![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Marina_Abramovi%C4%87%2C_The_Artist_is_Present%2C_2010_%282%29.jpg/350px-Marina_Abramovi%C4%87%2C_The_Artist_is_Present%2C_2010_%282%29.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/El_artista_Abel_Azcona%2C_retratado_en_el_C%C3%ADrculo_de_Bellas_Artes_de_Madrid.jpg/350px-El_artista_Abel_Azcona%2C_retratado_en_el_C%C3%ADrculo_de_Bellas_Artes_de_Madrid.jpg)
Endurance art is a kind of performance art involving some form of hardship, such as pain, solitude or exhaustion.[2] Performances that focus on the passage of long periods of time are also known as durational art or durational performances.[3]
Human endurance contests were a fad of Depression-era America from the 1920s-1930s.[4] Writer Michael Fallon traces the genre of endurance art to the work of Chris Burden in California in the 1970s.[5] Burden spent five days in a locker in Five Day Locker Piece (1971), had himself shot in Shoot (1971), and lived for 22 days in a bed in an art gallery in Bed Piece (1972).[6]
Other examples of endurance art include Tehching Hsieh's One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece), in which for 12 months he punched a time clock every hour, and Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece), in which Hsieh and Linda Montano spent a year tied to each other by an eight-foot rope.[7]
In The House with the Ocean View (2003), Marina Abramović lived silently for 12 days without food or entertainment on a stage entirely open to the audience.[8] Such is the physical stamina required for some of her work that in 2012 she set up what she called a "boot camp" in Hudson, New York, for participants in her multiple-person performances.[9]
The Nine Confinements or The Deprivation of Liberty is a conceptual, endurance art and performative work of critical and biographical content by artist Abel Azcona. The artwork was a sequence of performances carried out between 2013 and 2016. All of the series had a theme of deprivation of liberty. The first in the series was performed by Azcona in 2013 and named Confinement in Search of Identity.[10] The artist was to remain for sixty days in a space built inside an art gallery of Madrid, with scarce food resources and in total darkness. The performance was stopped after forty-two days for health reasons and the artist hospitalised.[11] Azcona created these works as a reflection and also a discursive interruption of his own mental illness, mental illness being one of the recurring themes in Azcona's work.[12]
Examples
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Tehching_Hsieh_Cage_Piece_%281%29.jpg/350px-Tehching_Hsieh_Cage_Piece_%281%29.jpg)
- Marina Abramović[13] – Rhythm 0, 1974; Rhythm 5, 1974; Luminosity, 1997, 2010; Nude with Skeleton, 2002, 2005, 2010;[9] The House With the Ocean View (2003); Balkan Erotic Epic, 2005.[14]
- Marina Abramović with Ulay[15] – Point of Contact, 1980;[9] Night Sea Crossing, 1981; The Lovers: Walk on the Great Wall, 1988.[16]
- Vito Acconci – Seedbed, 1972.[17]
- David Askevold – Fill, 1970.[18][19]
- Abel Azcona - The Death of The Artist,[20] 2018. The Fathers, 2016. Amen or The Pederasty, 2015. Buried, 2015. Eating, 2012. The Nine Confinements or The Deprivation of Liberty, 2013-2016.
- Stuart Brisley – And for today ... nothing, 1972.[21]
- Chris Burden[15] – Five Day Locker Piece, 1971.
- David Blaine[22] – Witness (1999),[23] Buried Alive, Frozen in Time, Vertigo, Above the Below, Drowned Alive, Revolution, Electrified , Ascension .
- Nikhil Chopra, – Give Me Your Blood And I Will Give You Freedom, 2014.[24]
- Houston Conwill – Juju Rituals, 1975–1983.[25]
- Elevator Repair Service – Gatz, 2005.[24][26]
- EJ Hill – A Monumental Offering of Potential Energy, 2016.[27][28][29][30]
- Tehching Hsieh – One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece); One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece).[31][32]
- Tehching Hsieh with Linda Montano – Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece).
