Performance Art / Yoko Ono S2E11

On today’s show, we’re talking all things performance art with a discussion of Yoko Ono, the artist, as well as many other figures and findings from the world of performance art. Amongst our topics: Marina Abramovic, Lady GaGa, Jay-Z, Shia LaBeouf, Didi the Devil, and Joseph Beuys.

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece 1964 and the performance video

Ceiling Painting/Yes Painting Ono’s piece that John Lennon loved

Yoko receiving the Grammy for Double Fantasy

Jay-Z Picasso Baby

Eurosport’s piece on Didi the Devil

Shia LaBeouf’s Take Me Anywhere documentary

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's the pop culture show with Cult Classic Swagger. This is Inglorious Brothers. I'm Matt Harper, and together with my brother Justin, we dive into the deep end of the zeitgeist each week to bring you cool talk and hot takes. No genre is too specific, no topic too broad, and no rabbit hole too deep as we open our minds and enjoy each other's company. Sound good? Then let's ride. Long before she met John Lennon, Ono was a successful and energetic artist working at the cutting edge of several artistic disciplines, including sculpture and more importantly, performance art. Her avant-garde approach was the thing that initially attracted Lennon to her when they met at a gallery show of hers in October of 1966, and the two began a correspondence with each other around the subjects of art and creativity for close to two years before they eventually became romantically attached in May of 68. Yoko's creativity flourished during this time, and she and Lennon became inseparable, both actively participating in collaborative creative efforts, musical, performative, and otherwise. So for the show today, we're using Yoko Ono as a jumping off point for a discussion of performance art and some very specific people, happenings, and ideas within this lesser-known genre of the creative arts. Starting, I would say, with Yoko Ona. Did you do any work on Yoko specifically?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Um I just I all I did was really go back and just look at a couple of the different things that that we had talked about um on the show, and then I my my my deep dive kind of went off in a different direction. Um but if that's where you'd like to jump it off at, please feel free.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Um yeah, I will uh I will just uh speak specifically to um two pieces that were sort of uh highlights of her career or important, I would say, in her her career and her story. Um probably her most famous performance piece uh was in 1964, so long before she had met John Lennon. Um she did a performance piece called Cut Piece. Um Cut Piece was just really groundbreaking. I mean, I I I I said I said that that Yoko Ono walked so Marina Abramovic, who we're gonna get into later, could run. Um because as you'll see when we talk about her, this this piece sort of created a genre. So what it is is Yoko got up on a stage in front of a room full of people, and she was like wearing a black dress, and she she walked out on stage, she sat down on the stage, kind of kind of like in a kneeling position, um, and then she placed a pair of scissors on the floor in front of her. She said nothing, and then she just sat in one very still position with her eyes like fixated off into the middle distance and didn't say a word. And as I would imagine, there was probably uncomfortable silence for some amount of time, but sooner or later people started coming up on stage and started cutting her clothes away. I don't know if if there was any kind of like a plant or somebody that was supposed to get the ball rolling, but over the course of this piece, she sat there as people cut her clothes away and basically took her down to like her bra, I think. Um and it was just very thought-provoking. I mean, for people who don't know anything about performance art, um or or or this this sort of this sort of abrasive end of the world of performance art, I think this would be quite quite jarring of a thing to see even now. Certainly you can imagine in 1964, what a you know what I mean, what an impression.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Um one of the things that that you know I one of my starting off points was just looking up uh the the five basic elements of performance art. Um and they are they are in in no particular order time, space, body, all right, the presence of the artist and the relation between the artist and the public. All right, those are your five elements of performance art. And this speaks to a number of them. Obviously, you know, her body and her presence as the artist, her relation to the public was, you know, them coming up and and you know, taking part of the of the of the clothes, you know, taking part and cutting off, you know, the the pieces of her clothes uh in the artist, you know, in the space of this performance. Um and obviously, you know, we'll we can take time as you know, this was cutting edge for uh that time. This was a very conservative era in the world in general. You know, we're we're coming out of we're coming out of the the boomer generation out, you know, we're we're you know 20 years removed from the end of World War II. And this is this is definitely uh historic for that type of time, you know, and it's very interesting to me that that this was one of her kind of like coming out, you know, of you know, things that she did.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

