Performance Art Live Foundation, Ireland
Manifesto
P.A. Live is an artist led initiative founded in response to the significant interest in live performance in the Visual Arts in Ireland.
This collaboration takes a multitude of forms;
Irish Performance Art
Live performance in the Visual Arts in Ireland is a vibrant practice and comes with an ideological position that characterizes it as particularly Irish; living installation and durationally driven work.
There are many theories on how and why this kind of practice has developed: it has been suggested that such evolution and strength in this artistic form is closely connected to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, amid which artists felt conventional forms of art making failed to express the experience of what was happening on the streets. The history of performance art in Ireland is grounded in responding with the body.
The significance of Alastair MacLennan’s practice cannot be underestimated in this vein: a teacher in Belfast from the mid 70s, MacLennan asks the audience to be witness and to co-inhabit the visceral territory he explores. Another important node of references is the significance of Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland’s performative stance against the politics of Ireland and his recent performance of burying ‘Patrick Ireland’ in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Samuel Beckett’s late plays, Not I, That Time and Breath, are essential pivots for performance practitioners globally, but clearly have special significance for Irish artists.
Irish people have a special relationship and enthusiasm for all things LIVE from sport to music, theatre to storytelling. Within this cultural context Ireland has developed a vibrant and outstanding practice in performance art making. P.A.Live focuses on artists who have live performance as the central tenet of their practice and who work as artist-performers. Performance art is a slippery, uncertain term. P. A. Live offers an articulation of the second wave of performance in the visual arts.
The International Context
Live performance in the visual arts is in the process of coming in from the periphery and into the canon of the contemporary gallery. In 2009 New York’s MOMA appointed Klaus Biesenbach as their first Curator in Chief for Performance Art. In July of the same year, for the exhibition Marina Abramovic presents... the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester cleared its permanent collection and installed 14 durational performances for three weeks. Of these 14 international artists Alastair Mac Lennan, Kira O’Reilly and Amanda Coogan are Irish or live on the island. For VISUAL, Centre for contemporary Art’s inaugural exhibition six live performance artists created Accumulator, an exhibition in flux for it’s duration.
P.A. Live is an artist led initiative founded in response to the significant interest in live performance in the Visual Arts in Ireland.
- We are dedicated to and invested in live durational performance made by artist-performers.
- We will support Irish Artists in developing and presenting live performance.
- We believe Irish performance practice is a strong and vibrant one with key historical lineage.
- We will create a dialogue around Irish live performance practice in the context of international developments.
This collaboration takes a multitude of forms;
- In the initial stages of creating a piece of live performance, showing the work in development to a peer group can be a significant process for it’s development, serving as a reflection of the piece ‘as live’ in front of a safe audience.
- Work as an artist-performer nessessitates collaboration for the documentation of the live event.
- The management and assistance to the artist at the live event.
- The crucial and unique part of a live performance, the audience, without whom the piece cannot function as a live performance.
Live performance in the Visual Arts in Ireland is a vibrant practice and comes with an ideological position that characterizes it as particularly Irish; living installation and durationally driven work.
There are many theories on how and why this kind of practice has developed: it has been suggested that such evolution and strength in this artistic form is closely connected to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, amid which artists felt conventional forms of art making failed to express the experience of what was happening on the streets. The history of performance art in Ireland is grounded in responding with the body.
The significance of Alastair MacLennan’s practice cannot be underestimated in this vein: a teacher in Belfast from the mid 70s, MacLennan asks the audience to be witness and to co-inhabit the visceral territory he explores. Another important node of references is the significance of Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland’s performative stance against the politics of Ireland and his recent performance of burying ‘Patrick Ireland’ in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Samuel Beckett’s late plays, Not I, That Time and Breath, are essential pivots for performance practitioners globally, but clearly have special significance for Irish artists.
The International Context
Live performance in the visual arts is in the process of coming in from the periphery and into the canon of the contemporary gallery. In 2009 New York’s MOMA appointed Klaus Biesenbach as their first Curator in Chief for Performance Art. In July of the same year, for the exhibition Marina Abramovic presents... the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester cleared its permanent collection and installed 14 durational performances for three weeks. Of these 14 international artists Alastair Mac Lennan, Kira O’Reilly and Amanda Coogan are Irish or live on the island. For VISUAL, Centre for contemporary Art’s inaugural exhibition six live performance artists created Accumulator, an exhibition in flux for it’s duration.
