In my project, I will start by looking at Yoko Ono. I am looking at Ono because I am interested in exploring her Fluxus performance artwork as I will be creating a piece of performance art. In this post I will be analysing Yoko Ono's 'Cut Piece' (1964)
Yoko Ono, Cut Piece (1964)
Yoko Ono sat on a stage in 1964 and her performance was to invite the audience to take a pair of scissors and cut her clothes off her body. 'This work challenged traditional norms of audience participation, gender roles, and the dynamics of power and vulnerability' (Fiveable, 2025). The reason I chose this work is because when I was at university this is one of the first works I recreated as a photographic piece. I like the challenge to create this in images as it does challenge the audience and in the performance itself takes power away from the men doing the cutting and the power balance goes to Ono as she sits dead eyed looking out while her clothes are removed. Ono stated of performing the piece; 'When I do the Cut Piece, I get into a trance, and so I don't feel too frightened. There's several layers of meanings. So of course I was saying, hey, you're doing this to women, you know? We're all in it. But also, at the time, it's much better to just go with it. And that thought of letting women know that, you know, we're all going through this, but don't fight, let it happen. By not fighting, we show them that there's a whole world, which could exist by being peaceful.' (MoMA, 2015) The idea that this represented the power of men and her response interestingly is to not fight, let it happen and be peaceful is perhaps, now, a too passive response. As I will make a film of my response to the Trump inauguration, one of the key things that is devasting is how women will suffer from the chain of events that led to this. One of the most important is the overturning of Roe vs Wade (1973) which gave women the right to legal abortion. Now that this has been overturned and states can decide whether women have this right it has already resulted in women not receiving healthcare, maternal deaths and women being denigrated for trying to a obtain and abortion. FIGO (International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics) states; 'Lack of access to safe abortion care is one of the leading causes of preventable maternal death and disability. Each year 47,000 women in the world die as a result of unsafe abortion and an estimated five million are hospitalised for the treatment of serious complications such as bleeding or infection. We urge governments around the world to take steps to mitigate the harms of unsafe abortion.' (Randals, 2021)
Moving from the women's rights issue, I would also like to discuss the making of this piece. Ono was part of the Fluxus movement which began in the 1960s and was prominent through the 1960s and 70s, 'George Maciunas, the primary founder and organizer of the movement, described Fluxus as, "a fusion of Spike Jones, gags, games, Vaudeville, Cage and Duchamp".' (The Art Story, 2012). The idea, at its heart, was to break down barriers to art and creativity. For women performance art offered an ideal method for creating art as they did not need materials or equipment, often they used their own or others' bodies and they could cheaply use community space, public spaces and their own domestic spaces to perform. This performance was on stage and cheaply recorded on film so it it freeing for both the artists and for the creative process. The audience also has an interactive and immersive experience.
I will be creating a video more because now in a way is less physically interactive, more interactive online. I don't necessarily think that this is a good thing... however to connect to an audience I can post this video, it will still be cheap and easy to make and I will need very little equipment as I plan to use my domestic environment, outdoors in locations close by, stock footage and free simple editing software. Looking at Ono's film I do like the stillness and the black and white so I will be thinking carefully as I am keen on stillness.
The message of Ono's work whether it is an active stance on the power balance of men and women or a too passive message, as I suggested earlier, is still up for debate as; 'Ono has remained ambiguous about the work’s meaning, allowing the viewer to form their own judgement. This has polarized art historians who fail to agree on the message behind the various violent and passive aspects of the performance.' (The Art Story, 2012). It is a feminist work and is still a powerful and seminal piece that has influenced other artists and their work. This work has meant much to me when I started to make work and still remains important and relevant today.
As a beginning to my work, I have put together a very short storyboard of the first few cuts from the performance I will make. I used a Canva storyboard template and then I uploaded the images which are representations of the shots I will make - I edited these on Photoshop.
My next step will just be a test shoot and short edit to see if this idea will work...
References
Art-Sôlido (2017). Yoko Ono: The Cut Piece that changed forever the relationship between artist and audience. [online] Art-Sôlido. Available at: https://artsolido.com/2017/02/18/yoko-ono-the-cut-piece-that-changed-forever-the-relationship-between-artist-and-audience/ [Accessed 23 Jan. 2025].
Fiveable (2025). Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’ - (Intro to Humanities) - Vocab, Definition, Explanations | Fiveable. [online] Fiveable.me. Available at: https://library.fiveable.me/key-terms/introduction-humanities/yoko-onos-cut-piece [Accessed 23 Jan. 2025].
MoMA (2015). Yoko Ono. Cut Piece. 1964 | MoMA. [online] The Museum of Modern Art. Available at: https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/15/373 [Accessed 25 Jan. 2025].
Randals, R. (2021). Post-Roe v Wade: Call to mitigate the harms of unsafe abortion | Figo. [online] Figo. Available at: https://www.figo.org/post-roe-v-wade-call-mitigate-harms-unsafe-abortion [Accessed 25 Jan. 2025].
No comments:
Post a Comment