herself over the mirror of water contributes to my interpretation of this work as one concerning endurance. In this way, the work is again dependent on what is done to the artist’s body.
-amber parsons
In Patty Chang’s performances the process and purpose of the work are more important than the end result. According to Sharp, Chang is using her body as place; “When the body is used as a place it is marked. …this is an unavoidable consequence of the work rather than a desirable effect”. (Sharp, p.128) This is most clear in “Shaved” where the purpose of the piece is the act of shaving her pubic hair in a Victorian costume while blindfolded not to have a clean-shaven vagina. In this way performance art is most radically different from other art forms. The process in all other forms of art, while perhaps visible and important, is just a way to get an end result.
ReplyDeleteI would also argue that Chang uses her body as a prop. In her work “Melons” she uses her body as an object interacting with other objects. “ The body as prop is related to the use of the body as a backdrop in that the body is presented in relation to other physical objects.” (Sharp, p. 128) When Chang takes a knife to her breast and slices into it she alters our understanding of her breast from part of her living body to inanimate object. The effect is disorienting and articulates the absurdity of referring to parts of a human body as inanimate objects, because normally we would not treat then as such.
Over all Chang does not fit neatly into any of Sharp’s categories. “In Love” is a good example of using her body in all the ways that Sharp describes. Her teeth are used as a tool to destroy an onion, her body is the place of action, and her body is a prop interacting with inanimate objects and other people to produce a dramatic event. This complication is compelling. The joy of viewing Chang’s work is pulling apart the layers of meaning, and shifting uncomfortable from clarity to confusion, that lasts long after viewing.
-Anna Helgeson
Artist Patty Chang literally draws herself and others into her artwork. She is not only the artist, she is the object of what the viewer is seeing. “In all of her work, the line between her own body and the props of her performance is deliberately troubled” (p. 134). Chang’s body is used like a blank canvas in many of her pieces. She either performs and act for the video or performs and act upon herself for the video. For example, one of her pieces depicts her cutting into her own breast while she’s actually cutting into a watermelon to eat it. This draws a thin line between what the actual object is. Is it her body or is it the watermelon? Chang keeps that line very thin as she crosses over multiple times.
ReplyDeleteChang’s body is the main medium for most of her pieces. For example, in one piece she shaves while blindfolded, and in another, she sews words into her neck. The sewing was actually fake considering it was not her own neck but she made the viewers feel as if it was. Her body language and performances normally touch base on how women go through the pain of beauty in their everyday lives. Chang likes to add this level of discomfort even though many people live through their own discomfort in different ways.
She also adds the element of “surprise” in her videos, as most of her work is unplanned. She likes to have the viewers see what she can and cannot do while she discovers it at the same time. Chang does not know how much her body can endure and does not know how her pieces will turn out. She will not stop making a piece because she does not like it, she will finish the work and then will create another piece that may improve upon her earlier ideas. Her process ends up being like trial and error which is very unique and interesting to watch.