Question 1: While rationally I can understand that Burden’s work has a context of the Minimalism and the spectacle of war, I don’t think personally I can accept Shoot to be a piece of artwork. Emotionally, the question of why would anyone in his/her right mind would attempt something like this is what I thought of initially. I understand that assigning “a pathological state” (116) as Fraser described does not help to explain the work in question, is art really capable of transcending legality, rationality, etc that as long as it is piece of artwork expressing certain ideas, it is acceptable? Especially on pg 118, in an interview with Chris Burden, he claimed “Well, it’s something to experience. How do you know how it feels like to be shot if you don’t experience it? It seems interesting enough to be worth doing.” I can understand his artistic/intellectual curiosity to do with being shot, but actually creating a stage actively for it to happen seems outrageous and insane. How can the deliberate process of planning to be shot considered as an act of creating artwork?
Question 2: Fraser talked about how ethical individuals would attempt to stop the shooting from taking place. He said “the very violence of shoot seems to have called out for intervention on the part of the collaborators or audience members….Yet, once it was in train, some combination of the expectation of a specialist public, prurient fascination, an antimoralistic, antiauthoritarian historical milieu, even the brevity of the work, prevented any such intervention.” (117) What I think is interesting is that if someone actually did make a gesture to stop the shooting, how would it change the nature of the work?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Ward/Burden
Q1: Frazer Ward, in Gray Zone: Watching Shoot, includes several quotes from Chris Burden about his performance, Shoot. “I’d be telling a bunch of people, and that would make it happen.” “Often there were only two or three people there to see them, or maybe just the people who were helping me.” “All the audience cannot help but place themselves into my shoes.” “I’d convinced all the people around me so much no one even brought a first-aid kit.” “There would be this grey zone, like – was I shot? Or was I not?” Burden has a very down to earth way of describing these things. He seems almost artless. As if he can boil down his own performance to a few salient ideas without belaboring it or getting subatomic. Ward, on the other hand, falls on the other end of the rhetorical spectrum. He reads many things into Shoot. In light of this contrast…is he reading more than is there? Perhaps it was the novelty. These days, this sort of thing (violent/shocking performance) underwhelms us. For example, another performance artists: Genessis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle. As a “performance,” he and his wife had gender reassignment procedures and plastic surgery to turn into the same person. Most people never heard about it. The response of many who did? Meh. What would Ward have to say? Probably much less than he had to say about Shoot.
Q2: Are Burden’s performances mostly notable for their spectacular qualities? If NO ONE ever saw shoot, either in person or via media, and there was no shooter to witness it either, but just an auto trigger to do the firing….would we care?
Q1: Frazer Ward, in Gray Zone: Watching Shoot, includes several quotes from Chris Burden about his performance, Shoot. “I’d be telling a bunch of people, and that would make it happen.” “Often there were only two or three people there to see them, or maybe just the people who were helping me.” “All the audience cannot help but place themselves into my shoes.” “I’d convinced all the people around me so much no one even brought a first-aid kit.” “There would be this grey zone, like – was I shot? Or was I not?” Burden has a very down to earth way of describing these things. He seems almost artless. As if he can boil down his own performance to a few salient ideas without belaboring it or getting subatomic. Ward, on the other hand, falls on the other end of the rhetorical spectrum. He reads many things into Shoot. In light of this contrast…is he reading more than is there? Perhaps it was the novelty. These days, this sort of thing (violent/shocking performance) underwhelms us. For example, another performance artists: Genessis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle. As a “performance,” he and his wife had gender reassignment procedures and plastic surgery to turn into the same person. Most people never heard about it. The response of many who did? Meh. What would Ward have to say? Probably much less than he had to say about Shoot.
Q2: Are Burden’s performances mostly notable for their spectacular qualities? If NO ONE ever saw shoot, either in person or via media, and there was no shooter to witness it either, but just an auto trigger to do the firing….would we care?
Gray Zone: Watching Shoot
Q1. When reading Ward's article, I found it very interesting that no one called the police when the shooting occurred. Usually when someone is shot, people around the incident render it necessary to call the police, but in this case since it was considered art, no one called the police. Does that make it okay to not call the police just because it is art? Did the viewers have a responsibility to call the police?
Q2. I understand that Burden had his friend shoot himself because he wanted the public to place themselves into his shoes while simultaneously speaking to the Vietnam War, but is what he did ethical? Is it okay to shoot someone for the sake of art? Was shooting himself the only way to get the point across or that there another way to get his point across without bloodshed?
Gray Zone: Watching Shoot
Q1: I find it interesting that after Chris Burden performed Shoot, everyone called him a martyr, a heroic victim, etc.; all quick to label him under something that people could understand rather than looking at the meaning behind his art piece. Thus his artwork becoming a spectacle more than anything else. People were fascinated and interested in what he did because no one has ever put themselves in a position to intentionally get shot. Later in Frazer Ward's article he mentions if the final outcome of the artpiece were to change and Chris Burden died, then the reaction from the public would be the complete opposite of fascination, they would most likely disapprove and ridicule. So I wonder why people don't see that possibility and still ridicule him? Does this show mindless the public can be? Does it take something serious and dangerous for people to wake up and realize what is not a spectacle? I feel like this reaction from public can be compared to their reaction to the rest of the world and real life situations. Because violence is so common people don't do anything until there are real consequences, like when killings of Jews was finally called a genocide. Is this what Frazer Ward is talking about when he talks about the responsibility of the audience?