I mean it's really th this kind of art is so cerebral. I mean, it's really examining like core questions about art itself. Um, the last two of those five criteria I think are quite obviously the really important ones. I mean, the relationship between between art as as object and expression, and then the relationship between artist and and audience. Um those kinds of lines get so blurred with with performance art. It's just it's really wild, you know. The artists themselves become the art, the audience themselves become the art. And these types of performances, you know, force that that dynamic and raise just so many questions that transcend mere aesthetics, you know what I mean? Mere beautiful, you know, there's it's it's it's it's one thing to stand and look at a a gorgeous, you know, landscape portrait that took some great artist 500 years ago, you know, months and months to paint. Uh it the the the thought the thoughts that are provoked by a simple 10-minute performance of some person doing just one thing, it's it can be exponential, you know what I mean, for what it says to us about about ourselves. So um the fact that she was already operating in that space in 1964 should allay anyone's um suspicion that Yoko Ono was like just some dumb broad that John Lennon became enamored with. You know what I mean? This this woman is an artist uh at the at the top level of artistry when it comes to when it comes to the the thought, the the the consideration of what art is at its core.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And is it is it so shocking that you know one of the greatest artists of our time gravitated towards another artist? Like it shouldn't like it shouldn't be shocking to anybody at all that Lennon gravitated towards her. I mean, she was doing cutting edge things when he was doing cutting edge things, and it's you know, they ended up in each other's orbit and you know, love blossomed.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, uh, and honestly, it's the the people that disparaged Yoko Ono, like during and after, you know, John Lennon's life, um, really are doing their hero John Lennon a disservice because they're saying, We don't trust your judgment, we think she's dumb, you know, we think she, you know what I mean? Like, if John Lennon wanted to spend his life with this person, yeah, there's something there. There's something very, very deep. Because we're talking about John Lennon, you know, like one of the great musical artists of of all time, of the modern era. Um, so you know, it's but they they just took that their whole lives, and she continued to take it for decades afterwards, people just disparaging her and and and trashing her when it was just completely unfounded. Um, I caught the uh watched the video of her receiving a Grammy Award because she was a musician and she is a Grammy Award-winning musician for Album of the Year as the co-writer of Double Fantasy, the one of the albums that she made with John Lennon. Um, you know, so say what you will, she won a Grammy, you know. Um so she goes out there, gets a huge standing ovation, um, and of course gives like a simple, perfect speech, just like I talked about in last week's episode where they asked each John and Yoko, you know, how do you want to be remembered? And they just gave these beautiful, simple little answers, like Susan. I should have, I should have made a note of it, but she gave a perfect little like two-line thank you uh speech at the end that was just just awesome. She had her her little son, her fatherless son out there with her. Um, she got the award about 18 months after Lennon had died. They had just released this album right before he died. Um, but I found an article uh by this guy, Gary Suarez, from a website called medium.com. Um, and he was reflecting on that standing ovation that she got that night and reflecting back to an article written by Robert Chris Gow. Does that written name ring a bell, Robert Chris Gow? He's like a longtime, I believe, Rolling Stone uh columnist that's like kind of the authority on you know rock and roll uh when it comes to criticism. Um and he had written, he had written about that and about the Double Fantasy album um as a as a rebuttal to this other guy who wrote it, who wrote a review of Double Fantasy and trashed it, but then John Lennon died, so he didn't release it, but Chris Gal knew about it. And uh Chris Gal basically came out and was like um kind of disparages her in her moment of triumph. And he says, one wonders if they were clapping that night for the living or for the dead. And it's just like, really, man, like obnoxious. And and and he's trying to he's trying to talk shit about this other guy's article that was disparaging about the album. And what does he do? He just does the same exact thing. It's just it's a it's a real shame that she was um treated treated that way. Um, I have one last detail on Yoko before we move on to other stuff. Um the piece that Lennon first encountered of hers, um, I don't know if it was it was the very first one he saw, but it was the first one that sort of like touched a note with him. He he he went to uh an art opening that she had in, I think it was in London, it was either in London or in Tokyo, um in like '66. And she had some sort of sculptural things, but they were interactive sculptural things. One of them was like a thing where you had there was a hammer and a nail, and you had the audience could come up and nail, nail stuff in. But the one that I really liked was it was a it was called ceiling painting slash yes painting. And it was this giant ladder that was like leaned against the wall, and it kind of went all the way up to where the wall met the ceiling, and there was a magnifying glass that was like laying at the bottom of the ladder, and you go and you pick up the magnifying glass and you climb up to the top of the ladder, and there in tiny little letters, like right in the crack where the wall meets the ceiling, you look through the thing and you can see, and it just says, Yes. And Lennon was like, I like that, that's positive. This person's cool. I want I want to I want to get to know this lady. Like, hell yes, you know what I mean? Like, and it's just so wonderful to think of John Lennon feeling inspired by that. You know what I mean? And just just hit the the the wheels in his brain like kicking in, and that incredible brain that that guy had, the wheels in that brain just start kicking in, you know what I mean? So uh really, really like that. So um why don't why don't you uh why don't you take us to our first subject? I'll react.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

So so you you want to talk about Marina uh Abramovic. I I I kind of want you to start, and then I wanna sh I I I wanna I'll I'll kind of tag on to the end of it in where what what she meant to artists in you know the current generation. So feel free to start there, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna like tag in, you know, with what she's done with some current artists that everybody would know.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Yeah, sounds good. Well as I said, um Yoko walked so Abramovich could run. Um she is a uh still with us, by the way. She's 79 years old. Um Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Uh she is into like body stuff, you know, and and and like endurance type type um art artistry, um, and has done some stuff that is is just really, really thought-provoking, hard, tough to watch, uh crazy to imagine someone doing this. Like it's just it's so, so it just provokes so much emotion, which right there, when you think about it, I mean, what what is the purpose of art if not to provoke emotion in in people? Um and us sitting here reading up on these images, we're sort of like the audience once removed. You know what I mean? We're not the the actual audience of the art in the moment, but we can also look at it and and have our thoughts provoked, you know, have our have our emotions evoked by seeing the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

