E 1 6 THE VANCOUVER SUN. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1999

MIX

Art comes to life on Vancouver stage
M I C H A E L

S C O T T

SUN VISUAL ART CRITIC

It began, of course, with Jackson Pollock flinging gobbets of paint
across a blank canvas. A clever critic called it action painting and
a new art movement was born — what went on the canvas was
not so much a picture as it was the record of an event.
Soon afterward, artists were orchestrating nude models
smeared with paint, locking themselves into rooms with wild animals, pounding nails into bits of wood, masturbating under the
false floors of commercial galleries, having sex with female cadavers purchased in Mexico and then undergoing vasectomies,
pushing their heads into beehives and purposefully undergoing
cosmetic surgery — all in the name of performance art.
In the 50 years since Pollock and his comrades began to explore
the medium, performance art has become an important part of
contemporary art-making. Like a Zen koan on the fleeting nature
of life, performance art reminds us that darkness underlies our
days and that creation is utterly fragile.
Since the 1970s, Vancouver has provided an eager audience for
performance art. Mr. Peanut's mayoral campaign and the threat to
crush Sniffy the Rat made international headlines. Maybe it was
our advantageous location, perched midway between New York
and Tokyo, the two global centres of performance art. Maybe it
was our West Coast, anything-goes attitude. But when Hermann
Nitsch pinned a sheep carcass to a wall in Vienna in 1963, gutted it
and used its entrails as paint brushes, or when Raphael Ortiz
hacked a piano to pieces in London in 1966, or when Chris Burden
had himself crucified to the top of a Volkswagen Bug in Venice,
Calif, in 1974, no one in the Vancouver art scene so much as

blinked. We cottoned easily to the disout of bed, only when it's good and
ruptive, punning, prank-playing world of
ready.
performance art. We loved its slight edge
According to Alteen, himself a longof danger and its marginal place in the
time devotee of the medium, Vancouver
wider world. The Vancouver Art Gallery
performance is more light-hearted than
gave the new medium its first real home
the dark, blood-spattered European
in a series of now-famous Intermedia
scene. We love costumes here and huEvenings in the early 1970s.
mour. Public processions are also big.
Alteen says he's not sure performance
The Western Front artist centre folwas ever really encouraged here by eilowed shortly after and a generation of
ther of the city's major art schools. "But
performance artists enlivened our thinkit just never goes away," he says.
ing. Evelyn Roth, Paul Wong, Anna BaIts primary importance is its lack of
nana, Eric Metcalfe, Gathie Falk and Tom
linear thinking.
Graff challenged and tickled us in equal
When performance challenges audimeasure.
ences to explore new paradigms, the enBeginning this week, Vancouver artists
tire intellectual life of the community
are celebrating performance art here with
benefits.
Mr. Peanut got us thinking
a series of exhibitions, cabarets and othabout
the
theatrical aspects of politics
ers actions, collectively entitled Live at
long
before
the irony-drenched media
the End of Century. Organized by Glenn
pundits
of
the
1980s ever did.
Alteen and the grunt gallery, the festival
includes participation from Dynamo
The full schedule for Live at the End of
Gallery, Or Gallery, Vancouver Art
the
Century, which runs until Nov. 6, is
Gallery, the grunt, Western Front, Video
available
from the grunt gallery and othIn Studios, Havana Gallery on Commerer
participating
venues. Contact the grunt
cial Drive, Belkin Art Gallery at UBC, Performance artist Evelyn Roth in 1988
at
875-9516
for
more information, or via
Contemporary Art Gallery Artspeak and
the Web at www.vcn.bc.ca/grunt/. The festival kicks off with a
the Charles Scott Gallery at Emily Carr. It's a damn hard thing to
cabaret-style evening Friday at 8p.m. at the Vogue Theatre. Tickets
program, Alteen says.
are $10 and $13 through Ticketmaster, 280-4444.
Performance art tends to just happen, like a teenager getting