Lonestar Explosion 2014 - Man Under Blue Board by Raindawg

Dean Liscum

Man Under Blue Board by Raindawg at the Houston International Performance Art Biennale was literally what it says, a man standing under a blue 2"x10"x2' board. It was both minimalist performance art and truth in advertising.


Raindawg, Man Under Blue Board, performance, 2014

In the main gallery of Box 13 amid the other performances, Blue Board was the most compact, the least intrusive performance. It's just there. In being just there, the performance forced the audience to wonder what this silent man standing against the wall under a blue board symbolized, to wonder what would transpire and to anticipate it.

What's he doing? What's he going to do? Am I supposed to interact or intervene? Is that all? Am I missing something?


Raindawg, Man Under Blue Board, performance, 2014

In this minimalism, the performance's philosophical and political weight built. What did it mean? Was he referencing other performance artists? Was he emulating living statue street performers? Was he alluding to early 20th century pole-sitters, ironically? Was he referencing non-violent sit-ins? Was he referencing the homeless, not the aggressive panhandlers but the passive, shy meek masses, the invisible that we (or at least I) stare past and walk past everyday? Was he alluding to people's tendency to treat each other as objects? To view each other as commodities: tools or furniture or art or entertainment? To expect a Candid Camera-Punked experience in which a cohort questions the audience about it's reaction/non-reaction?


Raindawg, Man Under Blue Board, performance, 2014

No one interacted or intervened (at least as far as I observed) and to be fair, the piece didn't overtly invite participation.

When the piece finally ended, Raindawg slowly lowered himself to the floor, and groaned as he rolled and stretched his aching limbs. The audience, as if conditioned by his piece did not offer succor of any kind, it just stared on.

Lonestar Explosion 2014 - bear by Jana Whatley

Dean Liscum

Immediately upon seeing Jana Whatley's bear at the Houston International Performance Art Biennale, before I learned the title, I came up with my own titles:

• Relationship from a woman's viewpoint
• Mother
• Labor relations
• Mule of the World (after Nanny's observation in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God)

As you can see  from those titles, a Chinese knockoff factory could easily reverse-engineer my politics and personal issues. Every artist has to contend with the things we (the audience) carry. That's their burden.

The performance started simply enough. Whatley bent at the waist and a man of relatively equal proportions climbed on her back.



She stood there. The audience waited. She stood there some more, bearing his weight for a minute, then 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 20, then 25, until she could no longer stand.



Then she collapsed to the floor. The man remained on her back until



she gathered her strength and rose to her feet, again,



with the man on her back. Then fini.

During this performance, Whatley didn't say anything. She didn't make eye contact with audience members. She breathed. She sweated. She struggled. She bore her burden until she couldn't bear it anymore. It was exhausting to watch. (You can watch a portion of her performance here.)

The tension/the conflict/the essence of this piece seems to be primarily woman against herself. It's all about the artist. The man-burden Whatley carries, the audience are irrelevant. Of course, there is the more obvious symbolism of gender-politics embodied by the two participants, but it's unadorned with much additional theatricality. The man-burden isn't wearing a suit and tie or track suit or cowboy boots and hat or skinny jeans and a shirt two sizes too small or normicore. Whatley is wearing a flowery print dress, which might be a clumsy gesture to reinforce her femininity, but it's unnecessary. Her feminity and her power are obvious, and the piece derives its power from her straightforward struggle.

My fellow audience members brought their own interpretations to this standard endurance piece as I did mine. Together, we watched, walked away, interacted with other performances occuring simultaneously, but ultimatley we returned. I suspect that this was because regardless of how one chose to interpret the performance, it plainly compelled enduring.

Lonestar Explosion 2014 - The Artist Is Pleasant by David B. Collins

Dean Liscum

I've been confronted with many things when viewing performance art by David B. Collins: shrink-wrapped suicide hotline conversations, naked strolling down Westheimer with a clothed entourage, a naked body covered in green paint. Now I can add to that list a peanut butter sandwich sans nudity.

 
The Artist is Pleasant by David B. Collins

Collins piece was a one-on-one interaction in which audience members were invited to sit across the table from him. The two of them would exchange pleasantries, and at some point Collins would offer to make his audience a peanut butter sandwich. From what I witnessed of the performance, it was a plethora of pleasantness or at least superficially so.

