Performance Art and Myself

Today in visual concepts the basis for class was performance art. We paired up and went outside (and amongst the public) and performed three of Kaprow's performance pieces. the exercise was fun and an interesting mix apart from what the class has been doing. The activities included one performance where two people were to stand back to back and with mirrors look at one another with the mirrors and make faces as the partners walked away. This was interesting to do in front of a Safeway not to far from school and receive a crowd reaction. People didn't know at first what to think of what we were doing. Many people became quickly annoyed and others watched with enthusiasm. In all the exercise was a success, people were sort of put off by what we were doing, and others were spectators. I feel that they felt that it was interesting to see these two young people making faces with mirrors it was somewhat peculiar.

One More Thing!
In class it was an assignment to research performance art as developed by Fluxus, Gutai, and Nouveau Realists and Dada, here are my findings:
Fluxus: Fluxus around its conception and height was an art movement most say spawned by concepts by composer John Cage and influenced by George Maciunas. Fluxus put forth the DIY or "Do it Yourself" aesthetic. A lot of the artwork was centered on minimalism over complexity. Famous Fluxus artist was Robert Filliou. One other thing Fluxus art differed greatly from Dadaism in the way that Dada had a more verbose set of accomplishments and aspirations around its artwork.
Gutai: Gutai was an artistic movement in the 1950s founded by an individual by the name of Jiro Yoshihara. There is a manifesto of the Gutai movement written by Yoshihara and all of its beliefs and what the movement stands for. Gutai can be looked at hand in hand with the Fluxus movement for the artist has the same influences such as prosperity and minimalism.
Nouveau Realists: Nouveau Realists or New Realists is an artistic movement from the 1960s founded by an art critic by the name of Pierre Restany and a painter Yves Klien. It is said that an American concept of this art movement was the ever-popular Pop Art. The conceptions of New Realism are: the struggle to bring art and life closer together, the artist saw the world as one singular image and felt that through their artwork they would uses pieces of that image to bring art and life closer.
Dada: Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in neutral Zürich, Switzerland, and peaked from 1916 to 1920. Dada was a quite large and informal movement that brought artist participants from Europe and North America. Around the time of its inception World War I was being fought, and as a protest against what the artist felt was barbarism of war Dadaism was spawned. The movement spanned across the globe during the 1920s. Participants were known to be from Paris, The Netherlands, America (New York) also home to the readymades, Germany and Zurich.
All of the information was compiled from www.wikipedia.com
Be Well.