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287 pages

English

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Notoriously difficult to define as a genre, Live Art is commonly positioned as a challenge to received artistic, social and political categories: not theatre, not dance, not visual art... and often wilfully anti-mainstream and anti-establishment. But as it has become an increasingly prevalent category in international festivals, major art galleries, diverse publications and higher education streams, it is time for a reassessment.

This collection of essays, conversations, provocations and archival images takes the twentieth anniversary of the founding of one of the sector’s most committed champions, the Live Art Development Agency (LADA) in London, as an opportunity to consider not only what Live Art has been against, but also what it has been for. Rather than defining the practices in oppositional terms – what they might be seeking to critique, reject or disrupt – this collection reframes these practices in terms of the relations and commitments they might be used to model or advocate. What kinds of care and recovery do they enable? What do they connect as well as reject? What do they make possible as they test the impossible? What ideas of success do they stand for as they risk failure? In this way, the central theme of the collection, and to which all contributors were invited to respond, is the idea of agency: the capacity for new kinds of thoughts, actions and energies as enacted by individual artists and groups. It seems appropriate that this question would be considered in relation to the history of one particular ‘agency’: LADA itself.

These questions are explored in a unique conversational format, bringing together a diverse range of emerging and established practitioners, curators and leading figures in the field, each paired with another practitioner for a live conversation that has been sensitively edited for the page. Curated within a structure of five overlapping themes – Bodies, Spaces, Institutions, Communities and Actions – this format produces unexpected insights and accounts of the development of the field. Each theme also contains two provocative essays by leading scholars, thinkers and makers, exploring the conceptual frames in more detail. The result is a collection that is as heterogeneous, ambitious, contradictory and inspiring as the field of Live Art itself.

Contributors: Aaron Williamson, Adrian Heathfield, Alan Read, Alastair MacLennan, Alexandrina Hemsley, Amelia Jones, Andrew Mottershead, Andy Field, Anne Bean, Barby Asante, Bryan Biggs, Cassils, Catherine Wood, David A. Bailey, Dominic Johnson, Gary Anderson, George Chakravarthi, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Hayley Newman, Heike Roms, Helen Paris, James Leadbitter, Jamila Johnson-Small, Jane Trowell, Jen Harvie, Johanna Tuukkanen, John Jordan, John McGrath, Jordan McKenzie, Joshua Sofaer, Katherine Araniello, Kira O'Reilly, Lena Šimić, Leslie Hill, Lois Keidan, Lois Weaver, Manuel Vason, Martin O'Brien, Mary Paterson, Rajni Shah, Rebecca French, Richard Dedomenici, Ron Athey, RoseLee Goldberg, Selina Thompson, Simon Casson and Tim Etchells.

Co-published with Live Art Development Agency.

