Performance Matters, Performing Idea – Living Archives6th OctoberLiving Archives 3:00-7:30pmToynbee StudiosWith: Anne Bean, Rose English, Hannah Hurtzig, Janez Jan a and Heike Roms Gripped by a kind of ‘archive fever’, contemporary art and culture is driven by the desire to document, store and preserve. The archive is now a vast global edifice, crossing cultures and forms and reaching further and further into the past. Fleeting exchanges and moments are everywhere evidenced in contemporary art’s multiple but unstable papers, artefacts and traces. But what happens to the life of art in its archival forms? What is the archive doing with performance, performers with the archive? Speakers will address the relation between artists and the archival drive, the artist’s experiences and body as a kind of living archive.

Performance Matters, Performing Idea – Reciprocal Aesthetics7th October3:00-7:30pmToynbee StudiosWith: Ron Athey, Wafaa Bilal, Maaike Bleeker, Shannon Jackson and Julie Tolentino The participation of the spectator in making the meaning of the work of art has been a staple of art and performance practices long before the recent charged debates on ‘relational aesthetics.’ Yet art, however solitary, is arguably always a kind of collaboration and involves itself in some form of exchange. What can be at stake in this exchange? Speakers will examine the notion and limits of the idea that contemporary art and performance is a reciprocal affair. They will ask what gets transacted in contemporary art? What is given and what is taken, what is shared and what cannot be shared?

Performance Matters, Performing Idea – Reciprocal Aesthetics7th October3:00-7:30pmToynbee StudiosWith: Ron Athey, Wafaa Bilal, Maaike Bleeker, Shannon Jackson and Julie Tolentino The participation of the spectator in making the meaning of the work of art has been a staple of art and performance practices long before the recent charged debates on ‘relational aesthetics.’ Yet art, however solitary, is arguably always a kind of collaboration and involves itself in some form of exchange. What can be at stake in this exchange? Speakers will examine the notion and limits of the idea that contemporary art and performance is a reciprocal affair. They will ask what gets transacted in contemporary art? What is given and what is taken, what is shared and what cannot be shared?

This performance is centred around a series of re-enacted performances based on the works of the late American artist Stuart Sherman (1945 – 2001), a seminal though underexposed figure in the history of performance art.

DVD – AUDIO ONLYThis documentation has since been presented with the permission of the artist as part of the Performance Matters, Performing Idea, Performance Lecture Archive; an interactive video archive housed at the Whitechapel Gallery between 2-9 October 2010. The archive looked at examples of the performance lecture as a form of artistic and critical expression and its potential to address a broad range of cultural issues and philosophical ideas.

Dead Season Live Art, 2010, Margate, Limbo Arts.See P1496 for full Dead Season Live Art programme.This documentation has since been presented with the permission of the artist as part of the Performance Matters, Performing Idea, Performance Lecture Archive; an interactive video archive housed at the Whitechapel Gallery between 2-9 October 2010. The archive looked at examples of the performance lecture as a form of artistic and critical expression and its potential to address a broad range of cultural issues and philosophical ideas.

“Invited at the same time by the Hebbel Theatre in Berlin, the Tanz-Quartier in Vienna and the Centre National de la Danse in Paris to perform The Last Performance (D0624) I decided, instead of presenting the piece, to make a lecture about its issues. I had the feeling that this difficult piece had not been really understood. Maybe the piece was bad. But I believe that the issues of this piece were relevant, which is why I would like to change my medium and to use the tool of the lecture to try to articulate better the stakes of The Last Performance. I will re-contextualise the piece in its theoretical level through the texts of Roland Barthes and Peggy Phelan and in my artistic situation at that time.”Jérôme Bel www.jeromebel.fr This documentation has since been presented with the permission of the artist as part of the Performance Matters, Performing Idea, Performance Lecture Archive; an interactive video archive housed at the Whitechapel Gallery between 2-9 October 2010. The archive looked at examples of the performance lecture as a form of artistic and critical expression and its potential to address a broad range of cultural issues and philosophical ideas. This item is part of the Study Room Guide On shit, piss, blood, sweat and tears by Lois Keidan (P2195)

This documentation has since been presented with the permission of Revelation Films as part of the Performance Matters, Performing Idea, Performance Lecture Archive; an interactive video archive housed at the Whitechapel Gallery between 2-9 October 2010. The archive looked at examples of the performance lecture as a form of artistic and critical expression and its potential to address a broad range of cultural issues and philosophical ideas.

Sitting up reading late at night, the author reflects on the links between the homosexual of the 1980s and his counterparts of a century ago, between gay lives today and those of Oscar Wilde, his friends, lovers and acquaintances.

See Pop Trauma DVD: D1793