We get the advantage of seeing the aftermath as well, being that we're uh, you know, removed from the time aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah. Yeah. So she was she was kind of like obsessed with the spiritual nature of suffering, um, and and what it was, what it's like to suffer and to consider the the idea of suffering. Um, she did a residency in Edinburgh, Scotland, uh in the early 70s. Um while she was there, she liked a residency at like a uh an art space or a an art community. Um, and while she was there, she did a series of performance art pieces called the rhythm series. Um, and it is within this series that she she did her sort of most uh like most well-known work, which was which was rhythm number zero. Um, but I'll I'll run you through a couple of the the earlier rhythms. And I should mention she also did a piece, I meant to look it up. Um she did a piece a little earlier in her career, I believe, where um she stood on a stage and she there was a she had a bow and arrow, and she held the bow with the string away from her, and then an audience person would come up and load an arrow into the bow and pull it back and like aim it right at her. You know what I mean? And there's famous pictures of her like holding this thing while somebody's got this arrow like pulled back, and so that's sort of that sort of gets at the heart of of what she was about is is like putting herself in in danger and in pain and in a state of suffering within the performance of the art. Um, because the stakes couldn't be higher, you know, it's okay. Yeah, the guy, the guy sneezes and she dies, you know, or who knows what happens. Um and so it really takes the idea of art as an act of bravery to the to its to its logical endpoint, you know what I mean? Um, so in uh rhythm number two, she took uh lots and lots of pills that are given to like psychotic patients to like watch her mind unravel, you know, in like a you know, I guess a finite kind of thing or whatever. Um just wild and and she did. She went through all kinds of just craziness for a while before the effects wore off. In number five, she basically made a a like five-pointed star on the ground out of something that she could light on fire that would stay on fire. And then she just laid in the middle of it, getting like heat and like smoke all over her, and she almost like pat or she like passed out from smoke inhalation and like had to be dragged out of there or whatever. I mean, just like pushing the the boundaries. Yeah. Um, but also, you know, there's there's symbolism in there. The fact that she chose the five-pointed star of all, you know, why not a circle? Why not a square? What is she, you know, there's it's it's also it's also using the sort of more conventional tools of artistry, you know, iconography and shapes and figures and stuff like that. Um so and then uh number 10, she did the knife game, aka the the five-finger for fillet, or what did you call it in uh don't they do that in they do that in Red Dead, Red Dead? That's what they call it there.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

There's a there's a game literally called five five finger fillet.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Like a game within the game?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Interesting. So she did that one. Um and one of the people that I'm really excited into getting into talking about, Joseph Boyce, another, another um performance artist, uh, was in attendance at this performance when she did the knife thing, which I absolutely love, that little crossover. Yeah, between some of my um between some of my stuff. But rhythm number zero was the absolute masterpiece from this thing. Um this thing had echoes of like the Stanford Prison experiment. If you've ever are you familiar with that, you know, where people were it, it's it's it's about how groups uh of individuals can lose their sense of self-awareness and accountability and their their sense of empathy when they're put into groups. Um and they, you know, have the opportunity to decide whether or not to do terrible things to people. And there's just something about the fact that perfectly rational people will do seemingly irrational things to harm other people just by virtue of the fact that they're in a group when there's when there's nothing else to be gained from it, and when they know that they are in the middle of an experiment or when they know that they are in the middle of an art piece, they will still be willing to do unspeakable things.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Well, and the group mentality is just it's it's it's so scary because there's so many things that we can point to in life where you know the group mentality takes over and um you know makes something so much worse. Uh one of the ones that that comes to mind immediately just with the group mentality is is the the January 6th insurrection. You know what I mean? That is a perfect example of something that just gets out of hand where people do things that in their normal everyday lives they probably wouldn't do if it wasn't for the group. And it's what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Those they've all been pardoned, Justin. They're they're good people. Like they they would never they would never do that. They didn't do that. Um no, yeah, I get your point for sure. Um, so what happened in this piece specifically is that she walked out on stage. Uh next to her on the stage was a table. It was filled with items, like you know, several dozen random, well, not random items, chosen items, but they were items that ran ran the gamut from things that uh if put on your body would would feel good to things which if used on your body could kill you, literally. So while she had feathers and perfumes and you know, nice things that might feel good if they were touching your body, she also had knives and guns and Xacto knives and like yeah, there was a there was a there was a gun and one bullet next to it. And basically, same deal as Yoko, she walks out on stage, she strikes a uh a thousand yard stair and And have at me. And I believe she was there for about six hours. She stood there for six hours. And the audience did all the stuff. I mean, if you see the pictures and you see some of the video from it, you see this woman on stage, she gets drawn on and has like words drawn on her. Somebody starts trying to like cut her with the X-Acto knife around her neck. And so she's got blood on her. People have taken cards and written things on her and and um stuck the cards to her. There was also a like it looks like there was a Polaroid camera. So she's got pictures of herself with other stuff stuck to her from five minutes earlier in the performance attached to her body. And then the most notable thing that happened is some dude came up and put a bullet in the gun and went up and put the gun in her hand and put her finger on the trigger and pointed it at her. And she stood there with that in that in that situation. That is, it caused the audience to flip out. Two factions formed in the audience, one saying, You gotta stop this, the other saying, This is what she wants. This is the art. You know, we're we're letting her down if we don't do this, basically. And there's like fights happening. And then at the six-hour mark, she took one step forward. And I don't know how it was signified. I guess the fact that she just moved, it meant that it was done, and the audience left. They were all just like, we're out of here, and they just bolted. Room emptied out. Suddenly, in the bright light of day, they all were like, What just happened? And they left. That's crazy.

unknown 23:47

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

And it's like, what are human beings capable of when the rules are removed? You know? And then and then you look, you you look at our current political state in America in 2026. I mean, the billionaire class, they're operating in a world that has no rules. You know? 100%. I mean, this this thing this thing still speaks is still resident, resonant 50 years later.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

