Reflecting on "Performance" by Kristine Stiles

Kristine Stiles’ chapter in “Critical Terms for Art History,” begins by stating that performance art has been difficult to analyze through the lens of traditional art historical methods of analysis. Stiles claims this is because the artist acts both as the subject and the object/work of art (p. 75). Additionally, performance art is situated at a juncture of intentionality, presentation and representation (p. 95). Stiles uses the term commissure to describe how performance art acts as a connector between subjects, objects, and viewers. She employs the work, The Smiling Workman, by Jim Dine as an example of this. “…it could be said that Dine presented himself as a commissure, working between action (his performance) and its object (the action painting itself). His performance operated as a commissure between his enactment as a subject and viewers as witnessing subjects, announcing his social contingency and his personal need for communication and interpersonal relationship (p. 83).”

I overall enjoyed Kristine Stiles’ chapter and how she briefly explained the history of performance art, how the medium is situated in the framework of art history and scholarly discourse, and her exploration of the connection between subjects, objects and viewers. But what I found most interesting was her discussion of how performance art reveals “the interrelationships of private, biographical experiences and public, social practices” in the creation of art (p. 76). Stiles claims that these experiences situate artists “as a cultural force in and for social change (p. 76),” performance is therefore seen as inherently activist (p. 94).

I especially enjoyed Stiles’ discussion of female artists in the 1970s and their contribution in developing the medium. According to Stiles, female artists used performance to bring awareness to women’s issues and abuses by the patriarchy (p. 86). Not only does Stiles note the importance of women in performance, she suggests “…people of color, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and trans-gender individuals have been especially instrumental in the developing discourses of alterity that emerge from consideration of gender, sexuality, race, class and nationality. These topics have been explored in performance art more than in any other visual art medium. In fact, performance provides a unique domain wherein the fixed identities dictated by social mores have been challenged (p. 94).”