Live Art Cliches

By Adam York Gregory

Adam York Gregory is a live artist. Sometimes he writes about it too.

Live Art Cliches is a collection of short essays about the live art world, starting with the title essay that considers the pitfalls of one of the most vibrant and urgent forms of making.

Published here as a companion to those just starting out on their live art practice as well as seasoned makers, who might wince a little as they encounter cliches they are also familiar with, Live Art Cliches looks at how we communicate through art.

Other essays consider when you should leave a performance, audience engagement, protest and art, the differences between visual and performative practice, and the business of a career in the arts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam York Gregory
• Release date: Feb 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224344994

Book preview

SOMETIMES

WORDS

ARE

OK

[Introduction]

Art is a way of saying things, often without words, although sometimes with them.

It’s a pretty flexible form of communication.

Mostly though, we turn to art as a way of saying something urgent and nuanced, that might struggle if only expressed in mere words.

The problem is, that especially in live art, that direct communication is as fleeting as the performance. That’s why arts writers exist. Their job is to try and convert the meaning, and the message, of art back into writing, so that someone much later on can pick up the conversation and keep it going.

At its best, good art writing provides context too, and a small amount of reflection. At its worst, it reduces everything down to a five star rating system and some very dubious and less than objective sentences.

Hopefully I’ve avoided the latter. It certainly hasn’t been my intention when writing about art to make a call on whether something is good, or bad, but rather to question what it was trying to do, and whether it stuck the landing.

Please, feel free to disagree with everything that follows, and if it moves you to write, or make art then I might have got something right.

And as much as I am a make of art and a writer of words, my favourite place to be is in the audience.

LIVE

ART

CLICHES

[INTRODUCTION]

The best thing about live art, or performance art, or whatever you choose to call it, is also the worst thing about live art, performance art, or whatever you choose to call it.

There’s no barrier to entry.

All you need is a body and a mind.

You don’t need props, or venues, or fancy lighting.

You just need an idea and the will to do it.

Sometimes you don’t even need an audience.

And that’s great. It is what makes it so vibrant, so polyphonic and multi-dimensional. It’s pure, distilled punk ethic art.

That’s what makes it my favourite form.

However, that lack of a barrier means that there is also an absolute torrent of terrible live art.

Most of you have probably sat through some. Some of you will have sat through an awful lot.

What I’ve tried to do here is condense down some of the common traps that unwitting artists plummet into when making. It is not done to shame anyone, rather to act as a soft guide, because the more good live art the better, right?

And so I won’t be naming names or citing specific examples of what I think are good and bad pieces. Please feel free to insert your own memories where they feel comfortable.

Cliches are cliches for a reason. Usually that they belong to a category of idea that is so resonant with a form that it is the first thing we go for. That doesn’t necessarily make them bad, rather it means that we need to use them carefully, thoughtfully. By understanding them, their causes and effects, you’ll be able to wield them with judicial power.

Again, remember that this is for the love of the form. If you find yourself wincing at some of them, perhaps because they cut a little close to the bone, feel comforted in knowing that self awareness is the mark of a good artist.

All art is a conversation. It is a way of communicating. It is a way of listening.

[#1 DIY DOESN’T MEAN SHIT]

I think we can all agree that you think what you are doing is important. That what you are trying to say with your work is worth listening to.

It is necessary and probably quite urgent. This is the reason why you have to think about how it is delivered.

Presentation.

The medium may be the message, but the set design and costume are the surface you are painting it on.

There’s a misconception about DIY and the aesthetic that accompanies it. Essentially, that it should look like it was made in five minutes out of whatever happened to be in the closest bin.

Now, it can be that. That’s valid. If those are the parameters you have to work in... a tight time scale with no resources.

However, you are trying to communicate here, and the aesthetics need to work with the message. Consider how the work looks and how that either helps or hinders what you are trying to say.

There was a period in the 2010s when an awful lot of live art was sporting this cardboard aesthetic that made everything look like a slightly more serious episode of the Mighty Boosh. Again, that’s fine, but if you can’t explain why how you look is related to what you are trying to communicate, I’d suggest you spend some more time thinking about this.

Similarly, there’s a tendency when making art about the environment to go straight for plastic bottles as set dressing and costume. It’s a good call, to use the materials of the argument, but be aware that this is very much a cliche and without care and attention you’ll end up looking like Marjory the Trash Heap from Fraggle