The Ten List: Walk as Art
by Carrie Marie Schneider November 23, 2012
“Walking, in particular drifting, or strolling, is already – with the speed culture of our time – a kind of resistance…a very immediate method for unfolding stories.” – Francis Alÿs
Lots of folks walk all the time and don’t call it art, but some of them do. In many parts of Houston, walking is so bizarre that I’ve been making a whole project of it. In my research, I’ve amassed this list that looks at artists who have used walking as a practice, and their various methods of representing it.
Entire article here
I understand Janine Antoni’s work as an exploration of the relationship between humans and the space we occupy. I find it interesting that both of her pieces took place in the beach, a place that is ever changing, and never the same. The waves roll in erasing the footprints in the same, much like the sky and waves change the horizon on which she walked. Antoni documenting these moments in video and photography seems like a commentary on how we try to hold on to the perfect moment rather than embracing the nature of change.
ReplyDeleteThe beach also can have other associations too. Her suspending herself on the horizon is obviously a poetic performative gesture.
DeleteI find Richard Long’s work interesting because the path he takes within the environment is the art piece. He is able to explore nature alongside himself. He is able to record his path due to the marks he leaves in the environment. His pieces utilize natural materials and shows this artform of mobility. It shows the relationship between Long, nature, and his movements. Tehching Hsieh’s piece shows himself in nature for a whole year without going inside a building. I think it is incredible to see the lengths that one would go for art. Doing this performance, he forms a relationship with time and nature. It reminds me of the transcendentalist ideals of existing within nature.
ReplyDeleteGood. Time, self, and pathway become interconnected.
DeleteI think Richard Long has an interesting approach to the idea of a walk where his presence in nature is the artwork itself. His interaction with nature on these walks is reminiscent of the jar becoming part of its environment that we spoke about for the last project. The artist Hamish Fulton was another artist I was extremely interested by in the article. I enjoyed his idea that the he did not alter the walk but that walk would change him. His idea that the experience of the walk is something one cannot translate into art is a concept I want to ponder with for my project. His project combining the idea of a walk with social activism is intriguing to see the influence that the walk can carry. The opposite approaches between Long and Fulton was fun to compare, one artist chooses to leave his presence known on these walks whereas the other chooses to take with him the experience of the walk and not leave a trace of his existence.
ReplyDeleteThe artists I chose to discuss include Francis Alÿs who walks a magnetized dog through the city as it picks up loose metal objects and Janine Antoni who’s concept involved walking a tightrope right on the horizon. Both artists interact with the environment in interesting ways. In Francis Alÿs’s The Collector the artist interacts with the city and it’s miscellaneous materials with a magnetic companion while Janines environment is out in nature with a concept that focuses on her own being. Instead of leaving things behind Francis is picking up things and instead of leaving a permanent trace Janine leaves a trace that washes away.
ReplyDeleteArtists working with the idea of the ephemeral to generate poetic thinking in their audience.
DeleteWalking as an art form. Walking as performance. The traces of walking as the art document itself. Richard Long seems to be an artist that is interpreting the world and his experience in it as a performative artwork itself. Unlike the other artists mentioned, it seems that Long does not find it necessary for his physical form to be represented in the documentation of the performative act. The traces of his existence seem to be of most importance to his work. The fact that he collected rocks or put rocks in a line or made a trail in the grass… These are what he has worked to create through his performative actions of walking in the world.
ReplyDeleteTehching Hsieh's performance art is extreme. He seems to execute one-year-long performances where he goes without particular things over the duration of a year. The one highlighted in the article is that he went for a year without entering a building, car, bus, etc. for exactly one year. All he had was a sleeping bag. The fact that he seems to be attacking these almost insurmountable obstacles as ways of challenging himself are edgy and built to allow him to embody endurance and otherworldliness. Hsieh performances are unlike any of the other performance artists in that he seems to attempt to overcome challenges that seem impossible to overcome.
Janine Antoni's work "tightrope walking" is a very personal piece in homage to the place she grew up. She walks along the horizon as if its a physical object like the tightrope doesn't exist. As in her piece "Migration" with Paul Ramirez Jonas they each take turns following each others footsteps on the ever changing beach. Their footsteps get washed away by the waves and changed by each addition of a footprint. The only way of knowing this happened is by the video recording of them as the art disappears.
ReplyDeleteWhile with Stanley Brouwn's piece "Steps of Pedestrian on Paper", he captures that moment of a person's step as documentation of it happening. He plays the role of the wave coming in and sweeping the evidence away like in "Migration". Both artist use the world around them whether it be nature or the interaction with people.