Last night's panel, "Intangible", at F.I.T. was geared up to be a discussion on new media and performance art in the art market. As someone who works in a gallery that does deal with new media, I was eager to hear Thea Westreich, Jeffrey Deitch, Clifford Owens, and Cara Starke's take on it all.
Unfortunately I left the discussion more confused than I had arrived. The topics of preservation and documentation, when questioned, were usually responded to with an "I don't know, we'll just have to see what happens in time" sort of answer. The overarching point all of the panelists tried to get across was that performance art:
1. is something that has been around for quite a while
2. will probably develop in another direction as technology and society develop
3. has a value. Even if they found it impossible to explain the breakdown of that pricing process. (Although Deitch did suggest that simply asserting the price could be in itself part of the artist's performance)
I was totally perplexed by Ms. Westreich's story of a performance artist who requested to perform alone--in the collector's house, but alone. Which got me thinking about that old philosophical riddle, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" If a performance must either be experienced live, or understood through documentation, what on earth do we do with a scenario that offers neither of these options?
Mind. Boggling.
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