It's just so thought-provoking. Um yeah, Abramovich is just an absolute superstar, in my opinion, um, with with works like this. And she's gone on to have a huge career in art, education. She's made films, she's collaborated with you know, tons of different people.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Um, I mean, really, well, let's let's talk about some of those collaborations. So I there's there's two that I found in my research that I think were were very uh interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

So I don't want one I don't want one of them is huh? I know what one of them is, but I won't see all your thunder go.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Okay. All right. So um the first one is is is Lady Gaga. So Lady Gaga, um, you know, who I think we would both agree is, you know, a tremendous talent and somebody that for years has reinvented herself multiple times and pushed the boundaries of art and taste and a number of different ways through over throughout the years, but she, you know, specifically has done a a few things with with Marina over the years. Um, the first one that I have is so I have a couple couple examples here. So one was the rice grain test of discipline, which is one of the most grueling parts of Gaga's training. So she literally trained with Marina, okay? And it was a four-hour exercise where she had to separate and count one pound of rice mixed with one pound of lentil seeds, and they used this to test Gaga's patience level and ability to focus on a single repetitive task, a key skill for long duration performance art. All right, isn't that interesting? Wow, yeah. Um fascinating. So she did she also did a a spontaneous nude forest walk. All right, so while she was practicing the abramovic method in upstate New York, Gaga reportedly took off her clothes of of her own initiative to feel the elements while blindfolded in a forest. Um uh Marina later joked that she was mainly worried Gaga would catch Lyme disease from local ticks. Wow. Um she did a she did a piece called The Artist Doctor, where Gaga sought out Abramovic, not just for art, but as a form of therapy. Having struggled with stress and pressure of fame, Gaga famously said she reached out to an artist rather than a traditional therapist, so that um uh so that she could, you know, essentially, you know, figure out mental health versus self-control, which I thought was really an interesting thing. Um in 2013 she did something called the Solaris sensory deprivation reading, um, where Gaga participated in an eight-hour marathon reading of the sci-fi novel Solaris to ensure the audience focused entirely on the voice as an instrument. Abermoma commanded the listeners to wear blindfolds. All right. And then another, another famous collaboration that she did was with on on the on the on the gaga thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Um she's gonna be a a a subject of an entire show sometime. I mean in my mind, she can do no no wrong. She's she's among a handful of the the greatest artists of the 21st century so far, certainly in the world of music. I mean, there's just so so many incredible things that she has done. So um what's your what's your other one?

SPEAKER_00 27:57

My other one is uh Marina worked with Jay-Z. You know this one? Okay, so he performed his song Picasso Baby for six hours at a Manhattan gallery, all right, that the whole thing was collaborated with with Marina. And it is it's essentially him for six hours repetitively performing the song to individuals. So like you would come out of the crowd, sit right in front of you, and Jay-Z is gonna give you an a cappella performance of his song directly to your face.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

I think actually the the people stood in front of him, like face to face.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

I think some of them stood, some of them sat. I think you had your choice.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Did you watch the video?

SPEAKER_00 28:41

I did watch the video, and I have it linked in in my notes. I will definitely link it in this in the description.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah, make sure you put that in there, please. Um, yeah, I love that. Uh and I love that Jay-Z of all people was like, Yeah, I'm down, let's do some performance art. Right? Yeah, right. And did did that endurance kind of a thing. Yeah, Jay-Z, such a such a chameleon. We can do a whole subject on him, too.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Um and then there was she did inspire, like, she she was one of the inspirations for, and I totally forgot about this until I was doing my research. Um Joaquin Phoenix did like a two-year performance art piece where he became that like character of like the the rapper where he was like, I'm I'm leaving acting, I'm gonna be a rapper. And yeah, yeah. And then Casey Effleck made that movie called I'm Still Here.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I'm Still Here, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah. So, you know, she's very influential in in in the world.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

And then I would I would love to go back and watch that movie, I'm still here.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

I wouldn't mind doing uh doing an episode on it. Um so I'm gonna I'm gonna hold off on some other stuff that I that I found because I want to connect it to something that we really we are super uber passionate about. Um but I do have another celebrity that has done an absolute ton of performance art. Um and I I don't know what all so what all what else do you have? Where do you how do you want to do that?

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Well, I no, I like that segue. Go into yours and I'll I'll I'll save mine for after.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

So Shia LaBeouf is is um has done a number I mean and everybody can say what they will about Shia LaBeouf. He's kind of gone crazy like a little off the rails and has substance abuse issues and there's all kind of stuff that's going on with that guy. But he has done some really, really amazing performance art pieces throughout the years. Um as he's tried. Huh? Well, I mean he's a guy, so he's a he's a child star that has tried to find his way, you know, as an artist, which you know I think can be very hard for some of these child actors that end up with massive success and and don't really, you know, they've been stars so long, they don't really have their own identity. So it doesn't surprise me that somebody that he would that he would go to something like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

But famously he's I guess I'm just saying that if like you asked me, hey, who name a guy you think might be might have a bunch of performance art under his belt. Like, you know, even if you qualify it a little bit, got a a star of the last 20 years, you know, like I wouldn't be I they would not be going Shia Shia LaBeouf, but maybe I don't know about Shia.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

