We decided the only way the stories and true meanings behind the artwork would be to perform them; ‘Live art is one of the most vibrant and influential of creative approaches in the United Kingdom… to open up new artist models, new languages for the representation of ideas, new ways of activating audiences and new strategies for intervening in public life (Keidan, 2006, p. 9). A public view a piece of art for a few seconds and move on, it is impossible to gain a knowledge of anything past the obvious from a glance or at bet a long stare. The artworks all have a story to tell and we do not get to see these stories, even if the artwork presented has no drastic meaning. They get given a date and name of the creation.
‘Live art can offer a place, a context and a process in which audiences can become involved or immersed in the creation of artworks and in which the experiences of the neglected, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, or the disembodied can be made visible sometimes for the first time.’ (Keidan, 2006, p. 14).
We felt we had been given the opportunity to explore the artworks in The Usher Gallery. If we became the artwork and told the stories we could potentially make the artwork something that engages the public and transforming them from a public into an audience or spectator; ‘…Urging audiences to consider what it means to be here, now, whenever and wherever here may be (Keidan, 2006, p.12).
By using the current artwork in the museum we are curating the artwork into our opinions and opinions we have researched on; ‘the new ‘species’ entering the museum is not a ‘curational life form’ but the performer, the artist is an interpreter rather than a creator of live work’ (Levine, 2013, p. 291). By using our own bodies to interpret the artwork that has hung for several years we have to be aware of the interpretation that have previously existed and the assumptions that the public may gain from having a real person presented to them. Levine states; ‘performing relies on and invests in the body which cannot be transferred, presaged or entirely controlled… the body in performance is tied to the historical devalued realm of physical labour.’ (2013, p. 294).
Citation
Keidan, L. (2006) Thoughts on place, paclessness and Live art since 1980’s, London: Pelgrave Macmillian.
Levine, A. (2013) Being a thing: The Work of Performing in the Museum, London: Routledge.