Something new, something old, something borrowed and something blue...

“It makes no sense to go on about whether performance art is alive or dead. Equally stupid is to discuss whether it should be re- garded as visual arts or theatre, or what kind of performance art can be considered ‘good’. It’s like the old joke where the blind man tries to describe what an elephant looks like. First of all: the entire concept of art exploded, once and for all, into tiny frag- ments in the 1960s. If there’s still someone who doesn’t understand the lessons of the new clothes of art by Duchamp, Cage and Fluxus, they should lock themselves up in their offices or try to fit in among the other relics in a museum.

Second: drawing boundaries between dif- ferent forms of art is like drawing a line in flowing water.

Third: performance has always been there, and it will not go away before we all die. My intuition says that there is little differ- ence between the Cro-Magnon and us. The differences that have been regarded as significant are in fact trivial, simple signs of cultural learning and adaptation. We have no way of knowing what kind of music they made. However, some of their environ- mental art has been partially preserved. There is much talk about the wonderful cave paintings in Lascaux and Altamira – but this is rubbish, they are not paintings at all. Rather, the entire cave complex constitutes a single environmental work of art, a forum of performances. These performances have customarily been categorised as rituals, and the environmental artworks as sacred spac- es. Irrelevant.

What’s also irrelevant is that these ancient performances, operettas or pagan ceremo- nies, these essential parts of the commu- nity, are the source of the present division between the so-called arts and religion into the categories where the modern specialists can access them, should they ever have the need. But where did the idea come from? From what did the need arise – what in hu- mans gave rise to ritual?”

Quote: Kunsthalle 85, Performance. Lauri Nykopp: Kuin Espanja olen sidoksissa men- neisyyteeni (Like Spain I am bound to my past)