I bet you know about some of these. So um famously in 2014, he did the I the hashtag, these are all they all have hashtags. Hashtag I am sorry. It was held at a Los Angeles gallery where LaBeuf sat in a room with a paper bag over his head bearing the slogan I am not famous anymore, and invited patrons to interact with him. This was a response to his public, often erratic behavior and allegations of plagiarism. So I love it. I love it. And I and I believe that you weren't supposed to know who was under the bag.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yeah, that it doesn't work if you don't.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Um he did one.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Like if I were him when I did that thing, man, I would be so careful from day one to not get discovered. You know what I mean? To try to keep it going as long as possible. And and because it would be fun to kind of follow follow the online, the online, you know, chatter about who it could be. Yeah. Yeah. All right, good.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Um in 2015, he did one called hashtag all my movies, where over 72 hours LaBeouf watched his entire filmography in reverse chronological order at the Angelica Film Center in New York, uh, and and live streamed his face for the entire duration. And apparently it got very emotional, like, you know, super like you know, there's a picture in my notes that where he's just tears streaming down his face. Um he did another one in 2015 called Touch My Soul, where he set up in a Liverpool art gallery and he took phone calls from the public, all right, and they then transcribed all those conversations. And then there is a documentary, all right, that I did I had linked. I actually I watched this as well. In 2016, he did a project with hold on, where is um oh, I thought I put their names in here so that I could read them. Oh, I did. Um Luke Turner and uh Nastia Sayed and Renetic, all right. Um and they did a film called Take Me Anywhere, all right. The piece was called uh hashtag take me anywhere, and it's a project where the artist they would give their location out on social media, okay, and then anybody could just show up and they would get in your car and you could take them wherever you wanted. Love it. And it's wild. I mean, and when you think of the world of celebrity culture and the craziness of it, like that is like that's an insane thing to do. You don't know whose car you're getting into.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

But it's absolutely that's that's shades of a Bramovich right there.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

It's it's super, super interesting. Um, you should definitely, it's not a long, it's like maybe 30 minutes or so, or maybe even less.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Make sure the links are in your show notes.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Yeah, I will I have the links there. And he also did one anti-Trump installation and that that went from 2017 to 2021, and it invited the public to repeat the phrase, he will not divide us into a camera. It faced several significant disruptions, and it moved several times before finally being shuttered. So um that is that is it as far as my like kind of celebrity performance art deep dive, and then I have a whole nother like angle that I do want to take with this, you know, and we can go with the respect respect to Shia LaBeouf.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Uh newfound, I'm I'm a newfound uh laBoeuf a stan um because that all sounds super cool. And anybody that's doing stuff like that is alright in my book. I love it. Um, so let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna get into some stuff that I know you're very excited about, and we're gonna get into something that I have loved talking about for the past 20 years, and I'm so so stoked to talk about it uh for the record here on our show. So stay with us, we'll be right back. Please check out our other show, Beyond the Slipstream, a weekly podcast about pro cycling, procycling, and oh. Did I mention procycling or kind of obsessed? Search and subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, or click the link in the show notes. All right, welcome back. We're gonna finish out our conversation about performance art with a couple of things we're excited to get into. Uh, would you like to begin?

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Uh, it's up to you, man. Um, so my big thing is not putting together, all right, that one of our big other passions, which you know, we have an entire other podcast called Beyond the Slipstream that we do that's all about cycling. Um pro cycling is its own performative art in in many ways. All right. And and the reason that I say this is not just because of the obvious on the side of the road through especially during the Grand Tours, the Tour de France, the Giro, the Vuelta, there is roadside art all over the place. There's graffiti, there's art installations, there's people doing actual performative art, you know, making tractor wheels out of people in motion, and you know, guys riding in in you know, crazy, you know, vehicles and stuff on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

It's one of the delightful parts of of watching these races and and like why they're so they're so deep and rich for for fans of the sport, you know, because at the end of the day, it's guys riding bikes for hours and hours on end, and having those little things, especially in the Tour de France, as you said, in the Grand Tours, and seeing the enthusiasm of the crowds and and the creativity of of cycling fandom uh just makes it so special, you know, so so utterly special, and it's very unique to our sport.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yes, it really is. I mean, you know, you don't see people going onto the you know field at a baseball game and putting graffiti art down that everybody in the world is going to see.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

You do see some cool costumes and some fun signs at big sporting events and stuff like that, but it's not it's not the level that you get as a biker.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

It's not like literally on the course. You know what I mean? It's it's crazy in that sense. Um, you know, and so that just kind of like led me down a little bit of a path as far as that is concerned, where and and and I didn't even think about it, you know. I was thinking all about the roadside stuff, and then that led me into thinking about you know the racing itself. We're super into the kits. All right, the kit design is its own performative art as well, because they're wearing their fashion right on themselves and out in the middle of things. And throughout the year, we see different teams do special kit designs, and it's all in the sake of you know the the performance of the sport, you know, as a not just a racing medium, but a visual medium as as well, which is really, really cool. We see at the end of grand tours when um think about the the poster right behind me, okay. This this moment right here was its own performative art. All right. These guys were wearing here. I'll even oh let me tip my camera up. This is when Vissma won the Tour de France and had multiple jerseys, and they're wearing their jerseys and their colorful stuff, and they're taking photographs on the Champs Dalisée, you know, and it's it's its own version of art. And so it's very neat to see, you know, the way that some of these race organizations and different things put things together very purposely. The ending of the of the Jiro with the Coliseum in the background, you know, um, the year the Joseph.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

