In China, PerformanceArt is translated into "behavior" rather than performance, which is closer to the reality and living environment of China, thus distancing itself from the original performance and expanding its application scope. In another sense, it enriches and expands the original meaning of "English", although the word does not only refer to performance.
The "prosperity" of contemporary art seems to have overwhelmed everything. With the constant emergence of various exhibitions and sales booms, we really think that we have entered an unprecedented heyday, although all this is independent of anyone's will. Accompanied by this phenomenon, performance art, an exotic product, also appears in different exhibitions from time to time. We are sometimes happy to think that performance art has begun to shine ...? Behind the prosperity lies a fatal weakness. The phenomenon of "short-lived works of art" is like a virus, which permeates all places that can spread from the inside out. We can't escape from the first day and the fifteenth day. Especially when we touch more and more dollars around our waist, we say: of course, art is not important.
Contemporary art seems to have fully entered the mainstream media and official art venues. The underground nature of avant-garde art has become synonymous with "tradition" and "outdated", and performance art has benefited from it to some extent. However, its special presentation mode and concept make it difficult to get rid of the embarrassing situation. Although there are signs of elegance or the government is planning to accept some performance art, this is only the role of the trend, not the recognition of the legal status of performance art itself, nor the instability of the economic situation in performance art, so the overall situation of performance art must be in the original spontaneous state and will last for a long time, but because of this, its vitality is important. Under the contradictory premise of not obtaining actual benefits and not being recognized, its existence and constructiveness require not only personal enthusiasm and willpower, but also a rational humanistic spirit, scholar-like attitude and clear thinking. Its existence implies the continuation and self-confidence of the extremely personalized artistic spirit in art, and because it retains the self-denial principle and critical spirit of art to the greatest extent, it adds a kind of fuzziness to art, which is also an important factor that performance art and reality are contradictory and combined, but they have not disappeared. Although this contradiction forces the same mortal performance art to split, deform and even change, it does not prevent the latecomers from continuing this "game" that is not a game. As one author said, performance art is avant-garde in every way. "Performance art is not only an art form, but also an attitude towards existence", and ritualized performance art redeems the soul in a self-centered way. Restore the real level of life and infect the viewer with the shock of the scene.
In the development of performance art, due to its innate pioneering spirit and experimentation, as well as the reinterpretation of body theory by modern philosophy, sociology and medical science and technology, performance art inevitably falls on the body to find more essential significance. Therefore, the biological experience around the body, such as touch, taste, pain, smell and other related human feelings, has become a way for artists to express some profound feelings, and for this "profundity", the body often uses violence as a closely related means to complete this theme. Therefore, the emergence of violence has become an unavoidable problem.
In the increasingly "institutionalized" contemporary art, the theme of violence is being dispelled and rejected, and people's habitual aesthetic factors have not changed much because of the occurrence of contemporary art. Long-term reading habits and interest factors make this type of behavioral works more likely to produce simple rejection, and it is difficult to enjoy the same understanding and acceptance process as normal works of art. Because of sensibility and personality, artists can't write theoretical defense texts that are more in line with academic discussions, so they can only respond with silence, which further aggravates the misunderstanding and acceptance of such works. The critic's oral comment "braver than struggle" has basically become a negative word that people are used to quoting when commenting on this kind of works. But since it is a phenomenon, it has its roots and reasons. Why not do a rational analysis and research that meets academic standards first? To say the least, since we all have convincing moral consciousness, why are there so many violent incidents? Since peace is our ideal, why do wars and conflicts occur frequently in reality? Narrowing and transferring such facts will not help us to understand reality and art, just as Fromm thinks in his book Destructive Analysis of Human Beings, violence (vicious attack) is just a phenomenon in human society.
Violence is not the purpose of artists' performance, but the purpose is to reflect on violence through this form. Moreover, whether such works belong to "violence" remains to be discussed. )
The violent materials of works of art are neither entirely derived from western art history nor entirely from reality. Although the initial violent works are indeed related to these two factors, in the process of gradual development and maturity, the confirmation and development of the theme of violence comes more from the internal contradiction dilemma of personal psychology, the critical spirit in art history and the re-understanding of the biological basis of the body. Without the support of these basic points, there can be no generalized similar works, but only trendy responses. Today, let's look at the works of this theme again. All the behavioral works based on the trend of imitation and copying, due to the lack of sufficient understanding and commercial interests, quickly turned to works that are more in line with the current recognized standards. However, the art of action based on rational thinking has not changed and continues to deepen this understanding.
