Endurance art

Marina Abramović's The Artist is Present, 2010, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Abramović sat opposite museum visitors for eight hours a day, without speaking, for a total of 750 hours.^[1]

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]

Writer Michael Fallon traces the genre to the work of Chris Burden in California in the 1970s.^[4] 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).^[5]

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.^[6]

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.^[7] 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.^[8]

Examples

Tehching Hsieh spent a year in this cage in his studio in One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece).

• Marina Abramović^[9] – Rhythm 5, 1974; Luminosity, 1997, 2010; Nude with Skeleton, 2002, 2005, 2010;^[8] The House With the Ocean View (2003);^[7] Balkan Erotic Epic, 2005.^[10]
• Marina Abramović with Ulay^[11] – Point of Contact, 1980;^[8] Night Sea Crossing, 1981; The Lovers: Walk on the Great Wall, 1988.^[12]
• Vito Acconci – Seedbed, 1972.^[13]
• David Askevold – Fill.^[14]
• Stuart Brisley – And for today ... nothing, 1972.^[15]
• Chris Burden^[11] – Five-Day Locker Piece, 1971.
• David Blaine^[16] – Witness (1999),^[17] Buried Alive, Frozen in Time, Vertigo, Above the below, Drowned Alive.
• Nikhil Chopra, – Give Me Your Blood And I Will Give You Freedom, 2014.^[18]
• Houston Conwill – Juju Rituals, 1975–1983.^[19]
• Elevator Repair Service – Gatz, 2005.^[18][20]
• Tehching Hsieh – One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece); One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece).^[6][21][22]
• Tehching Hsieh with Linda Montano – Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece).^[21]
• Ragnar Kjartansson – A Lot of Sorrow, 2014.^[23]
• Stan Lai – A Dream Like A Dream, 2014.^[18]
• Bruce Nauman – Revolving Upside Down and Stamping in the Studio.^[14]
• Carolee Schneeman – Up To And Including Her Limits.^[14]
• Wolfgang Stoerchle – Attempt Public Erection, 1972–1975.^[19]
• Emma Sulkowicz – Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), 2014–2015.^[24][11]
• Zhang Huan – 12 Square Meters, 1994.^[25]
• Kyrahm – Human Installation I: Chrysalis, 2009.

See also

• Hunger artist
• Stylite

References

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.