'Translated Acts'
Body, Self, and Performance
Although they would agree it began in the twentieth century, the precise origin of performance art has remained a point of discussion among many researchers in the field of modern art history. As early as the 1910s and 1920s, Dada artists such as Tristian Tzara and Kurt Schwitters began to use performative acts as a means of challenging the traditional representation of art, moving art from museums to the streets. However, both the use of the body as a projection of the self and the involvement of the public as a creative factor in producing art only started in the 1960s, when artists around the world began to use their own bodies as both subject and object of their work, moving from producing objects to using their own physical self for creating 'real time' performance art.
* By THOMAS J. BERGHUIS
More recently, performance art has begun to play a new role in the production of art around the globe, particularly in Asia and quite vividly in China where, starting in the 1990s, an increasing number of artists from Beijing to Kunming have begun to develop a complex artistic language. Here, the artist's body has become the central point at which the physical and the social meet and collapse. As a result, performance art has become one of the main forms of communicating identity, both at a personal level and in the wider context of society.
It is from this perspective that the 'Translated Acts' exhibition held in May 2001 at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin must be recognized as an important event. Not only because performance art has become such a significant vehicle for artistic expression around the world, but because focusing on performance art by artists coming from four important regions in East Asia, 'Translated Acts' presents artistic and social activities in areas previously dominated by reports on economic and political developments.
For the exhibition, Yu Yuon Kim, who has been curator for numerous exhibitions over the past decade, presents contemporary performance art from artists in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. They include Qiu Zhijie and Ma Liuming (China), Miwa Yanagi, Mariko Mori and Yasuma Morimura (Japan/USA), Lee Bul and Kim Young Jin (Korea), and Chen Chieh-jen (Taiwan).Thematically, the works of art revolve around the human body and its role in urban, technological societies. Here the body becomes a projection surface that enables the artist to articulate recent changes in political, social, and gender issues, as well as the lasting influence of the religious and philosophical currents of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
To be held from 8 March to 27 May 2001, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, the opening weekend of the exhibition will feature the artists Ku Ja-young (Korea/USA), Wang Jianwei (China), Zhang Huan (China) and Lin Chun-chi (Taiwan) presenting live performances. This event will be of particular interest because the performances will show both the artists and the public involvement in making a work of art. Therefore, it will lead the visitor from being an observer, who reviews the visual registration of earlier performances in photographs, video, and documentary films, to becoming a part of the direct act of communication that lies imbedded in the actual performance itself. *
Piece', Yoko Ono (1964) Thomas J. Berghuis is a graduate of the Department of Sinology, Leiden University. Presently he is a PhD candidate doing research on contemporary art in China at the Department of Art History and Theory, University of Sydney, Australia.
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