And meeting the Pope, let's not forget. Meeting the Pope.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Perfect. I didn't even think of that one. Jai Hindley, the they when they ended the when they ended in Verona, and the it was the the literal ending of this the podium was in the Coliseum at Verona.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

You know, these are all performative arts.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

How about Peter? How about Peter Sagan just riding a wheelie like during a race?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Yes, yes, exactly. There's so much of it.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Or a guy stopping to propose to his girlfriend.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

So many different things.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

A fan, a fan handing off the local delectable treat to a cyclist, and then him breaking bread as they're rolling along and handing it out to to other writers from other teams saying, Here you go, mate, you know, all's fair and love and war. Have a have a scone or whatever the heck that thing was. Like it was a meat item.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

So, you know, that led me to looking at different examples throughout cycling, and it led me to uh somebody that we have at least I have completely taken for granted in the Tour de France and other grand tours throughout the years, as um, you know, uh a performance artist. I always just looked at him as some goofy guy that you saw on the side of the road. But uh if you are a fan of the Tour de France, you may know Dee Dee the Devil. All right. So Didi the Devil is actually a he is a bicycle designer. Did you know this? I did not. I don't know anything about this guy. And his name is Dieter Svent, all right, and he's been doing performance art at the Tour de France in the Giro d'Italia since 1993. All right. He's an inventor who has created uh many unique and unusual bicycles, and I did throw up some photograph examples in there um of his art in my notes so that you could have have an example, but he does a number of different um different mediums as far as that. He holds 17 world records for bike-related inventions, all right. And according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Svent built the largest mobile guitar, all right, taking the form of a bicycle, and I have that one in there as well. And like, who knew? Who knew about Didi? Was like that this was so deep.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Didi is the man. Like how can you how can you not adore Didi the devil?

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Tell me this does not just like ratchet up the the the he's only missed like I I think I I read that he's only missed one tour. Um there was like he got surgery or something and had to miss one, but he's like always there. And like this gives me such a newfound respect for for Didi the Devil. Like, this guy is doing performance art every year in the Tour de France, like in different ways. Like I just it blew my mind. I was like, I had none, I had no idea. I have a couple of different um there's a a Eurosport piece that I I'll link in the bio that is is really really nice, but it's just like who who knew? Who knew?

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Yeah, that's uh I I absolutely love love that guy, and he has spawned many an imitator. And we say didn't we see a female D D at the end of one of those races last year?

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yes, we did. Yes, we did. But I don't know if I man, I tell you what, you'd be hard pressed to uh to you know to do it. I did I did very blindly drop my drop a uh a DM to him to say that if he speaks English, man, we would love to talk to him. So I doubt I'll ever get a response, but you miss a hundred percent of the shots you never take.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

I literally just used that quote the other day. Um nicely done. You got a lot of lot of great images in your uh in your show notes. You wanna you wanna hit any of these other ones? I mean you talk you talked about the some of this is not specifically performance art, it's other kinds of art, landscape art, road art, etc. But but nonetheless, you know, worthy of calling out.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

But your road, but but some of that road art is performance art because like at least the three examples of the bikes, those have m human moving. components. So there are people moving that moving those wheels as you as the cameras go by. So they are doing performance art.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah well no I was speaking more of the the like stuff painted on the roads.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Oh well that I so the graffiti again you know it's it's it's is in its own way um performance art. Look at the installation at the bottom of the of the field art. And again the this is all stuff that they're doing for a flyby from a helicopter.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Like the people on the ground aren't seeing this that doesn't look like they're putting in hours and hours and thousands of dollars probably in some cases to making these things they're going to be seen on camera for 10 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yes the one the clock though I the clock one just blows my absolute mind. That is stunning if you zoom in on it the intricacy of it is insane and it's like ooh I'd yeah and it looks as though it's like a boardwalk you can walk around the inside of it on that flat flat board.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

That's that's really stunning.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

That so I I was looking for it and and I got sidetracked and I never went back to it. I also wonder if the time on on it is significant. That's my that was my thought is that maybe it was it was pointing to the time and that time was that that particular time was significant for some world at the end.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Well it can be any time depending on what angle you're looking at it right?

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Yeah I guess that's true.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Is it is it a is it 1122 or is it uh we don't I guess we don't know the orientation of the clock.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Good point.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Good point.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Really cool so all right so what do you got?