Q2: Burden claims that his art pieces are private, but he said in order to execute his work he must tell the public. If he does this, he then has an obligation but when it comes to the actual viewing of his performances, there are only a couple of people allowed in the audience therefore creating a private work. Frazer explains that this means that his work is sort of public as well and creates a 'primary and secondary audience'. I'm not sure if i understand what he is trying to say about the relationship between the private and the public. I understand the responsibility of the private audience, but what is the responsibility of the public?
Q2: Burden claims that his art pieces are private, but he said in order to execute his work he must tell the public. If he does this, he then has an obligation but when it comes to the actual viewing of his performances, there are only a couple of people allowed in the audience therefore creating a private work. Frazer explains that this means that his work is sort of public as well and creates a 'primary and secondary audience'. I'm not sure if i understand what he is trying to say about the relationship between the private and the public. I understand the responsibility of the private audience, but what is the responsibility of the public?
Gray Zone: Watching Shoot
Q1: After reading about Chris Burden's work, I can't help but question the legality of what occurred. It all just sounds so mysterious, at least from reading this article alone. How could he just lie to the police about the context of his shooting, and then not get in trouble after the truth came out? How is it possible that the audience and the marksman continue to be publicly anonymous? It would be interesting to interview these witnesses to get their input on the effect of the work on their lives afterwards, and I'm amazed no one has sought their names. I wonder if Burden himself has asked them what they thought about it in private.
Q2: While I can sort of understand what Burden was trying to accomplish and the fascination it brings, it still seems like a stupid thing to do. How is this form of protest against the Vietnam War more powerful than the actual images and death counts from the war broadcasted every night on television and radio? With so many casualties overseas, what's the significance of some guy who decides to voluntarily be shot by a friend and then calls it art?
Q2: While I can sort of understand what Burden was trying to accomplish and the fascination it brings, it still seems like a stupid thing to do. How is this form of protest against the Vietnam War more powerful than the actual images and death counts from the war broadcasted every night on television and radio? With so many casualties overseas, what's the significance of some guy who decides to voluntarily be shot by a friend and then calls it art?
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Shoot (Him Again)!
Question 1 – There has been a general trend in class that sometimes art just doesn’t appear to be art, i.e. Malevich’s Black Square. There has also been a tendency for artists seeking to redefine their role and participation with their artwork – Shoot I believe is an example of where Burden really redefines his role as artist in producing his artwork. My question is what do we call an individual like Burden? Do we still consider him to be an artist? Or do we agree with Frazer in calling Burden other names aside from recognizing him as artist, i.e. “victim-by-request”?
Question 2 – Reassessing the context in which Shoot came about, how popular would Burden’s work of art be in today’s society? Would Shoot still be considered a Minimalism example while also an example of the “spectacle of war”? Would 21st Century Americans widely approve of Burden’s work of art or instead protest against such visible violence in the form of art?
Question 2 – Reassessing the context in which Shoot came about, how popular would Burden’s work of art be in today’s society? Would Shoot still be considered a Minimalism example while also an example of the “spectacle of war”? Would 21st Century Americans widely approve of Burden’s work of art or instead protest against such visible violence in the form of art?
SHOOT
first of all, how is this legal? The museum is an institution like the government and i am somewhat astonished that the museum allowed it to happen. When thinking about how no one stopped it, not the artist, not the shooter, and not the audience, one realizes why did not the people who work at or manage the museum stop it?
The article discusses how this art piece is critical of the vietnam war and how chris is somewhat a martyr but i feel like this is much different. It is shocking and masochistic but at the same time i don't think it expresses the strife of war but rather the intensity of art. It says in the article that he did not beliece that it was the same thing as war because he was shot at by a friend and not a foe, but at the same time he felt like he experienced somethign similar. My first question is, if it is similar to war then how can one be shot so non-chalantly and acceptingly? My other question is that many of the people who went to vietnam and experienced being shot at were forced to go, and Burden's artowrk "shoot" is entirely voluntarily.
Lastly, this artwork is described by Burden as being both public and private. It was public in the sense that people witnessed it, but it was private because it was such a small group of people who observed. My question is if he did this entirely privately, just him and the shooter, how would it affect the artwork, and likewise, if he did it entirely public in front of hundreds of people, how would that affect the artwork. Though it is hard to believe that nobody intervened during this situation, i feel like if their hundreds of people riots and protest could break out, and if done in private the artwork would be nearly meaningless because it would lose its believability. No matter what though, i think the artwork is incredibly astonishing and i am happy that someone had the guts to entertain an idea so shocking and profound.
The article discusses how this art piece is critical of the vietnam war and how chris is somewhat a martyr but i feel like this is much different. It is shocking and masochistic but at the same time i don't think it expresses the strife of war but rather the intensity of art. It says in the article that he did not beliece that it was the same thing as war because he was shot at by a friend and not a foe, but at the same time he felt like he experienced somethign similar. My first question is, if it is similar to war then how can one be shot so non-chalantly and acceptingly? My other question is that many of the people who went to vietnam and experienced being shot at were forced to go, and Burden's artowrk "shoot" is entirely voluntarily.
Lastly, this artwork is described by Burden as being both public and private. It was public in the sense that people witnessed it, but it was private because it was such a small group of people who observed. My question is if he did this entirely privately, just him and the shooter, how would it affect the artwork, and likewise, if he did it entirely public in front of hundreds of people, how would that affect the artwork. Though it is hard to believe that nobody intervened during this situation, i feel like if their hundreds of people riots and protest could break out, and if done in private the artwork would be nearly meaningless because it would lose its believability. No matter what though, i think the artwork is incredibly astonishing and i am happy that someone had the guts to entertain an idea so shocking and profound.
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