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three C.B-K: You started performing Cut Piece in 1964. Since that time, there have been so many interpretations of that work, especially related to pre-feminist themes. Were you thinking about issues such as violation, voyeurism or gender subjugation when you created it? Y.O: No, it was more of a total understanding of where we stood as women. It wasn't a feminist issue, per se. It has to do with the positive and negative side of giving, but we can make it positive. It's like saying, "We're giving. And, when we give, we give in a total form." Not by saying, "Well, I'm going to give you this." But you can take what you want to take. That was the total giving. But also, that's what our society is doing, in the sense of cutting ourselves, piece by piece, in a way. So, there's a double entendre. And the funny thing was, most people thought of the other side , which is the body being violated [side]. But when this piece was performed by Charlotte Moorman in a nunnery, the nuns were saying, "Well, this is what we're doing." They bypassed the sexual connotation totally and just understood the philosophical connotation and the positive side, which was to be giving. I also feel like I'm dedicating my work and giving my total self to the audience when I'm on stage. C.B-K: Some people are more familiar with your music than your visual art, poetry, performances or films. Your new CD, Blueprint for a Sunrise, predates September 11th, yet it seems to connect to a kind of emotional aftermath. Did you have a premonition? Y.O: No, I had no idea. It always works out that way. In other words, it's not a clear premonition. It's just that, I do the work, but the timing of the album was given to me from the outside. I was not privy to why. But at the same time, I was having some sleepless nights before I made this album and wondering what was going on. Why do I feel so strongly that I have to finish this album right away? There was a point when I was hearing many women screaming in the middle of the night and I put that on the record. All these women, saying, "it's time for action, there is no option," in different languages. It gave me the shivers afterwards. And, I'm speaking from my experience as a woman. Like the song, "I Want You to Remember Me" - it has to do with victimized, abused people and countries, and I was saying this before September 11th. So I'm talking about all the vulnerable people, which includes all of us. We are all vulnerable. C.B-K: I saw a video that you're in called, The Misfits: 30 years of Fluxus. Part of it was filmed in 1990 when some Fluxus artists from the 1960s met, after 30 years, to exhibit work in connection with the Venice Biennale. What was it like to see those people again, after all that time? I wondered about your notoriety and how it affected your re-connection with them. Y.O: Well, you have to understand that I was a female artist and an Asian at that, so most men in those days probably thought of me as a good person to date or something, shall we put it that way? [Laughter] If I were to be speaking out at all, -- "Oh, shut up" -- that's the way they felt, probably. That's what my film, Fly indicates . Being interested in parts of us -- like beautiful breasts -- and then suddenly in the morning, you understand, "Ah, she's a woman and she's talking! What are we going to do? Shut her up." [Laughter] It's a bit like that. But, you know, I was part of it [Fluxus] and I would sometimes be given a token position. But also, with George [Maciunas], he was was not threatened by women at all. Without George, I don't think I would have survived in that circle. And Charlotte Moorman, of course, she was a very close friend of mine. She was doing avant-garde festivals and she always made sure to include me. Even when I was very down, in the sense that I was married and I had a child and I was becoming like, a lonely housewife, she'd still call me and say, "You have to put a piece in here." George was like that too. Both George and Charlotte were very encouraging people, encouraging to me, and so was Nam June Paik. But then I left Fluxus, in a way, and went to London and I did Bottoms there. The Bottoms film got kind of an unexpected big spread, probably because of the sex angle, but anyway, it got notoriety. It was coming to a point where even the generous avant-garde artists of London started saying "We can't invite her to dinner because she's getting too famous." They thought I was selling out. So when I came back after all that, in 30 years, to meet those people, that's a totally different thing. I don't know what they were thinking, really. But I miss them all. I love the fact that they stood by the ideas. The stuff that they're doing is incredibly noncommercial and interesting. And you know, I still share that