Many scholars mark Allan Kaprow’s happenings as the beginning of performance art. Others have named Ghandi as the first actual performance artist. Others still have identified the beginning of performance art in the Dada and Futurist movements.
Unfortunately these scholars are all dead wrong. The first performance art piece actually took place during the Renaissance and was commissioned by none other than Pope Clement VIII. The first performance art piece was a true masterpiece that still burns in our memories today. It was a real sacrifice on the part of the performer and the work deserves to be added to RoseLee Goldberg’s next anthology of performance art.

On February 17th, 1600, a crudely erected stage appeared in the middle of a main city square in Rome. A crowd gathered to view a performance they had seen advertised all around the city. General admission was charged for viewing, and the performance began to take shape.

Two assistants were busying themselves on the uneven wooden platform in Rome’s Campo di Fiori as they tried to make last minute adjustments to the performance area. Silence overtook the crowd as they began to realize that the event they were about to witness would never be repeated. Giordano Bruno ascended the stage and solemnly took his place in the center. His two assistants rapidly descended from the stage and left Bruno to begin his performance. Bruno waited calmly as a third assistant quietly lit a torch. The crowd watched in disbelief as the third artist assistant gracefully walked about the stage igniting it in various places. Flames quickly overtook the stage and Giordano Bruno was burned alive.

This might appear to be just a routine Inquisitional burning at first, but let’s examine the facts a little further. The stage name of the artist in question was Giordano Bruno, but his birth name was actually Filippo Bruno. Early in his artistic career, Bruno dabbled in other forms of expression, such as writing, rhetoric, and vagrancy. Unfortunately none of the art forms gave him much pleasure until he discovered the rewarding field of performance art. Once he found he desired path, he had no shortage of supporters, patrons, and disciples. He was later to become the darling of the Inquisition set and was invited to all their high society gatherings. It was in this enlightened environment that he gained the attention of the Pope who agreed to commission Bruno to burn himself alive before an audience.

Records from the era show the Pope’s skepticism regarding the public’s response, but the turnout proved his skepticism to be unfounded. Bruno’s performance piece remains the most lucrative artistic event in history, with gross earnings reaching upwards of 10,000 Florins, a sum that would be unimaginable today.

Created by Jeffrey Andreoni On 04/14/09 At 08:38 AM

Money for nothing
Most artists do not deal with anything. The “art geniuses” deal with “artistic issues” which are of interest only to the art critiques and a hand full of artists, and by that narrow the language of art – the language of shapes and colors, the most universal language possible – down to a collection of petty conflicts and dilemmas with tedious solutions that are of no importance to anyone, at any scale. Few are the artists who deal with issues and problems concerning the whole of humanity and the essence of existence, probably just as few are the people who really care about others of their kind.

Perhaps the beautiful thing about the art of the Middle Ages, for example which was mostly religious, is that it really served a purpose. There is no doubt (I think) that they are primitive, and there is no doubt that utilizing different solutions and revelations from the course of art along the ages might assist in conveying messages in a more articulate, advanced, attractive, credible, authentic and diverse manner. However, I feel that in the great efforts of escaping the conditionings and fixations of the archaic and institutionalized art and of creating new “art languages” every alternate day, perhaps unconsciously art has gradually become a tool in its own hands and nothing more.

Kahnweiler, what?
For example, problems in the field of analytic cubism interested only Picasso, Braque and a hand full more of copycat cubistic artists and the enthusiastic art critiques and interpreters who found some new “artistic issue” to mess with as a child would have with a new toy. But actually all that toy does is distracting the mind from the simple truth, that there is no real essence in analytic cubism. It is merely an anal fetishism of that hand full of artists who were to busy in being artists and not as much so in being humans. Brass tacks, who cares about the fairly-artistic and vital-scientific “problem” of expressing three-dimensional forms upon a two-dimensional canvas?

And even if and when I bother in great exertion to discover the hidden abstract (excuse me for saying) facial features behind the title: “Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler”, then what? Who cares to discover that at all? What am I supposed to do with this discovery? Who gives a shit about him, anyway? Hence, the cubistic portrait of the chap was not meant for anything expect for being a tool in the hands of Picasso, with which to disintegrate the “real” nature into another “real” nature which he defined. That’s all. No one else cares about that.
Malfunctioning horsiness
Does a blacksmith manufacture cubistic horseshoes which do not fit any horse only for the sake of forcefully inventing and then solving some problematic issue in the field of perceiving the interaction between the three-dimensionality of the horse and the multi-dimensionality of horsiness? No, he does not. Similarly, you can imagine a situation where you stand in front of someone, engaged in a conversation, and that someone does not seize to blather pointlessly, only because he is so busy in utilizing language for the sake of finding new ways for utilizing that same language.

There is nothing wrong in the endeavor for enriching the language, whatever it is, when that language has a purpose of conveying a message. This is its only purpose.

Accessing art
I think that many people are recoiled by art. They fear from it because in the course of generations – initially fueled by the insecurity of the Renaissance artists and later on by their followers – it transformed from a simple creative practice into a sophisticated trade of philosophical contemplation in the hands of some arrogant intellectual elite, and therefore seized to serve the people. The fear of the artists from being “of the people” as blacksmiths and not “elitist” as philosophers caused art to lose its integrity and to turn into an empty and useless tool.

What makes art accessible to the common people has got nothing to do with whether or not it is created from common day to day materials. The problem is that not only that the different forms of modern art are the opposite of user-friendly, but on top of that the manufacturer does not even bother to supply minimal instructions for the buyer. If you studied art and you are ably clairvoyant and good in seeing through pillars and walls, then you’ll understand it and if not then ‘ts’yo’problem.
You may stand there in that gallery and gaze at your will like a drowsy cat, while you take caution not to admit your ignorance if you are an intellectual, and admit it with a jaw-breaking yawn if you are truly wise.

Every doing, every product in this world serves all, this is why it was manufactured to begin with. Art is an exception to that rule; it is the only field which serves only itself and its products are consumed only by the fashion clerks of contemporary art.

The boundaries of art
The picture expresses pictoriality, the theme of the painting is the method of paintings itself and the theme of the sculpture is sculpting… could it be that the message is “message” and that a dog is made out of a “dog”? does medicine exist for the sake of its own self, or rather for the sake of curing the ill? Is the purpose of a scientific research to amuse the mind of some physics geniuses or rather to discover for the benefit of humanity and a better future?

You cannot explain a term using the term itself. You cannot exceed the boundaries of painting by painting, not to mention exceeding the boundaries of reality by inventing an illusionary alternate reality. Painting about painting is parallel to talking about talking or languaging about language upon langiging the linguabenge – art is not a method for attaining the ultimate truth or changing reality. This is reality.

Hand in hand
Tell me a story, interest me, take me with you on a fascinating journey and teach me some lesson. Waken inspiration within me, make me think, feel and grow up as a human being. Make me look at art, eye to eye and learn from it about myself, because art without a purposeful message is like a good-looking stupid girl – nice to look at but no dialogue. In this case I’d rather drink my coffee by myself – Starbucks offers a pretty good Cappucino and not to bad of a chocolate croissant.

Created by Ilan Lichtnayer On 02/05/09 At 12:25 PM