SPEAKER_01 45:48

All right well I think my the subject of my my final piece here uh is a a good one for to end on uh for a discussion of performance art and that is the the German performance artist Joseph Boyes. I was first introduced to this guy in a very seminal art history class that I took my freshman year of college which kind of helped forge my my views on art and my my curiosity and in love for art like in a in a very big time adult way way back when um many of the artists that my wonderful art teacher Jose Rodiero who I believe is still alive I looked at his website he's got a pretty robust website and has been very involved in lots of really cool projects over the years uh this this this teacher of mine Jose Rodiero um he introduced me to a lot of like just just really really cool stuff that has stuck with me over the years and uh probably chief amongst them is Joseph Boyce um this guy was uh I think he I think he died like in the in the 90s or 2000s um but a German performance artist he was born in 1921 and died he died in 86 um he uh was as a boy he was raised basically like in the Thurreich you know he was he was born in 21 so um basically you know as Hitler is starting to ascend uh Joseph Boyce is born and he was actually in the Hitler youth um which was compulsory yeah he was it was it was compulsory at some point um I'm not sure if it was before or after but you know he was a child it's the Hitler youth so we can't really hold him responsible for you know being there and of course as we'll see in his life went on he was anything but a Nazi um this guy was a humanist and an artist uh but um there was an interesting note uh from his early life there was a the the Nazi party staged a book burning in his hometown of Cleve as I'm sure they did in many many towns all around Germany uh during those years this was in May of 1933 and uh he salvaged one book from the uh from the fire and that book was Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus um that particular book was the book that introduced the binomial nomenclature for botany and zoology you know so like when you hear like the name of like some animal it there's there's two names it's binomial you know it's like blah blah blah blah um and the natural world animals plants are right there in the middle of all of Joseph Boy's artistry um as as as you'll see um so I thought that was really interesting that that was the book that that he remembered saving from you know from from that fire. He was in a he he was in the the German army in the Luftwaffe um as a young man. He was a was I don't think he was a pilot but he was like a a involved with airplanes and rode on a lot of airplanes and air air missions um and uh was in a plane crash which removed a lot of the hair from his head he had he he didn't quite have brain injuries but it he he had injuries and he could have died and it was amazing that he that he didn't die um and he tells a story about how he was rescued by the Tatar people which were like nomadic planes people in the in in Russia and Crimea um and that he was taken unconscious from the plane and it was really cold and he remembers being reled uh wrapped in felt and animal fat by these people to help to keep him alive and as we'll see felt and animal fat became very very key materials in his art as he went on and on. So um war's over he ends up becoming this artist and I'm gonna there's there's too much to get into with this guy um I urge everyone to to seek out whatever you can about this guy. There is a a documentary film from 2017 called Boys uh that you can you can check out for sure and I'll link to the uh to the um trailer for it uh but there's just too much stuff to get into this guy was a teacher he was an artist a sculptor and a performance artist um and I'm just gonna point out a couple of the really really cool uh pieces of performance art that he did over his life um the first one I want to mention is called How to Explain Pictures to a dead hare in this piece he was inside of a a performance space like a gallery space and the artist was outside and looking through the the plate glass windows at the front and he was not wearing his iconic hat. This is one thing about him he had a very very signature look kind of akin to Andy Warhol in this way you know where Warhol always had the the big white hair the turtleneck and the sunglasses um Joseph Boy's wore like a like a fishing vest or like a a gun you know like a an ammo kind of vest you know a vest with a whole lot of pockets with jeans boots and he always had on like this this hat that was kind of like a bowler hat um and he almost always wore this this this outfit throughout the majority of his career. If you google Joseph Boy's there will be a picture of him in that hat um and uh so he's wearing the vest in this uh particular piece he's got his face covered in like shiny animal fat his face in his head with like gold fleck on it so he looks really wild and he's got the body of a dead hare in his arms and he is walking throughout this performance space um and he's looking at port paintings on the wall and artworks on the wall and he's explaining them to this dead rabbit quite bizarre. Uh not exactly sure what the point of that was but certainly thought provoking conversation starting to be sure um a lot of his themes had to do with the natural world the the you know destruction of the environment uh the importance of of animals and and the natural world etc etc um another one of his famous works is called plight it's an installation piece it's like these two rooms that have been filled along the walls with these like big heavy rolls of felt each one like roughly the size of a person five or six feet high and they're just stacked one on top of the other all around this room and there's a grand piano in the middle and to see the image it's just like it's just like wow like you you you feel you feel emotions that are almost outside of like cognitive thought and are more just about like I just I feel claustrophobic. I feel hemmed in I feel silenced by looking at a photograph of this and I can only imagine what you would feel like walking through that space.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Well and I bet the the sound from the grand piano is completely different and deadened.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Yeah and earlier in his career he did another piece where he took a grand piano and wrapped the piano itself and felt and then was interacting with the audience within this space you know and he would bang on the piano but you can't make a can't make you know music you know the traditional kind of piano music when the piano is completely wrapped and felt um now the the the final two pieces I'll mention are the two that really kind of have meant the most to me over the years. The first one is called 7,000 oaks and boys did this in conjunction with like an annual art festival that took place in um his hometown uh uh every year and in this one um 7,000 oaks he basically uh went out and got financing a large amount of financing which was needed for this piece where he brought in 7,000 pieces of granite that were roughly the same size as the big rolls of felt in the last one I talked about about the size of a person about five feet tall you know about a person sized around and he had them dumped on the lawn in front of the the building where this like annual art exhibition was headquartered. And he showed up there and he made a speech about the fact that they were turning the city into parking lots. Everywhere he looked there was another parking lot going in and they were cutting down oak trees left right and center and it had to stop. And he said so I've got the funding and we're gonna go out and we're gonna plant oak trees and for every one of these stones here we're gonna plant an oak tree in the city. We're gonna plant 7,000 oak trees and I got a core of volunteers who's ready to do it with me. And they went out and they did it. They had teams of people going out all over the city over the course of the next like five years and they took the stones and they would plant the stone in the ground and then next to it they would plant an oak tree. And over time you would watch as the oak as the oak sapling grew and grew and overtook the stone and became a living piece of artwork. And this artwork has has has gone beyond the boundaries of not just the town where he first did it but around the world. And in fact I just learned that in Baltimore Maryland on the campus of the University of Maryland Baltimore campus there is a courtyard that is a part of this piece where there you can find oak trees with stones planted next to them just like they did in the original piece. It's become a movement and whereas in the beginning people talked about how they didn't like it and they didn't like all those stones laying on the ground and they didn't like these stones that were being stuck up out of the ground. They were ugly to see this stone sticking up next to a tree but now of course they're beloved you know time has has turned them into a beloved and time time honored thing. So um it's it's performance art and it's activism. It's art is activism you know and that's the thing that this guy was like most concerned with throughout his career was you know lashing back at the institutions that were shaping our world. Yeah. And so the last one I want to talk about uh and I'm really just barely scratching the surface with this guy but it was a piece called I like America and America likes me um boys had been on the come up in the art world at this point in his career. I mean he was really getting well known internationally he wasn't being invited to go all over the world and just do stuff. Just come and just do whatever you want. Just come to our our town come to our nation and let your imagination run wild make statements do whatever the heck it is you want to do because he had such a fascinating mind and he was he was just such a you know such an instigator of great ideas. And so for his first trip to America he created a a performance art piece called I Like America and America likes me. He arrives uh at the airport and is taken off of the airplane um in a stretcher and this is significant he's wrapped in felt and he's in a stretcher and he's taken off the airplane he's loaded into an ambulance and he's taken to an emptied out gallery space that he had contracted for this art piece. They took him up into the gallery still in the stretcher and then they let him out into the gallery and in this gallery there was one other occupant a coyote a uniquely indigenous American animal a wild animal not a domesticated animal a wild animal that is indigenous to this country and boys stayed in that room with this coyote uh for I believe he stayed in that room like it was like six hours a day for like seven days or something like that. And over the course of that time he had to make his peace with the coyote and the the symbolism is just so rich when you think about it. I mean first of all it's like I have to make my peace with the American art world here is what you are looking for and I shall deliver you know I will I will do my part in the transaction of your love of me and my performance for you. And choosing the the coyote it's just so so perfect you know what I mean because it's like it's like I'm not here I'm not here to dominate you and your art world I'm here to participate in your world. And yet at the same time remarkably when he leaves this art piece he is loaded back onto a stretcher placed back into an ambulance brought back to an airplane placed on the airplane and his feet never touch the United States of America our land never touch our land a guy is so so concerned with land with with natural things he never touched like it's just it's just fascinating why what's the purpose you know it's also it's also a metaphor for just kind of like the American you know way which is you know here was this wild place that you know europeans came to obtain essentially and he's put into a space with a wild piece of America that essentially he needs to figure out how to habitate with you know it's very it's very interesting in that in that sense too because it it is very it's very American it's like so American in the in its in its own way. Well and at the end and at the end he's made he's made a friend of the coyote and you can see my last photo there is like him laying on a bed of straw by the window looking out the window with the coyote and you can also you can almost imagine the two of them there just like having a little conversation. Hey what do you think of what do you think of that taxicab going by there buddy like you know and and yeah you can just you could talk about it endlessly I mean that that is what just like what I like about this guy so much is is is he he stretches the idea of art to just new inconceivable limits and in doing so just it invokes conversations and thought and and reconsiderations and considerations and it's just it's exactly what art is meant to do in its most raw form. And I absolutely love it. I I've just adored going down this rabbit hole with this guy. I'm so glad that it kind of fell into our lap to have this discussion because like I said I've I've loved talking about this guy for years and years ever since I ever since I you know ran into him in that guy's class. And it was fun to sort of tighten up my memories it's kind of reminded me of when we when we talked about that uh that dinner party that we did years ago and we were able to go back and like sort of uh reconcile our memories uh versus what the other guy remembered. This is another kind of exercise like that where it's like you know I've been talking about this guy for 20 years based on what I heard in that class. I wonder how close to correct I was and I was pretty close. So uh kudos to uh Jose Rodiero for getting it right all all those all those years back then and for putting this guy in my brain because I sure did enjoy it. In 2013 um a a writer from Complex magazine which is like an art arts arts related magazine ranked I like america and america likes me the second great greatest work of performance art ever after a work called Pandrogeny by Genis P. Orig and excuse me Genesis P. Orig and uh I will put a link simply to that per that person's Wikipedia page and if you want another fascinating deep dive look into Genesis P. Origin there is just a whole other world of wild stuff right there. Yeah so you just sent me a link should I be looking at this?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

