Body art is
art in which the artist uses their
human body as the primary medium.
[Oxford Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford University, p. 88] Emerging from the context of
Conceptual Art during the 1970s,
Body art may include
performance art. Body art is likewise utilized for investigations of the body in an assortment of different media including
painting,
casting,
photography,
film and
video.
More extreme body art can involve mutilation or pushing the body to its physical limits.
In more recent times, the Human body has become a subject of much broader discussion and treatment than can be reduced to body art in its common understanding. Important strategies that question the human body are: implants, body in symbiosis with the new technologies, Virtuality avatar bodies, among others.
Popular use of the term
Body art has been expanded into the popular culture and now covers a wide spectrum of usage, including
,
body piercings,
scarification, and
body painting.
Photographer
Spencer Tunick is well known for conducting
which gather large numbers of naked people at public locations around the world.
Background
Body art often deals with issues of gender and personal identity and common topics include the relationship between body and psyche.
The forerunners were the avant-garde artists. In 1913 Russian Futurism (Ilia Zdanevich, David Burliuk, Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova) performed an action in Moscow streets with painted faces
The Vienna Action Group was formed in 1965 by Hermann Nitsch, Otto Mühl, Günter Brus, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler.
In France, body art was termed art corporel and practiced by such artists as Michel Journiac, Orlan and Gina Pane while in Italy in the 1980s, one of the famous artists in the movement was Ketty La Rocca.
Marina Abramović performed Rhythm 0 in 1974. In the piece, the audience was given instructions to use on Abramović's body an array of 72 provided instruments of pain and pleasure, including knives, feathers, and a loaded pistol. Audience members cut her, pressed thorns into her belly, applied lipstick to her, removed her clothes, and held a loaded pistol to her head. Accounts vary as to how the performance concluded, some stating it ended after a scuffle broke out in the audience over their conduct, while Abramović retells that the artwork simply came to an end after the intended six hours, at which time she stood and walked towards the audience, which fled.
Artists whose works have evolved with more directed personal mythologies include Rebecca Horn, Youri Messen-Jaschin, Javier Perez, and Jana Sterbak.
Extreme body art
For example, one of Marina Abramović's works involved dancing until she collapsed from exhaustion, while one of
Dennis Oppenheim's better-known works saw him lying in the sunlight with a book on his chest, until his skin, excluding that covered by the book, was badly
. It can even consist of the arrangement and
dissection of preserved bodies in an artistic fashion, as was for the
plastination bodies used in the travelling
Body Worlds exhibition.
Absence of body
Scientific research in this area, for example that by
Stelarc, can be considered in this artistic vein.
A special case of the body art strategies is the
Nonexistence of
Human body. Some artists who performed the "absence" of body through their
Visual art were: Davor Džalto,
Antony Gormley, and
Andy Warhol.
Body art events
Burning Man festival is held annually in the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada (US), in September.
Jake Lloyd Jones, a Sydney-based artist, conceived the Sydney Body Art Ride, which has become an annual event. Participants are painted to form a living rainbow that rides to the Pacific Ocean and immerses itself in the waves.
Medical uses for body art
Body art, specifically painting on the body is a newly incorporated skill in the medical industry primarily used for schooling. While the primary method for learning bodily physiology is through examining cadavers according to Gabrielle Flinn, some students are very off put by this practice.
Organizations are now considering using body painting as a functional, low-cost, and positive way of learning about the inner-workings of anatomical structures through painting. This would consist of medical students painting on, or working with, willing volunteers who have been painted on to expose various body parts such as: lungs, muscles in hands, legs, etc. Hands are the most typically chosen as the patient does not have to undress for the painting examination, however, with consent of the volunteer patient, medical students could paint other areas such as the back. This would allow the medical students to not only learn more about anatomy in a positive manner but also have real life practice in bedside manners, and making sure their patients are comfortable, and well taken care of through the entire process.
See also
External links
-
Body Art section at the Australian Museum
-
Body Art Page, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