Winner of the 2021 TaPRA Edited Collection Prize

Sujets

Arts visuels

Théâtre

ART

Performance

Cultural Studies

General

Anthropology

General officer

Performance art

Live Art

Theatre

Performing Arts

Informations

Publié par	Intellect Books
Date de parution	12 avril 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781789380293
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1550€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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CONTENTS
FOREWORD
TWENTY YEARS AND COUNTING
LOIS KEIDAN
INTRODUCTION
THERON SCHMIDT
BODIES
INTRODUCTION
CONVERSATIONS
MARTIN O’BRIEN & KIRA O’REILLY
GEORGE CHAKRAVARTHI & MANUEL VASON
ALEXANDRINA HEMSLEY AND JAMILA JOHNSON-SMALL (PROJECT 0) & SELINA THOMPSON
PROVOCATIONS
THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED UNDERSTAND SUFFERING: NOTES ON THE BODY (IN PAIN)
DOMINIC JOHNSON
AGENCY, HABITUS, EMBODIMENT
AMELIA JONES
SPACES
INTRODUCTION
CONVERSATIONS
TIM ETCHELLS & ANDY FIELD
LESLIE HILL AND HELEN PARIS (CURIOUS) & JOHANNA TUUKKANEN
REBECCA FRENCH AND ANDREW MOTTERSHEAD (FRENCH & MOTTERSHEAD) & HAYLEY NEWMAN
PROVOCATIONS
FROM A DISTANCE
HEIKE ROMS
THE GIFT OF PLACE
JOHN E. MCGRATH
INSTITUTIONS
INTRODUCTION
CONVERSATIONS
MARY PATERSON & JOSHUA SOFAER
ROSELEE GOLDBERG & CATHERINE WOOD
GARY ANDERSON AND LENA ŠIMIĆ (THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ART AND PRACTICE OF DISSENT AT HOME) & BRYAN BIGGS
PROVOCATIONS
STILL LIVE: THE FREE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL (2010–2013)
JANE TROWELL
INSTITUTIONAL CELEBRATION
JEN HARVIE
COMMUNITIES
INTRODUCTION
CONVERSATIONS
SIMON CASSON & THE VACUUM CLEANER
JORDAN MCKENZIE & RAJNI SHAH
ANNE BEAN & ALASTAIR MACLENNAN
PROVOCATIONS
PERFORMED COMMUNITIES: IMAGINING SOME RESEARCH WORTH DOING
ALAN READ
COMMUNITY – A CASE STUDY IN FOUR ACTS: THE BREWERY, THE CIRCUS, THE WICK, AND THE GREEN
LOIS WEAVER
ACTIONS
INTRODUCTION
CONVERSATIONS
KATHERINE ARANIELLO AND AARON WILLIAMSON (THE DISABLED AVANT-GARDE) & RICHARD DEDOMENICI
BARBY ASANTE & DAVID A. BAILEY
RON ATHEY & CASSILS
PROVOCATIONS
PERFORMING UTOPIAS: FOR A LIVE ART THAT LIVES AND LETS LIVE
JOHN JORDAN
‘PHILOSOPHICAL TANTRUM’ #10: ON ART, IMAGINATION, DEMOCRACY, CENSORSHIP, HOPE, ETC.
GUILLERMO GÓMEZ-PEÑA
TIMELINE
INDEX
WORKS CITED
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Bobby Baker, Pull Yourself Together, part of Small Acts at the Millennium and Mental Health Action Week (2000). Image Hugo Glendinning.
FOREWORD: TWENTY YEARS AND COUNTING LOIS KEIDAN
When Catherine Ugwu and I launched the Live Art Development Agency in January 1999 we had no idea it would still be going twenty years later. In truth I didn’t imagine it would last beyond the term of our first Arts Council grant, let alone that LADA would grow from a two-man band based around a couple of desks, shelves and blank pieces of paper, to a six-person operation running a complex web of projects, resources, opportunities, and publishing.
The unexpected longevity and unimagined expansion of LADA in many ways speaks to advances in the profile, position, and possibilities of Live Art over the last twenty years. Some of those advances are reflected in this ‘partial’ collection of provocations and conversations curated by Theron Schmidt, which considers the agency of Live Art in relation to the big questions of Bodies, Spaces, Institutions, Communities, and Actions, and does so through the lens of LADA.
Published on the occasion of LADA’s 20th anniversary in 2019, AGENCY is, for me at least, an opportunity to reflect on how the shifts and developments within Live Art have impacted on LADA’s work, and in turn, on the ways in which what LADA does, and how it does it, have adapted and evolved.
Perhaps the biggest shift that has affected almost everyone involved with Live Art is technology. Developments in technologies allow us all to create and access online platforms to research, connect, share, catalogue, publish, and disseminate Live Art in unprecedented ways. Technology is a critical factor in the heightened level of interest and developments in the histories and archiving of Live Art and has enabled artists, scholars, and curators to both research, and create new contexts for, underrepresented artists and untold histories. Technology has been instrumental in shifts in the critical thinking and popular profile of Live Art, making it possible for artists, writers, and audiences to bypass the mainstream gatekeepers of culture. It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of technology on the functionality of LADA—our capacity to document, archive, publish, and disperse Live Art through digital publications and online platforms such as Live Online and, through them, to reach and connect artists and thinkers across the globe and to go where Live Art hasn’t gone before.