I say superficially because it wasn't pleasant for me. The title is a pun on the phrase "the artist is present" and the concept of being fully present, of being in the moment. The piece made me wonder if the artist is pleasant, meaning he's conforming to societal norms so as not to offend or insult anyone, can he also be present as an artist? Isn't the artist, specifically the performance artist, supposed to challenge us in some way, to move us out of pleasant-ville if only for a day trip? When I go to see performance art, I expect and want to be challenged to embrace, to avert, to intervene, to abandon what I'm confronted with. I don't expect or want a cup of pleasantness and a side of peanut butter with my performance art.

I boycotted the sandwich. I grew up on peanut butter and pleasantness. I've had enough of that shit. I want my performance artists present. I want them intellectually, aesthetically, and emotionally engaged. If that means naked and smeared with peanut butter, so be it. If that means I'm shocked, disgusted, or emotionally scarred for life, so be it. The pleasantries, I can do without. They leave their own marks.

The audience, however, played along. No one challenged Collins or his menu. No one got belligerent or confrontational or naked. No one asked him to do anything inappropriate in "pleasant" company. And he didn't. Collins was a perfect gentleman, which was pleasant but not very satisfying. Unless, frustrating audience members with pleasantness was the objective of Collin's pleasant-present dichotomy.

If so, bravo. If not, I prefer him naked and green all over.

Lonestar Explosion 2014 - Untitled by Nikki Thornton

Dean Liscum

Opening night of the Houston Performance Art Biennalle was at Box 13 and it began with a set of simultaneous performances by the Houston-based performance art collective Continuum and coalesced by the title Bound.

From the entrance, I could see several performance in progress. None of the performances collided or collaborated. Rather, each neatly and quietly transpired within the confines of its assigned space, its invisible performance borders. Nikki Thornton's piece immediately grabbed my attention because it was both such a spectacle, but also not at all.

Nikki Thornton, untitled, Pig Head, Red Thread

At the front of Box 13's large open space, Thornton, dressed in all white, sat on a white sheet on the floor with a pigs head between her legs. With a needle and bright red thread, she methodically sewed the pigs lips together.


Nikki Thornton, untitled, Pig Head, Red Thread

The piece was performed in silence. No music. No humming. No talking. Only the sound of her hands working the snout into position and the thread pulled through the flesh. She didn't acknowledge the onlookers or affect an attitude of disgust or disdain or desire toward the pig. She completed the task with an air of detachment.


Nikki Thornton, untitled, Pig Head, Red Thread

The white clothing, the placement of the pigs head between her legs, the blood lent to the work a visually superficial-sexual, possibly virginal quality. Perhaps, if this were the only performance in the space and it occurred on a dais, it would feel sexual or sacred. But it isn't, so it plays out profanely on an old linoleum floor in the corner.


Nikki Thornton, untitled, Pig Head, Red Thread

It feels familiarly uncomfortable. When I was may be 8 and used to run through the aisle of K-Mart playing hide and seek, inevitably I would come across a woman and child. She would be squatting in the middle of the aisle breast feeding the child or changing it's diaper or spanking it's exposed ass. She might make eye contact or she might not but she wouldn't stop. She would simply press on until the deed was done.

That was more than my little catholic in-training  self would know what to do with. So I wouldn't say anything. I'd run off not looking back because I was trying to fit together the nakedness and the intimacy and the matter of fact-ness while trying to give her some of my shame and realize that she had no time for it. 

Watching Thornton's piece gave me that same impression. She gave no indication of the symbolism of her clothing or of the position of her legs or of her relationship to the pig or of her choice of location. She simply performed her task and left, leaving the audience to deal with whatever associations-meanings-emotions it conjured up in them.

Videos from the Lone Star Performance Explosion and the Joanna

by Robert Boyd

Here are a pair of videos made to promote upcoming art shows. The Lone Star Performance Explosion sounds like it's going to be excellent. After a rocky start, it appears they have their shit mostly together.



This is happening from March 8 through March 10 at Diverse Works, Notsuoh, and Avant Garden. Plus they are trying to raise a little money for this gig in Indie a Gogo, so if you want to support Houston performance art, give them some money to help make this happen.


Is This All That All This Is? promo from Neil Sanzgiri on Vimeo.


The Joanna is hosting a Baltimore art space called Open Space on February 24. I don't know how long the show is going to be up. I get the feeling that it's a one-night only kind of thing. I may be wrong, but either way, Joanna openings are always fun, so you should show up on the 24th.