BODY ART/ PERFORMING THE SUBJECT AMELIA JONES University of Minnesota Press Mines LandonCopyright 1998 by che Regent of the Unive of Minnesota Every effort was made ro obtain permission to reproduce dhe illstations in this book. any prope acknowledgment has no been made, we encourage copyright holders to notify un ‘The cover image on papesback editions ofthis book is a dei from SQS—Sianfton (je Sr (1974, by Hannah Wilke. The wosk sone of thirty-five Mlack-andewhite [horographs, 5x 7 inches each, fom "Masccation Box” Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine ‘Ars, New York Copyright Era of Hanah Wilke All ights reserved, No part ofthis publication may be epraduce, stored in tetsieal system, o transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying. reconing, or otherwise, without the prior waten permission of the publisher Prblshed bythe University of Minnesota Press II Thind Avenue South, Suite 290 ‘Minneapolis. MN 5$401-2520 hnp://wwwapeessamneds Liteary of Congress Cotaloging i Pablicaton Data Joes, Amelia Body ar/pertorming the subject Amelia Jones Boom Includes bibliographical references and inde, ISBN 0-8166-2772-X (he acid-fiee pape). — ISBN 0-8166-2773-8 (pbk: cde paper) 1. Body art 2 Perlormance at, Ti NE4BGII66 1998 700'9'045—de2 97.3468 Printed in he United Sates of Amesica om asicfee paper ‘The Univesity of Minnesora san egual-opporaniy educator and employe. 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 0099.98 10987654321 {GJp back co the bod, which is wher ll the splits in ‘Western Caleure osu SARDLEE SCHNEEHAMK, CANLEE SCANEERANA: UP TO AND INCLODENG HER LIMITS ‘Only the Slave ean transform the World “ALEMANDRE KOUEVE, INTRODUCTION TO THE READING OF wEGEL™ACENDMLEDGMENTS Naney Buchanan, Thatcher Career, Meiting Cheng, Judy Chicago, Michael Cohen, Allan ceSouza, Saundra Goldman, Lou-Anne Greenwald, Kathein Hoffinann-Curtius, Bea Karthaus-Hune, Kris Kuramitsu, Sam McBride, Yong Soon Min, Mita Schor, Barbara Smith, and Lisa Tickner for theit good thoughts on bodies/selves in culture. Iam deeply gratefl to Mario Ontiveros for his ongoing intellectual insights as well as his assistance with the picture e- search on this book, o Rebecca Welle for research assistance, and to the other cleeply inceligent students from the seminars I have taught on body att in the last four years at University of California, Riverside, and UCLA. 1am grateful 100, co the various archives, galleries, and libraves that supported this research, including che J. Paul Getry Insitute, the Museum of ‘Modern Art library and video and film study centers, che Atchives of American Art, the UCLA and University of California, Riverside, libraries, and the staffs a the Ronald Feldman Galley (especially Mare Nochella), Galerie Lelong, Ace Contemporary Exhibitions, Sandra Gering Gallery, Craig Krull Gallery, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Jack Tilton Gallery, and John Weber Gallery. This book was completed with the generous assistance of grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and from the University of California, Riverside, for Which J am deeply appreciative. Body Art/ Performing the Sibjet would not have materialized without the support and vision of Biodun Iginla, former University of Minnesota Press cedvor, and the energetic good faith of the presen staff ar the Press—especilly editor William Murphy. Finally, chs book is dedicated to Virginia S, and Edward E, Jones, my ‘mother and father, whose intersubjective postwat identities conditioned my ap- proach to the set of questions raised in this study in deep ways I have not yet fally grasped. A special note of admiration is due to Mom, who has continued bravely co develop her selfhood beyond the sudden death of my father in 1998: she has enacted for me how subjects chiasmnically intertwine but remain stub- bornly particulae ——7_ INTRODUCTION We abolish the sage and the auditorium and seplace them bya single sit without partition or barser of any kind, which will become the ‘heater ofthe action. Adit oman wal be led her te spor and th esa her te tor and beste, rom the fat tha the spectator, placed in the middle of the ation, is engulfed and physically affected by i ANTONIA ARTADD! ‘As Artaud realized in 1938, the radicalization of culrural ex- spectator would be dissolved and social relations would be profoundly politicized. In Artaud’s “Theater of Cruelty.” the performance of subjects in a "passionate and convulsive conception of life” would correspond “to the agitation and uneest characteristic of our epoch"? ‘This book argues a similar relationship for body art practices, which enact sub- jects in "passionate and convulsive” relationships (often explicily sexual) and ‘thus exacerbate, perform, and/or negotiate the dislocatng effects of social and Private experience in the late capitalist, postcolonial Western world. Body artis viewed here asa set of performative practices that, through such intersubjective ‘engagement, instantiate the dislocation or decentering of the Cartesian subject ‘of modernism. This dislocation i, believe, the most profound transformation constitutive of what we have come to call postmodernism. CASE ONE: CAROLEE SCHNEE In 1963 Carolee Schneemann stated the following in her personal notes ‘Thar the body is inthe eye; sensations received visually take hold ‘om the total organism. That perception moves the etal personaly in excitation. ... My visual dramas provide for an intensification