The institutional embrace of Live Art over the last twenty years is another hugely significant shift. When LADA started in 1999, Live Art was still very much the runt of the litter in the cultural life of the UK, ignored, trashed, or undervalued by most institutions. But the last twenty years has seen an unparalleled institutional engagement with experiential, experimental, and ephemeral practices, with many previously impenetrable museums, galleries, theatres, and festivals opening their doors to Live Art. Since LADA’s Live Culture programme at Tate Modern in 2003, the 2012 opening of Tate Tanks (the world’s first museum space dedicated to performance), and the extraordinary range of partnerships built by Live Art programmers and festivals across the UK, it’s now tempting to count the institutions that haven’t in some way embraced Live Art’s ways of working rather than those that have.
The widespread teaching and study of Live Art within Higher Education is an equally catalytic development that has impacted on the increasing pervasiveness of Live Art and influenced the work of LADA. In 1999, only a handful of universities and art colleges had a commitment to such kinds of process-based artistic experimentation, or understandings of how it could contribute to scholarly research and discourse. The students who made it to LADA’s office to see what was on our shelves —most of them rejects or refugees from more traditional disciplines—had invariably found us themselves, and not many artists we knew were employed to teach. LADA started at the same time as the artist Lois Weaver joined the Drama Department at Queen Mary University of London and one of our first collaborations was to set up an informal Live Art in Higher Education in London Forum. Every six months or so for a couple of years, a motley crew of academics would gather together to discuss the challenges of bringing the practices and approaches they were so passionate about into the academy. Today couldn’t be more different—LADA’s Study Room regularly welcomes students sent to us by their tutors, hosts scores of student groups from universities across the UK and beyond, many artists now hold teaching positions (albeit some more precariously than others), all kinds of Live Art related PhDs are being undertaken, and LADA works closely with a wide range of scholars and universities. Performance Studies international:12 , Performing Rights , hosted by Queen Mary in 2006, with LADA as its cultural partner, was a pivotal moment for us in testing ways we could position artistic practices within research focused contexts, and vice versa. Performance Matters (2009-2013)—an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded research project in collaboration with Adrian Heathfield of University of Roehampton and Gavin Butt of Goldsmiths, University of London, considering the cultural value of Live Art —had a seismic impact on Live Art’s, and indeed LADA’s, role within research culture. And in 2018, LADA partnered with Queen Mary University of London on a new MA Live Art. From where I sit, Live Art in Higher Education has come a long way since 1999.
This institutional embrace and academic legitimacy should not in any way suggest that Live Art has somehow been tamed. Far from it. Live Art is still a fiercely politicised, provocative, and unruly area of practice. Live Art is all about difference—different ways of making and experiencing art; different ways of documenting and dispersing performance; different ways of being in, and seeing, the world; and different ways of occupying the institution and rethinking approaches to research and knowledge.
In 1999, the kinds of artists and practices LADA particularly championed were not only interested in the body as their site and subject, and in testing the nature, role, and experience of art, but were just as concerned with representations of cultural difference, with the construction and performance of identity, with giving visibility to the hidden and forbidden. For LADA, Live Art was more than a space to think about what art is and can do, it was a space to think about who has agency and what they can do with it.
Over the last twenty years, the embodied and subversive practices around the politics of the body that so characterised much Live Art in the late 1990s are still as vital and urgent as ever—but Live Art as a practice and an approach has also influenced a wider spectrum of process-based, experiential art, spanning all kinds of disciplines and subjectivities, and testing new forms of audience relationships. Since 2016, LADA has been working with the artist and researcher Sibylle Peters and Tate Early Years and Families Programme on projects inviting children and adults to look at the world together through Live Art. With these partners we have produced PLAYING UP , an intergenerational game based on historical Live Art works, and KAPUTT , a transgenerational academy of creative destruction, and, through them, contributed to debates and practices on what it is possible, and permissible, to do with kids, and on what that doing can do . Such radical and transgressive children’s projects would have been inconceivable for either LADA or Tate in 1999 and reflect both the changes in societal attitudes to children and childhood and the evolving potential of Live Art itself.
One of the ways I’ve been looking back on LADA’s history has been through location. In her essay in this collection (in the section on Communities), Lois Weaver writes beautifully about the different locations that LADA has occupied since 1999 across the East End of London and what those l