Contract with the Skin: Masochism, Performance Art and the 1970s - Review

Art in America, March, 1999 by Stephanie Cash

As demonstrated by Pane's work, to which both mouth and mirrors were integral, many of the performances cited in O'Dell's book could easily fit into more than one of the developmental stages. Talking about Similarity (1976) by Abramovic and Ulay, for example, involved Ulay sewing his mouth shut, after which Abramovic, taking questions from the audience, articulated what she thought his answers would be. Abramovic ended the performance when she felt that her responses were more her own than Ulay's. While this performance obviously involves the mouth, both actively and passively, O'Dell maintains that the central point of the event was Abramovic's attempts to mirror Ulay's identity, and so discussion of this piece first appears in the chapter devoted to the mirror stage. While this seemingly arbitrary categorization muddles O'Dell's exposition, it also reveals the complexity of the performances.

O'Dell's other main theme is the contractual nature of the artist/audience relationship. For her purposes, the notion of a contract is very loosely defined. Simply being an audience member implies an unspoken agreement, or contract, between the performer and viewer. For example, the fact that no one in attendance at Burden's 1971 gallery performance Shoot tried to prevent the artist from being shot in the arm is, for her, proof that the audience understood its role to be a passive one. Of course, this can be said for nearly any performance of any kind. An audience member who interferes in a staged event, be it a lecture, rock concert or opera, is promptly shown the door. Most art performances are no different.

A more concrete example of the artist/audience contract is Pane's 1971 work Nourriture, actualites televisees, feu, which was performed in a private Paris home. It consisted of the artist cramming about 1 1/2 pounds of raw meat into her mouth and then spitting it out, watching the news on TV with a bright light in her face, and extinguishing small fires with her bare hands and feet. Audience members had to deposit a percentage of their income in a safe at the door before entering. By paying money, the visitors were implicated in the masochistic act, even commissioning it in a way.

The only case cited in which the audience contract was broken is Abramovic's 1974 performance Rhythm 5, which took place outside a student center in Belgrade. A wilting Abramovic, sitting in the middle of a star-shape of fire, was plucked from the center by a bystander who knew (as the artist did not) that the oxygen within the flaming design was being rapidly consumed and that Abramovic would soon suffocate. Yet this significant, if nearly disastrous, event is accorded a mere endnote. Perhaps the incident shows too clearly that the audience has a dual and somewhat contradictory obligation: to be conventionally passive, no matter what the performer is doing to his or her body, but to step up when real, unintended danger is threatening.

Although O'Dell says that observers are under silent contract not to physically interfere, she insinuates them into the performances by equating the viewing of photographs or films to actual audience participation. Not only do photographs provide an ongoing experience of an event, she says, but performance photos