spirit, of course. And also, maybe the fact that I'm not commercial now, at all, has a lot to do with that same kind of thinking that we share -- that we feel that the value of art is not commercial, but the value of art is in its ideas. Ideas of giving new wisdom, more wisdom, to the world. C.B-K: Several of your pieces have had to do with wrapping. Wrapping Piece for London was an especially intriguing piece of participatory art. At the Indica Gallery in London, in 1966, you put a ball of gauze on a chair and the audience did something unexpected with it . What was your original intention with that piece? Y.O: Well, I put out enough gauze for people to use, and what I wanted was for people to keep on making the ball larger and larger, to the point that it would fill the room , so nobody could even go into the room or come out of it. The idea was to fill up the whole room with the gauze ball. But then, instead of doing that, they wrapped the chair. C.B-K: Didn't that chair piece lead you into Wrapping Event in London , where you wrapped the lions in Trafalgar Square? Y.O: It was twice that I tried to wrap the lions in Trafalgar Square. The first time was in 1966, when I was doing the Indica Gallery show in London. We tried to do the lions but we were wrapping with newspapers, and it was starting to rain and the cops were saying, "You can't do that." It just didn't work. So then, we had to plan it well. The next summer, we said, "Okay, let's do it right." And, I think we did it right. C.B-K: When Wrapping Piece for London metamorphosized in 1971, with a Plexiglas box around it and the new title, Hide Me, it raised some interesting questions about the nature of concealment. The Plexiglas was supposedly there to protect or conceal the chair but, of course, you could see right through it -- making the point that the more you tried to hide, the more you were revealed. Y.O: Exactly. C.B-K: A piece of yours that brings up a lot of metaphysical issues is Half-a-Room (1967), touching on mind and matter, and also, dealing with loss and loneliness. I wondered if maybe you found half-an-object on the street somewhere and that set off the idea. Y.O: No, no. Well, this is what it is. My then husband, Tony, and I were not getting along anymore. It was just before John came into to my life. I had already met John, but we were not yet connected in that way. Every night Tony wasn't coming back and one morning I woke up and there was a big space on the other side of the bed. So, I thought, "Half-a-bed, that's interesting." And then I started thinking about half-an-object. That was the inspiration. It's very deeply connected with my life at the time. And, the very strange thing is that I wanted to do this show at the Lisson Gallery [in London] about half-an-object. John wanted to know what show I was doing, and he was thinking about helping me out, financially. So, I was first explaining, describing, what I'd be doing and I was asking him if he wanted to participate in it. Because by then, I thought he was a very young, attractive guy and also an artistic, intelligent guy and I'm hitting him like, you know, going to some rich, supportive art [patron] and saying, "So this is my piece, are you going to put up the money for it?" And I just didn't want to do that to him. I felt like it would be much nicer if I asked him if he wanted to participate. So, I said, " Why don't you put something in there?" And he immediately came up with this idea. He said,"Okay. Why don't you put the other half in glass bottles?" It was so incredible. John was so intelligent. And the thing is, I wasn't even saying, "Why don't you put something in there connected with Half-a-Room?" It was a big show. I was thinking maybe he would put an independent piece in there. But he chose to coordinate with the half-a-room concept. Then I realized it was more difficult than I thought to put his piece in there, because , well, he has a big-name and people might think I was using his name or something or people might just be interested in his work--- -- it was getting so complicated. But I didn't want to just cut the idea, so I ended up putting the glass bottles in the back of the gallery on a high shelf, like, Half-a-Wind, Half-a-Bed, -- -- these bottles, empty bottles, just saying "J. L". I thought it was a great idea. Because it was so innately connected with my private life, what happened was very interesting. I realized that there was a half empty space in my life. I'm presenting that to John. John's filling the other half. That happened not only in the art dialogue, but it happened in my life. Isn't that amazing?
Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky is a visual artist, arts writer and author of The Creativity Handbook. She can be reached at carolynbk@comcast.net
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