- Ragnar Kjartansson – A Lot of Sorrow, 2014.[33]
- Stan Lai – A Dream Like A Dream, 2014.[24]
- Eric Millikin – My Drinking Problem, 2016.[34][35]
- Bruce Nauman – Stamping in the Studio, 1968; Revolving Upside Down, 1969.[18][36][37]
- Bryan Lewis Saunders – Under the Influence, 2001;[38] Deaf Month, 2011;[39] While Being Tortured, 2014;[40] 30 Days Totally Blind, 2018.[41]
- Carolee Schneeman – Up To And Including Her Limits, 1973—1976.[18]
- Wolfgang Stoerchle – Attempt Public Erection, 1972–1975.[25]
- Emma Sulkowicz – Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), 2014–2015.[42][15]
- Zhang Huan – 12 Square Meters, 1994.[43]
- Benjamin Bennett – Sitting and Smiling, 2014 – ongoing.[44]
- Guido Segni – A quiet desert failure, 2013 – ongoing.[45][46][47][48][49][50]
- Paul Wong – In Ten Sity, 1978.[51]
See also
References
- ^ Elizabeth Greenwood, "Wait, Why Did That Woman Sit in the MoMA for 750 Hours?", The Atlantic, 2 July 2012.
- ^ For artists in endurance performances "[q]uestioning the limits of their bodies," Tatiana A. Koroleva, Subversive Body in Performance Art, ProQuest, 2008, pp. 29, 44–46.
- ^ Paul Allain, Jen Harvie, The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance, Routledge, 2014, p. 221. Other terms include duration art, live art or time-based art.
Beth Hoffmann, "The Time of Live Art," in Deirdre Heddon, Jennie Klein (eds.), Histories and Practices of Live Art, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 47.
- ^ "Dance Marathons of the 1920s and 1930s".
- ^ Michael Fallon, Creating the Future: Art and Los Angeles in the 1970s, Counterpoint, 2014, p. 106: "Burden's performances were so widely observed that they took on a life beyond the artist, helping create a new art genre, 'endurance art' ..."
- ^ Emily Anne Kuriyama, "Everything You Need to Know About Chris Burden's Art Through His Greatest Works", Complex, 2 October 2013.
- ^ Andrew Taylor, "Tehching Hsieh: The artist who took the punches as they came", Sydney Morning Herald, 30 April 2014: "Don't try this endurance art at home. That is Tehching Hsieh's advice to artists inspired to emulate the five year-long performances he began in the late 1970s."
- ^ Thomas McEvilley, "Performing the Present Tense – A recent piece by Marina Abramovic blended endurance art and Buddhist meditation," Art in America, 91(4), April 2003.
- ^ a b c E. C. Feiss, "Endurance Performance: Post-2008", Afterall, 23 May 2012.
- ^ García García, Oscar (July 12, 2013). "The artist Abel Azcona will remain locked up for sixty days without light". Contemporary Art Platform. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
- ^ Guisado, Paula (August 17, 2013). "An artist ends up in the hospital after 42 days emulating life in a placenta". El Mundo. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
- ^ Corroto, Paula (June 16, 2019). "Abel Azcona: "I feel more a prostitute's son or mentally ill than an artist"". El Confidencial. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
- ^ Miriam Seidel, "Pioneer Of Endurance Art To Give Lecture", Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 December 1998.
John Perreault, "Lady Gaga Rejected by Marina Abramović, Plus MoMA Sound", Artopia, 13 September 2013.
- ^ Karen Rosenberg, "Provocateur: Marina Abramovic", New York Magazine, 12 December 2005.
- ^ a b c Jillian Steinhauer, "Two Weeks Into Performance, Columbia Student Discusses the Weight of Her Mattress", Hyperallergic, 17 September 2014 (citing Jon Kessler).
- ^ Paul Allain, Jen Harvie, The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance, Routledge, 2014, p. 15.
- ^ John Perreault, "Lady Gaga Rejected by Marina Abramović, Plus MoMA Sound", Artopia, 13 September 2013.
- ^ a b c Emily Vey Duke, Kevin Rodgers, "Two types of sacred: 1970s endurance art today", C Magazine, 22 June 2005.
- ^ "David Askevold". www.umanitoba.ca. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
- ^ Zas Marcos, Mónica (October 18, 2018). "Abel Azcona offers a gun to those who fantasize about killing him in his latest performance". El Diario.es. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
- ^ Dierdre Heddon, "The Politics of Live Art," in Heddon and Klein 2012, p. 87.
- ^ Cindy Adams, "He'll stay awake the longest ever", New York Post, 5 December 2007.