No that's just something that's something to look at later you're good.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:03

Gotcha. Well um unless there was anything else you wanted to add to the conversation we will conclude it there. No I'm good well this was a whole whole lot of fun. I really enjoyed it um thanks for thanks for going on that ride with me and uh next week the the time has come I I better I better chisel out some some time this week and start start digging into this video game so I'm gonna I think I'll be fine. I'll I'll start I'll start I'm gonna take it down in our blocks at a time uh over the next several days.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:37

I would bet by the end of it you are I bet the last two or three go faster than the first two.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

Cool well we're it's it's it's Red Dead Redemption we're gonna be talking about that's all I'll say um we're gonna be talking Red Dead all you gaming fans out there hold on to your hats Red Dead Redemption 2.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

I mean we'll get to but but two is the is the is the one we're gonna be discussing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

Well you're you are you are hosting so uh be prepared at the top to give us a primer on Red Dead Redemption and uh until then for for my brother Justin I'm Matt Harper thanks for joining us and uh we'll see you again next week on Inglorious brothers brothers is a Harparama production and a part of the Harparama family of podcasts. You can find us on Apple Podcasts Spotify and YouTube. Please like subscribe and follow leave a five star review and most importantly tell all your friends about us thanks for listening talk to you next time and uh oh yeah Ariva Derchi