National Review of Live Art
Tramway, Glasgow
9 February 2007

For Flagrante Delicto the artist Claire refuses to use her surname and by this employs a deliberate strategy of anonymity. Claire’s anonymity is re-enforced in various texts accompanying the performance- in booklets, business cards and programme information - so much so that it becomes an important point for me: Why am I being deliberately led as reader, as audience member, to read this anonymity as significant in this artist’s practice? I am confused, firstly by the first name which belies the desired anonymity; 'Claire' is a western Judo-Christian woman’s name. And secondly, because denial of Claire’s surname is evidently strategic on her part; Claire feels the holding back of her surname is important to the content of her performance. As a result of this, I imagine what Claire’s surname could be, and in what way it would be distracting from Flagrante Delicto? Moreover, I wonder about what reasons –political, criminal, protective, familial - there might be for concealing a surname?

Once inside the darkened performance space my first glance of Flagrante Delicto confirms that Claire is white and, from the outside at least, she is a natural or biological woman. The work itself consists of Claire, dressed in black with black leather fingerless gloves and shaved head, moving in between four wooden doors and slamming each one firmly behind her. Isolating the action of a door slamming from its everyday context - be it the result of an angry domestic argument or a rushed exit – and repeating it in the pared down performance style reminiscent of Alan Kapprow’s 1960’s Happenings, highlights the ritual aspect of such ordinary gestures and in doing so makes them strange. In addition, each slam of the doors is a violent and irregular interruption that is impossible for the audience to anticipate or prepare for.

But, as a member of the audience my thoughts - however broken by the disturbing slamming sounds -are brought back to how ‘queering’ the action of a slamming door might be significant in relation to Claire’s desire for anonymity, or significant to the work as a whole? Flagrante Delicto brings together Claire’s attempt at anonymity - including her written statements and the attempt to strip down her (female) identity via her shaved head and sturdy all black clothing. The work also highlights the slamming of doors as ritualistic, loaded and performative of sonic and bodily violence. In addition, meaning is also lent to the piece via the translation of the Latin phrase ‘In Flagrante Delicto ‘ (while [the crime] is blazing); also a common English euphemism for being ‘caught in the act’ of a (flagrant) sexual encounter.

These distinct elements of identity, anonymity and violence are visually combined, and so clearly at stake, in Flagrante Delicto . However, the interpretation of sexual (mis)adventure is only immediately available to audience members with an understanding of the Latin phrase and the English euphemism that it relates to. Moreover, far from banal, the visual signifiers that signpost meaning in Flagrante Delicto act in defiance of Claire’s attempt at anonymity. Instead, the visual clues are brimming with specific, culturally loaded and potentially misleading information; Claire’s shaven headed look, masculine clothes and black leather fingerless gloves remind me of an overtly LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender ) 1980’s ‘scene’ look. A clear link can also be made from the leather gloves, the physical strain of slamming the doors and the violence of the slam itself (which is oddly reminiscent of a loud whip-crack) to sexual violence and Sadomasochism.

The sum of what these disparate parts combine into wasn’t enough for me to establish meaning upon my visit to Flagrante Delicto , nor were the individual elements tempting enough for me to want to stay for the works entire two hour duration. What Flagrante Delicto does add up to is a Live Art performance in the making, one that needs more careful choreography with regards to content and scripting of accompanying text material in order to be better pieced together and so stand up to critical scrutiny. To this end, re-considering the visual elements of the performance, re-drafting an accessible artists’ statement and having a translation of the phrase ‘In Flagrante Delicto ‘ available in the performance space, or clearly printed in the written material, would have been a real bonus.

Rachel Lois clapham

Image Credit: Pablo Bronstein, Balletto Neoclassico, 2007. Dancers from Teatro Nuovo, Torino. Courtesy Galleria Franco Noero

Pablo Bronstein 'Plaza Minuet'
Plaza Minuet was performed in four parts in New York on November 7

Part 1, 2 – 2.30pm Winter Gardens, World Financial Center
Part 2, 3 – 3.30pm 80 Pine Street
Part 3, 4 - 4.30pm One New York Plaza
Part 4, 5 - 5.30pm 60 Wall Street

Apart from the turquoise-leotard wearing dancers who perform in them, each of the spaces chosen by Pablo Bronstein for his Plaza Minuet have one thing in common. These grand halls in New York’s wealthy financial district are all ‘privately owned public spaces’: areas designated for public use and maintained by private companies. When Bronstein’s dancers bound into each venue, mark a cross on the floor and move in slow unison between Ballet positions, they are simply exercising their public right to be there. So what makes them look so strange?

Firstly, the dancers’ costumes deliberately jar with their surroundings. Their bright, figure-hugging leotards clash with the décor and the dark suits worn by those who work nearby. Secondly, the dancers’ movements look out of place. These splendid lobbies, with their marble pillars, palm trees and ambient lighting, are used as spaces to walk through, not perform in. Even the vast atrium of 60 Wall Street (owned by Deutsche Bank), in which people play chess on tables and chairs at the sides of the hall, functions mainly as a thoroughfare on the way to the subway.