- ^ Linda M. Montano, Letters from Linda M. Montano, Routledge, 2012, p. 185.
- ^ a b c Deepika Shetty, "Endurance art: Five memorable marathon performances", The Straits Times, 14 August 2013.
- ^ a b Karen Gonzalez Rice, "Sexing the Monk: Masculinity and Monastic Discipline in American Endurance Art Circa 1975", College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, 12–15 February 2014.
- ^ Trout Monfalco, "Endurance Art – Six Hours is Too Long", Art Here and Now, accessed 24 February 2014.
- ^ The New York Times (15 September 2016). "What to See in New York Galleries This Week". The New York Times.
- ^ "Alive Someplace Better: EJ Hill's Horizontal Poetics by Amber Officer- Narvasa". Archived from the original on 2017-02-18. Retrieved 2017-02-17.
- ^ "Video: Studio Museum in Harlem Artists in Conversation". Archived from the original on 2017-02-18. Retrieved 2017-02-17.
- ^ "EJ Hill: In Conversation with Nicole Kaack". 28 November 2016.
- ^ "Tehching Hsieh: the man who didn't go to bed for a year". the Guardian. 2014-04-30. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
- ^ John Perrault, "Tehching Hsieh: Caged Fury", Artopia, 1 February 2009.
- ^ "Sorrow on repeat: Ragnar Kjartansson on endurance art", CBC, 20 January 2015; "Ragnar Kjartansson and The National A Lot of Sorrow ", Luhring Augustine.
- ^ "Celebrations abound for Vernors' 150th anniversary: Pop Art". Detroit News. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
- ^ "My Drinking Problem: Pumpkin Spice Odyessy". Eric Millikin. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
- ^ "Electronic Arts Intermix: Stamping in the Studio, Bruce Nauman". www.eai.org. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
- ^ "Electronic Arts Intermix: Revolving Upside Down, Bruce Nauman". www.eai.org. Retrieved 2017-07-23.
- ^ Ronson, Jon (2012-11-30). "Bryan Saunders: Portrait of the artist on crystal meth". The Guardian.
- ^ "Bryan Lewis Saunders Deaf". 2018-04-13.
- ^ "Bryan Lewis Saunders Draws While Being Tortured". 2014-12-23.
- ^ "30 days totally blind: Bryan Lewis Saunders". 2018-06-13.
- ^ Roberta Smith, "In a Mattress, a Lever for Art and Political Protest", The New York Times, 22 September 2014.
- ^ Hentyle Yapp, Verona Leung, "Revisiting performance art of the 1990s and the politics of meditation", Leap, 8 August 2013.
- ^ Putney, Dean (7 October 2015). "Internet man sits and smiles at camera for hundreds of hours". Boing Boing. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
- ^ A Quiet Desert Failure. Retrieved 2018-01-23.
- ^ A Quiet Desert Failure. Retrieved 2018-01-23.
- ^ "A Quiet Desert Failure, be patient, the desert is coming". Retrieved 2018-01-23.
- ^ "A Quiet Desert Failure". Retrieved 2018-01-23.
- ^ "A Quiet Desert Failure". Retrieved 2018-01-23.
- ^ "Guido Segni's A quiet desert failure". 2015-11-25. Retrieved 2018-01-23.
- ^ Knights, Karen (2000). "Sculpting The Deficient Flesh: Mainstreet, Body Culture And The Video Scapel". In Abbott, Jennifer (ed.). Making Video “In”: The Contested Ground Of Alternative Video On The West Coast. Vancouver: Video Inn Studios. p. 53. ISBN 9781551520223.
Further reading
- Brown, Sierra. "Discover Endurance Art," California State University, Long Beach, 2008 (report on an exhibition).
- Kafka, Franz. "A Hunger Artist", 1922.
- Montano, Linda M. "Endurance Then and Now," Letters from Linda M. Montano, Routledge, 2012, p. 123ff.
- O’Brien, Martin. "Performing Chronic: Chronic illness and endurance art", Performance Research, 26 September 2014, pp. 54–63.
- Snorteland, Kevin (13 May 2014). "Endurance Art and painting collide at BFA show". The Lantern.
- von Ah, André. "Performance Art: A Bit of History, Examples and a Fast Dictionary", The Huffington Post, 9 November 2013.