_edited.jpg){kind=logo}
Although the concept of ’the most' will always remain relative, there are a number of factors that decide that something in the world is the most beautiful, the most extraordinary, the most… This is sometimes determined by a community, people, or experts.
In this article, we want to take a look at the world's most influential performing arts presented by various sources, especially The Guardian:
In The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan: Creating Reincarnation
The performance that French artist Orlan began in 1990, In The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, consists of a series of aesthetic surgeries. The artist aimed to recreate her appearance by transforming herself to resemble Botticelli’s Venus, Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa, and other Western art figures.
"My goal was to be different, to be strong; to shape my own body to reinvent myself. Everything is about being different and thereby creating conflict with society."
Orlan underwent a total of nine surgeries, working on her own reincarnation. Designers like Paco Rabanne and Issey Miyake practically competed to design the outfits she would wear during the surgeries. Every moment of this performance, accompanied by poetry readings and music, was recorded on video during the surgeries and sent to many galleries worldwide. Orlan convinced her board-approved surgeon to participate in this theatrical project, showcasing the quality of her work.
The Corruption of a Courageous Person: Rhythm 0
One of the most talked-about performances is undoubtedly Rhythm 0, performed in 1974 by Marina Abramović, who has made a significant impact on people with her works. The performance involved the audience, with Abramović allowing 72 different objects to be used on her body. How these objects were used was entirely up to the audience, and the performance was only stopped when a gun was pointed at Abramović’s head.
"...I was criticized for going to extremes, so this time I wanted to see the limits of the audience by doing nothing. It was a kind of hell. After six hours, the show was over, and I began to come out of my performance and become myself again. I started moving among the audience. They fled. They all fled."
Initially, the audience approached the woman with great kindness (giving her a rose, stroking her hair…), but as the minutes passed, they gained courage from each other and began cutting the artist’s clothes, applying violence, and sexually assaulting her. Throughout the performance, Marina Abramović remained completely unresponsive, but at certain moments, she couldn’t hold back her tears in the face of what was happening. Rhythm 0 is a performance that reveals how morally corrupt humans can become.
Open Score's Equation: Art and Technology
Open Score is a performance by Robert Rauschenberg that took place in 1996 and consists of three parts. In the first part, painter Frank Stella and Mimi Kanarek play a tennis match. During the match, acoustic sounds are produced with every movement. These sounds are accompanied by movements in the venue’s lighting, creating a light show.
“Tennis is movement, if we consider it in the context of theater, it is an official dance improvisation. The unexpected use of the game to control lights and perform like an orchestra interests me. The conflict is that one cannot see an event immediately before it happens outside of a reproduction, which is a kind of double exposure of an action. A curtain of light and a curtain of darkness.”
In the second part, the march of 500 people in the dark is projected onto three large screens using infrared cameras. In the final section, a girl inside a sack sings a folk song under spotlights. This work can be interpreted as revealing the change observed during the interaction of contemporary art practices and new technologies.
Feminist Performance: Cut Piece
Yoko Ono sits on stage with a pair of scissors in front of her. At this moment, it is announced to the audience in the hall that they can come to the stage and cut pieces of the artist’s clothing to take with them. Ono remains motionless during this time. This performance, first held in 1964 and repeated five times in different locations, may have also been an inspiration for Rhythm 0.
“People kept cutting away the parts they didn’t like about me. In the end, all that was left of me was the stone inside, but even then, they weren’t satisfied and wanted to know what was inside the stone.”
By showing how a neutral relationship with the audience can turn into an aggressive act, the artist actually expressed a feminist stance with her performance Cut Piece. The performance demonstrates how the subjective relationship between the body and woman is subjected to boundary violations.
Agreeing by Looking: A Minute of Silence
The final performance on the list also bears the signature of Marina Abramović. A Minute of Silence is a performance that took place over approximately three months, during which a thousand strangers communicated by staring into Abramović’s eyes for eight hours a day, totaling 736 hours.
“From kids aged 2 and 14 to 18, people who don't normally go to museums, don't care about performance art, or don't even know what it is, have started to come thanks to Lady Gaga. They watched the show and then started coming back. That’s how I gained a whole new audience."
This work, which aims to change the perception of time and go beyond expectations, brings the audience and the artist together in mutually positioned chairs. The surprise name of the work, which is sometimes accompanied by tears, is Abramović's former love Ulay, who sits across from her while she has her eyes closed.