Performance art basks in spotlight of four-day event
For years, performance art has remained virtually unexplored in Greece. But the new media arts center Bios hopes to at least draw some curiosity to this form of creativity during a festival that begins tomorrow. The First International Festival of Performance Art, which will run to Saturday, is expected to bring together international and Greek performing artists who are both pioneers in the medium and emerging experimentalists. The festival will include the presentation of archival material and lectures as well as performances. The initiative belongs to Demosthenes Agrafiotis, who had initially planned for a two-day festival but extended its run after getting backing from Bios. Performance art emerged around 30 years ago out of the avant-garde movements of the 1960s and became known through the works of artists such as Vito Acconci, Hermann Nitsch, Carolee Scheeman, Joseph Beuys and Yoko Ono. Art historians have described it as a form of creative expression that uses the body of the artist as the main conduit of artistic communication. Performance art often combines music, video installations and audience participation to complete the narrative. It is also often based on improvisation and is a flexible form of expression that can be seen in an art gallery or on the street and can last from just a few minutes to several hours. Rawness is a basic characteristic of many performances, as in the case of Marina Abramovic or the Viennese Actionism group. Many art historians link performance art with primitivism and the Dada movement of the early 20th century. Leda Papaconstantinou was one of the first artists in Greece to get involved in performance art. A tribute to her work will be presented at the festival. The work of other important Greek artists who worked in the medium will also be presented. Besides Papaconstantinou, other artists of the «1970s generation» include Thodoros, Marina Karavella, Semitekolo and Giorgos Lazogas. Performance artists from the 1980s generation include Thanassis Hondros, Alexandra Katsiani and Aris Prodromidis. Emerging artists include Mary Zigouri, Nikos Krionidis, Christina Katsari and Costas Daflos. The festival will host a number of interesting presentations, including a lecture by Kostis Gouliatis about the music Yannis Christos has composed for the stage. Gouliatis will also present parts of a film documentary that he is preparing for this important Greek composer. Important performance artists are also expected to participate in the festival, including Chumpon Apisuk, Dragan Ilic, Bartolome Ferrando, Richard Martel and Julien Blaine. Even 80-year-old Jan Swidzinski is set to attend, despite recent health problems. «He thinks it is his duty to visit Greece, at least once before his life comes to an end» Agrafiotis said of Swidzinski. «Apisuk is a very important artist. His performances have addressed women’s rights, the rights of HIV-infected people and the sexual abuse of children. His work is both politically and socially very active.» Agrafiotis also explained that many of the aforementioned artists have turned over their archives to the organizers of the festival. The aspiration is to make the festival an annual event and to help bring Greek performers into contact with their international peers. According to Leda Papaconstantinou, performance art «has resurfaced as a complaint. Despite the plurality that characterizes all artistic fields today, the way that art is handled and traded today can be very constricting. This was also true in the 1960s. Back then, performance art emerged as a reaction, a protest against the profit-making venues – galleries or museums – of the time.» From 1966-1971, Papaconstantinou was in London and experienced firsthand the unrest of the swinging 1960s. «I had to turn 62 years old to see a festival on performance art take place in Greece,» she said. «Although it is really very late, I think that the festival is a very positive initiative. The participating artists are all very serious in their work and so are the organizers. Hopefully, we will all respond with the seriousness that this event is worthy of.» Papaconstantinou also talks about the corporeal element of performance art. «The artist uses his body as a tool, not however in the way that the actor does. The emphasis is not on beauty but the body as a vehicle that expresses one’s ideology,» she says. «Performance art can often be exaggerated. What I really dislike is when performance art borders on sensationalism, which clearly is not the objective of art.» She also refers to performance art (for which she cannot find an equivalent term in Greek) as «mercurial, a form of expression that fits everywhere and changes constantly.» A younger performance artist, Maria Zigouri, also talks about the multidimensional aspect of the medium. «The nice thing about performance art is that it branches out into various fields – for example theater, music or dance,» Zigouri said. «My case is an example; I started out in painting, then moved into installations and at a certain point I realized that my own presence had to be part of a work. I became the object and subject of the work, the director and actor. What is also important about performance art is that it does not rely on speech. Action is how words come through.» Her performances are heavily based on the reaction and participation of the public and, for that reason, do not use a particular structure. Zigouri also says that narcissism is not part of performance art. «A work of performance art can be an act of total humiliation,» she says. Thanassis Hondros and Alexandra Katsiani, an artistic duo of the 1980s generation, express reservations about whether the festival will help cultivate a new awareness of performance art. They fear that it might lead to thinking of performance art in simplistic, stereotypical terms. In the past, the performances of Katsiani and Hondros have led their audiences to violent reactions. «Negative reactions are not necessarily bad,» they said. «Reactions express a certain vitality, a readiness that is far preferable to passive indifference… On the other hand, reactions usually communicate narrow-mindedness and a conservative stance that may border on the primitive.»
