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| A work of art and presence: the performance ship 'Friendship' Iliana Veinberga, Art Historian Performance Festival Friendship 10.06.2010. Andrejsala | |
| On 10 June the Friendship Performance Festival was opened with a number of artists’ actions at Andrejsalas osta in Riga. On the next day, a ship of the same name with festival participants aboard headed for other ports – Tallinn (Estonia, 12.06), Helsinki (Finland, 13.06), Stockholm (Sweden, 15.06), Copenhagen (Denmark, 18.06) and Klaipeda (Lithuania, 21.06) to involve viewers in the performance event. Performance doesn’t lend itself to simple definitions; it could even be said that it’s not possible to define it – so much that it borrows from other, more solidly formulated art forms / types, viz, every aspect which could characterize performance, the same, based on similarities, it shares with a number of other art forms. For example, theatre, improvisation theatre, conceptual art, painting, body painting, graphics, music, poetry etc., and so on. Finally, how does performance differ from any purposeful activity in the prosaic everyday, which no-one would ever even consider calling “Art”? In any case one thing is clear – when performance takes place, there is no doubt whatsoever that it is performance that is taking place. Intuitively. It seems that, in connection with performance, one could highlight specifically the importance of intuition, when consequences are predicted from fairly unclear premises. This definite and at the same time indefinite component, which meanders endlessly in parallel with the creative process, could link performance with something which in Western culture tends to be called “ritual” – ritual specifically in the primordial, shamanistic sense. And consequently to bring in Walter Benjamin’s notion of “aura”, as a crucially important feature in a work of art. Arthur Danto, commenting on Marina Abramović’s work – performance The artist is present, confirms its authentic effectiveness, rhetorically speaking, that the spiritual make-up of a person’s soul’s has not yet been sufficiently researched in order that one could unequivocally talk about it. However, in order to be able to talk about the effect and significance of Friendship, the formulation ‘ritual determined by intuition’ should be subdivided more finely. As the essential criteria for identifying performance, I would like to mention three. First, the environment: taking it into account, influence and interaction with the real space around you, also the complete control over it. Secondly: the process or the performance taking place, where the artist’s body is also the only medium, respectively the artist himself is the art work (as opposed to activities which he carries out apart from the performance every day, in this case instead of a goal it has “meaning”, namely, it is a message about something, is about something, and the significance of this “something” becomes embodied in the performance art work). The author is in full control of the execution of the process (also anticipating the possibility of improvisation and spontaneity). Thirdly: the immediacy and continued presence of the art work and its author, in my view, is a unique feature in an era which could roughly be characterized as alienated, that is, the doer, what is to be done and the consumer of what’s done are not necessarily mutually connected in a dependent relationship. The audience are – more accurately – witnesses of the performance, whose status balances on the border between neutral viewer and potential participant, performance co-creator, depending on the author’s intention. Documentary fixation also becomes a “witness” of the performance. The successful linking up of these three key points ensures that indescribable experience which only performance is capable of creating. As an interested viewer, I didn’t get the impression that this linking up took place at the highest level in the Friendship events at the Riga port, as constantly some aspect (also from the organizational point of view, on the part of the organizers) went off the rails, until at one point it was no longer at all clear what was happening, and if anything was happening at all. Were we meant to follow the amusingly clothed Andrus Joonas (Estonia) to some secret place, where the performance would continue, or was his parading through the crowd of public enough of an event? Was the huddle of persons attempting musical improvisation something to which the surrounding bystanders should react, or only those who had been spontaneously invited to participate in the jamming? Without even getting into a discussion about the fact that after these modest (and possibly meant exclusively for a small groups) activities had taken place, the attention of the other viewers had waned to such a degree that they went off without waiting for the next performance. Possibly the Andrejsala territory is at fault, because its wide open spaces and sprawl is a great challenge to the ability of the performance artists to inhabit it, to subdue it to the intensity of their spirit, in this way attracting and holding the public’s attention as if without meaning to, with some accidentally initiated activity somewhere on the periphery of the territory. It is just as possible that the inept audience was to blame, as they were waiting to be entertained without being ready to devote their time and their mental capacities, thus allowing the miracle to take place. This was most sharply evident during Benas Šarkas’ (Lithuania) beautiful performance, where the almost naked artist narrated, in sculptural forms, how it could justifiably be understood, stories about indigenous people, about peoples at the dawn of the development of civilization, violence, suffering, war, work and labour, nature, rituals etc., but a large number of viewers at that moment chose to visit the food stand and to watch the event from afar, more as a pleasant backdrop to the process of eating and friendly chatter. No wonder that the Restaurant Bergs stand was named as the best performance, as it received the undivided attention of those present; speaking in performance terms – it was able to gather together territory and to concentrate interest on its performance, causing people to resonate emotionally. In conclusion, however, I would wish to accentuate that one shouldn’t be afraid of mistakes and setbacks, especially if they are secondary or even tertiary, in comparison with the scale and significance of the event itself. In this aspect I won’t shy away from speaking on behalf of many other people and to praise the activists who have undertaken to do promote performance activities in Latvia, who do this in an impressive and original way (see www.performance.lv), and don’t walk away if faced by various silly hurdles. May the Friendship have a pleasant cruise in the Baltic Sea this year, and for many more years! /Translator into English: Uldis Brūns/ | |
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