The violent tendency in performance art only borrows the symbol of violence and does not include the definition of violence in sociology. Therefore, its manifestation belongs to personal physical experiments, and the lack of presentation of the main characteristics of violence in various disciplines makes the problem of violence a hypothesis. However, it still gives a new explanation of "violence" from the perspective of nature and sociology. Therefore, violence here is a biological embodiment of the body, which does not contain mistakes and correct ideological judgments, and aims to reveal natural phenomena in life. If there is no sense of violence in doctors' operations, then there is no sense of violence in the emergence of performance art.
While borrowing the form of violence, performance art will also convey the sociological significance of the word to the audience. However, the socialization definition of violence is not a political consciousness, a clear group opinion and a contradictory interest struggle between classes, but a more biological explanation of violence and the metaphors and symbols it produces. These vague and uncertain meanings do not include the continuation of the meaning of "violence" itself, but have anything in common with violence in social reality. They are only responsible for personal actions, and there is no comparison with real violence.
Violence also comes from the redefinition of physical resources. In this special place, the meaning of the word violence is neutral. It is a parasite in the body place and a form to realize the body theory. Without the help of physical factors, violence cannot achieve its meaning. Therefore, it is one of the manifestations of body behavior art. With the help of factors and concepts such as smell, taste, touch, hearing, pain, nervous system, blood and hair, a set of "violence aesthetics" experience style is formed, and then this process is completed with the assistance of tools, materials and instruments. However, due to the inherent socialization factor of the word "violence", the viewer makes judgments by analogy, which conceals its true direction in the works. Therefore, pure rejection and opposition are misunderstandings and misreading of innate experience.
On the other hand, from the reality of China. It is another direction of performance art to think more about the current life, culture and art problems from the perspective of sociology. Dismantling the boundary between life and art has always been a problem for artists to think about, but due to the problems of art itself and external environment, such efforts have not achieved clear results. Moreover, many restrictive factors and commercial interests also make the hard-working artists finally return to the self-reflection solution that has always existed in art, so the appearance of mocking and self-deprecating works has become the main trend of domestic art in recent years and continues to this day. Although this is also a phenomenon, it masks the coexistence of many possibilities to some extent. In addition, the increasingly hierarchical, relational and profit-oriented operation mode infringes on the sense of responsibility and trust that originally existed in the artist's heart, so that contemporary art has not really reached the actual depth and breadth after abandoning the superficial prosperity. Therefore, rethinking this issue is a very important starting point. For myself, the biological understanding of the body and the socialization of the body have become the two basic points of my work, and I have created a series of works. Of course, the birth of a work of art is not so simple, there are many related factors, which is another problem.
When all people who love beauty suffer from surgery for beauty, all they think about is the happiness after plastic surgery, as the French artist Oran said: "All civilizations are making human bodies". My mind is like a lady who loves beauty. After repair, I have both fear and joy, but the only difference from plastic surgery is that the former is physical beauty, and I express the meaning of ideological plastic surgery through physical therapy.
My behavioral works try to restore the balance between the biological response of the body and society. In the long process, even in the late twentieth century, the body was once considered as an accessory of medicine, without sociological consciousness and thinking. Now, the body itself is becoming the center of thought. It can also be said that its biological reaction is the root of all thoughts, as American sociologist Brian Turner said: "As far as the importance of the body is concerned, in recent years, the changes in society, culture and technology have made the body the center of modern politics, because the habitual boundary between nature and society has been eroded and changed constantly, resulting in a rapidly outdated political stance ..." (Excerpted from Post-body Cultural Rights Life Politics).
In the days of self-injury, the heart is also hurt, which is more painful than the superficial injury. It even makes people doubt everything, including existence itself ... does this tragic result really imply the all-round arrival of our entertainment survival era? But calm down, behind this, through the physical pain to your heart, you get a weak awakening, which makes you alert. In the deep repentance of original sin, you will have a fluttering as light as a feather, and you will always feel moved in an unspeakable state ... Of course, we like to drink coffee, sit in an elegant villa in BMW and talk about life and topics unrelated to art, of course. The world is so big that a few more fools are nothing. The era when art can't be eaten is over. We just want to make art a meal and become famous. How nice ... now it's basically done, you can laugh.
We have been eager to become a fish or a bird, but when we really become a fish or a bird, we really grow gills and wings, and we kill them out of fear. But we're getting closer and closer to having gills and wings ... it's true.
Yang Zhichao 2005 Beijing