These public spaces have been carefully designed by their private owners with particular uses in mind. But by marking out their own area in the middle of each venue, as well as marking themselves as visually different, the dancers in Plaza Minuet ignore both the architectural imperatives of the buildings’ design and the social implications of other people’s willingness to abide by them. In 60 Wall Street, for example, the trees and pillars are not just grand but they also compel people forward, narrowing pathways and suggesting direction. The dancers cut across these pathways and the commuters using them, to disrupt the flow of movement.

Put simply, the dancers don’t behave like you’re supposed to – they don’t behave in the way these spaces expect. As well as looking strange, this misbehaviour exposes the rules the rest of us follow. But it’s more than mere resistance to authority that makes the Plaza Minuet dancers stand out – it’s competition to it. The artist, Pablo Bronstein, and a choreographer, Hilary Nanney, instruct the dancers when to change position, and they correct individuals when they make a mistake. In this way, the dancers in Plaza Minuet do not simply disobey the silent rules of their architectural surroundings, but they submit to an alternative authority – the bodily discipline of Ballet, as embodied by Bronstein and Nanney.

Brought together physically, the authority of Ballet and the authority of the architecture of public space expose the ideological implications of each other. The comparison between the two is illuminating, because both types of authority compete on the same terms. Both Ballet and the architecture of public space adopt a strong visual code (turquoise leotards/ marble pillars); both expect silent complicity from their subjects (no rewards for success, only punishment –for example, looking strange – for failure); and both seek to incorporate individuals into a compliant group (with no reward, conformity must be an end in itself.) It’s also illuminating because these terms normally remain hidden – naturalisation, in fact, is another tactic the two types of authority share. While the beautiful illusion of Ballet is maintained by its disavowal of physical hardship, the awesome spell of Wall Street’s architecture is preserved by the myth of the easy accumulation of wealth.

In this way, Plaza Minuet enacts a competition between the authority of Ballet and the authority of the architecture of public space, and makes them both visible in the process. But, just as the ‘lie’ of capitalism is not weakened, according to Marx, by its exposure, this explication of institutional authority is far from critical of its subject. Opening up the machinations of Ballet and of the architecture of public space, Plaza Minuet questions the institutions’ claims to natural authority; but it also suggests that authority itself is inescapable – the only way to notice one set of rules is to succumb to the other.

In fact, it’s this interest in rules as a principle – rather than what they stand for – that finally marks the dancers in Plaza Minuet as strange. Even though Ballet is exposed as a form of bodily control, the dancers choose to conform to its strictures. This choice to comply goes against the pervasive individualism of twenty-first century Euro-American culture. Indeed, it goes against the capitalistic individualism on which Wall Street’s wealth is built, at the same time as it questions the veracity of that myth by exposing the architectural authority that supports it. In this way, Plaza Minuet uses a dance derived from Renaissance-era court practise to reach behind our understanding of the individual, and question the sovereignty of the twenty-first century subject.

Mary Paterson

Image credit: He Yunchang, ' Mahjong, 2007'. Photographer Paula Court. Courtesy: Courtesy of the artist and PERFORMA.

Interview between Performa Writing Live Fellow, Rachel Lois Clapham and artist He Yun Chang, dated 14 November 2007.

Beijing-based artist He Yun Chang is arguably the leading performance artist presently working in China. Over the last eleven years, he has created a series of unique and discrete solo performances in which he has placed exceptional physical demands upon himself both in terms of his strength and endurance. For PERFORMA07, He Yun Chang devised a unique version of Mahjong, based on the ancient but popular Chinese game, but using over 100 mahjong ‘tiles’ made from large cement bricks. The artist played this game in New York's Washington
Square Park for four hours with various audience members.

Rachel Lois Clapham (RLC) How did Mahjong 2007 come about?

He Yun Chang (HYC) I thought of the idea 2-3 years ago but my gallery, Chambers Fine Art, set it up with Performa for 2007. People usually play Mahjong recreationally but I wanted to subvert it, turn it into something else and make it physically oppressive. My version of the game is quite cruel, that's what the heavy bricks are about. Also I like the idea of playing it for a long time in the hot sun or in middle of winter, like here in New York. Someone told me that Korean soldiers are made to play a similar model of the game, with very large bricks as part of their torture in prison but that's not necessarily the most important thing in Mahjong 2007. What's important is playing the game with the audience, rather than the game itself. Previous performances have been dangerous, solitary or censored, whereas in Mahjong it was important that I was able to have the audience in the space with me in, and interact with them. My relationship with the audience in Mahjong is also quite friendly - unlike the wrestling game I played in 'One and One Hundred, 2001' where the relationship with the audience was definitely tense, antagonistic. People really wanted to hurt me and to win! In Mahjong the process of playing, the time we spend playing it, is much more important than winning the game.

RLC Why do Mahjong in Washington Square?

HYC Because it's a public space; some people go ice skating, some people eat a meal there, I chose to play my version of Mahjong. It could have been anywhere public really. I was ideally looking for somewhere a bit warmer!

RLC You wanted to be warmer. You also ended the performance 45 minutes early (at 6.15). Does this mean perseverance or physical endurance are less important to you in Mahjong than in other previous works?

