Aniko Erdosi

I recall two recent art experiences regarding the issues of art in relation to the present and to time in general. For Performa in 2005 (a performance biennial), Marina Abramovic reenacted six early performance pieces of her colleagues and one by herself from the sixties and seventies, in the Guggenheim Museum. I went to see most of them but could not really enjoy them as a performance. I could not help but see it as a historian or as an archaeologist, pondering questions like: How was the original or first performance? What did the audience experience then? What is different now when everything is different around these performances? And what does or could it mean to me, here and now? I thought these performances were unsuccessful in terms of a classical performance, which meant to be an immediate, real time communication with the audience, an energy transmission. At the same time, I considered the whole project to be a very interesting and important act by the artist. Those pieces in the Guggenheim did not have the energy and the presence that I expected, however they made me think about some questions related to the existence and visibility of art, over and over again.

 
Another case when very similar questions arose in my mind was a couple of months ago I saw the recreated installation pieces by William Anastasi mostly from the late sixties, in the project room of The Drawing Center. I knew most of the pieces from reproductions and descriptions, but when I entered the small room on Wooster Street I experienced a kind of revelation. The pieces were fresh and current somehow, even the more then thirty years old metal plate, which was watered again and again in several exhibitions during the decades. A par excellence artwork: an old, preserved and appreciated object. I was very thankful that I had a chance to see those pieces in real life. Although this was a powerful art experience, again I wondered how could it be to see them for those, who saw them ten or twenty years ago? How does someone see them who never even heard of them, and what would I think and feel if I would see them again in the future? In reference to the often seen and ignored things, I wonder if it is possible that we have only one time chance to see an artwork, or sometimes not even one? Or what Kundera says about the human experience of pain could be valid also for the human experience of art: we experience it three times, once when we imagine it, once when we experience it in real life, and once when we remember of it. Either way, from my side sometimes I have the feeling that art is happening when we do not even notice it or do not pay attention at all. And this always brings me some kind of relief and joy.

                                                                                                                         William Anastasi, Issue (detail), 1966/2007
Plaster
156 x 4 1/2 x 1/4 inches
From William Anastasi: Raw, The Drawing Center, New York,
April 21–July 21, 2007
Photo by Cathy Carver

                                                                                                                                                                

William Anastasi, Untitled, 1966/2007
One gallon of industrial, high-gloss enamel, poured
Dimensions variable
From William Anastasi: Raw, The Drawing Center, New York,
April 21–July 21, 2007
Photo by Cathy Carver

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        July, 2007

                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                          

Comments

[s.zelinksi]

I rather liked Marina's show. Classically musicians and artists even often copied or made works in the style of someone else. This is not unlike a play; isn't an Oliver or P.Brook production more to their credit than the author, similarly with film, or is it a Glenn Gould performance or is it one by Bach--to paraphrase Yates, where does the dancer end and the dance begin? Is it not these reiterations of performance which create a history to compare and judge the qualitative skill of each production?

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I fell less connected to it. my agent booked me a flight to NYC through last minute travel. for sure ill take my cold music with me:)