This is Yoko Ono's Cut Piece from 1965. I consider it a form of protest performance art. Ever since I first watched this video a few years ago, I've been struck by the power in her passivity. I'm honestly not quite sure what specific stance she's taking in the piece, but I think she's commenting on the objectification of women, sexual aggression, and violence. And also perhaps making a statement about the artist's or audience's ego?
The premise of the work is that one performer sits onstage with a pair of scissors in front of them. It is announced by an outside voice that audience members can come onstage individually to cut a piece of the performer's clothing and take it with them. I read in a set of instructions she wrote for future iterations of this piece that the performer does not need to be a woman.
She's allowing her work to be the work of her audience. There are a lot of similarities to Marina Abramovic's work with this idea--that the audience is free to do whatever they want to the performer. I'm quite intrigued by this concept. Where does the line get drawn?
(The video is 8mins long; I recommend skipping around a bit to different parts.)
Yoko Ono does a great job of taking account of all circumstances, people, and potential issues of the performance, like if an audience member is a man. Her thoughtfulness helps reinforce her passivity in the work. There is a certain power in how she clarifies the interactive instructions to her audience. How would the piece have changed if she had explicitly told her audience before sitting down?
ReplyDeleteI like the position that the audience member is put in by Ono. To cut or ruin someone's clothing is inherently rude. To remove someone's clothing is generally intimate. To encourage strangers to do those things really tests the boundaries of performer and audience and makes a powerful statement.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy that you included a piece that explores the gray area between performance and 'performance art'. I think that your uncertainty about what her 'stance' is here is important, and maybe illustrates at least part of the point of the piece. It's provocative but not in a way that beats you over the head with a specific meaning. I love seeing this video because one thing about pieces like this that have 'event scores' is the vast gulf in meanings between looking at the instruction and watching the piece unfold.
ReplyDeleteSo much of these early performance art pieces take a strong stance about feminism and everyday violence toward women - I think Yoko's performance work is sometimes overlooked for how potent and eloquent it is. The discomfort felt by the audience members is important, and the crowd dynamics (mindset) evolving over time is one of the most interesting (sometimes horrifying) ways this piece unfolds.
ReplyDeleteI love Yoko Ono! I definitely think that this piece is inherently sexualized due to the subject being a woman, I would like to see how the audience would interpret it if the subject was a man.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I see this video I think about how mind blowing it is that as soon as it was allowed, people actually went up to her and started cutting her clothes off? I mean we acknowledge that it makes all of us uncomfortable watching it, and no doubt there were people there that were uncomfortable, but how does someone reading directions make it okay then to do what ever that person reading directions is telling you to do? What if it were to draw on her? Or does it matter the task that is asked? It makes me really uncomfortable, and for that reason, Yoko is really asking a variety of questions past the general consensus that it makes audiences uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteThis piece invites the audience to have a hand in creating the performance, but it must also force them to ask and answer their own questions about its meaning. It seems like a great strategy to inspire a kind of reflection which is normally unlikely when the performer, audience boundary is in tact. It feels more like a social experiment than a performance, but I suppose exploring that boundary was one of the points of the piece.
ReplyDeleteThis piece feels very open ended and interpretive yet poignant. The inadvertent undressing of Yoko very much feels like a piece on feminism and oversexualization. The audience participation adds a really interesting layer to this piece. It's as if the audience is working together to perform the piece. Yoko is so amazing in how she decentralizes her musical "authority" through that audience participation in her performance art.
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