HYC Physical endurance is still a factor, its' just that there were logistical problems with Mahjong. I ended the work early because it was cold and raining but more so because several of the people could not play the game properly, which really affected the piece. The police also came part way through Mahjong and made me put my clothes on, which also interrupted the performance. The nakedness was important. I have always performed naked so I was naked whilst playing Mahjong- for continuity- but I also think nudity makes the performance more pure, with less distractions. Being exposed to the elements when naked was also a way of increasing the magnitude of what was happening in Mahjong, it made the game a starker contrast to the wet and the cold.

RLC Do you consider Mahjong a success, even though you were interrupted by the police and stopped early because it was cold and raining?

HYC Yes. It is a success because I completed the performance. I carried it out. It is out of my control whether the police stop the work; they have guns and I don't! Carrying out my work in the face of those elements does have a connected interaction with those chance elements. But they are also forces that are out of my control and so not central to the work's success.

RLC Is Mahjong a new side to your work, a softer side, in which you testing your physical and mental limits is less important?

HYC It's true that I often pitch my body and my individual will in contrast to external forces ( harsh weather, strong water, poured concrete) or chance elements, like being interrupted by the police, that is important in my work. But in some pieces I vary the concept and lessen that element. Often, like in Mahjong, the process itself is as important as fighting against those forces, whether they are outside (natural, instigated by others ) or from within myself (my own endurance against my own body or will). In that way, the process and act of completion, following through with the act of performance, expressing it physically with the audience is key, in spite of any logistical, natural or chance factors that may stop or hinder the work in some way.

RLC How would you feel if a someone walked through the park, saw the game, and didn't realise Mahjong 2007 was a performance or something original?

HYC I wouldn't mind at all, that would be wonderful! My work is very ordinary looking. I always use the simplest materials in order to create the largest imaginary space. Even with simple, everyday gestures and materials you can make work of a great magnitude and get the essence of something important. Also, it wouldn't matter to me if some people thought what I was doing wasn't art, or was pointless. In my 9 month tour of the UK in 2006, 'Touring Great Britain with Rock,' I often had only two or three people watching me and sometimes in China I don't have any audience at all, so I don't necessarily think about who will witness or understand the work. My feeling is that if some people pass by Mahjong and don't understand what they see, give them 100 days and they can have a think about it.

RLC Is it true that your work gets more interrupted here in the US, than in China?

HYC I have never actually been 'caught' doing a performance in China, but have been arrested in the US a few times. My work is under the radar of the authorities in China because of the locations and spaces I perform in; often in private enclosed gallery spaces or outside in the remote countryside. But there are big differences too: my performance work is not so easy to do in China because nudity is not allowed, that's why I waited to do Mahjong here in New York. Chinese audiences don't have the general level of understanding about art, or the same generosity or openness to understand or interact with different things as art. For instance, a lot of people in China still don't consider what I do art. On the other hand, there is more financial support and artistic, institutional, frameworks outside China for artists doing performance. That doesn't mean performance doesn't happen in China. There are spaces in which you can perform, and perform nude, but for big projects like 'Touring Great Britain with Rock' 2006, it is much more conceivable outside China.

RLC Pitching your individual will or mental limits against that of your own physical body- do you see that separation of those two elements, a separation of self, as political in your work?

HYC For most people intellect and body operate in tandem, but sometimes the intellect is superior. Under normal conditions we are used to what the body and intellect can do together, but under extreme situations sometimes the body takes over to do amazing things as well. I feel that China is a very complex society, one in which it is important to use your body and your intellect so you can stop and face its reality. Highlighting the body in this way, as separate, is also important because, historically, Chinese people have not endowed the physical body with value, rather they have valued the spirit of the Chinese people, as a collective. Contemporary China is much more individual in its thinking, so it's a pull between the two. By putting pressure on an idea about myself (my intellect) and my own body I can make it into something much larger.

RLC Do you foresee a time when political, body-based or nude performances will be shown alongside other contemporary visual art forms in china?

HYC Not in the short term, no.

RLC What has been the most lasting effect of your performance work to date-mentally, physically or emotionally?

HYC It is my health that has suffered the most because my body has been in danger so many times. In Buffalo 2005, as part of the exhibition 'The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art,' I did a performance where I stood in the Niagara waterfall and the police came, they were worried and took me straight to hospital. The doctor told me my kidneys had failed because my body was so cold from being submerged in the freezing water. In general I am also getting increasingly grumpy and short tempered. Despite all this I think the most valuable contribution I can make is to use my body to express ideas and give other people imagination. That is more important than my health. I have also derived much pleasure and enjoyment from my performances over the years.

RLC What project are you planning next?

HYC I'm planning to do something for 2008 in China that involves my mother and will be three months long. It's going to be great. I can't do it in the UK or the US as the insurance costs will be too high. I can't say anymore about it, all will be revealed in due course.

RLC Is there anything you want to ask me?

HYC Can you make Performa happen earlier in the year next time, so it's not so cold? October and November are too cold in New York.

RLC I'll do my best?!