By Suman Bhattacharyya
A naked woman plays in a sandbox. A woman dressed in a costume with two giant ears attempts to interact with people in a crowded shopping mall. These images may evoke feelings of shock and anger from some people, but to others, they are an artform.
Performance art is a genre that incorporates visual art, music, theatre, video, dance and fire.
While it may not be popular with the general public, it has a committed following in the city’s arts community.
This month’s Taste This exhibit explores the possibilites of playing with fire and illustrates the arts community’s desire to support a medium that has often been misunderstood.
“It’s interesting because art is perceived as really conservative,” says Laura Margita, curator of the SAW Gallery, a gallery devoted to contemporary art.
Many of the SAW’s performance art shows attract a meagre 20 people, despite the fact that most shows are free.
Performance artists in Centretown are working to increase their artform’s profile among the general public.
While they agree performance art needs to have broader appeal in the community, they disagree on why it is unpopular.
Though it is not widely known, the art form has a rich history in Ottawa.
The SAW Gallery opened its doors in 1973. By the 1980s, performance art became commonplace and developed a foothold in the region’s arts scene.
All levels of government are funding three art co-ops in Ottawa, namely the SAW, Gallery 101 and the Ottawa Art Gallery.
The galleries are the main venues for performance art in Ottawa.
“My view of Ottawa in terms of artistic production is that it’s really strong,” says Margita. “It’s a major force in Canada.”
Margita says poor media coverage is a major reason why shows attract few patrons.
“They (the local media) don’t have a tendency to look at artist-run culture,” she says, noting that local media tend to concentrate on Hollywood movies and television.
“They perceive the public as not being able to understand it.”
The artform has developed a reputation for being elitist, she adds.
“It’s become very exclusive,” she says.
But performance art doesn’t have to be understood, notes Darcy Schmidt, an Ottawa performance artist who focuses on sex and gender issues.
In one performance at the Ottawa Art Gallery, he was a naked person dressed in a muscle suit in a foam cage.
“Theatre is about acting, but performance is about being,” he says. “People can go to a performance and think.”
Performance art’s lack of profile among the general public is more a supply-and-demand issue, Schmidt says.
“Until there’s more people out there doing it, then they (the public) won’t have an interest in seeing it,” he adds.
Since the genre is so different from mainstream art, it will always have a smaller audience, says François Dion, director of Gallery 101.
“There’s a conception that it’s just a bunch of people scratching their arms or picking their noses, so that’s what performance art is and we’re not going to talk about it,” he says.
But not all artists want to attract a large cross-section of the public.
Since performance art grew out of a desire to defy convention, Dion says, artists may become less interested in it if it becomes more mainstream.
“That’s a very romantic notion that’s quite politically reactionary,” says Sylvie Fortin, curator of contemporary art at the Ottawa Art Gallery.
Fortin says the main reason performance art doesn’t have a mass following is because it is poorly funded.
Though Dion concedes that performance art will always remain on the fringes in Ottawa, he says it is a valuable genre that needs to be promoted more effectively.
“It’s important to show different types of practices that show another understanding of what art is.”