Prelude
by Helena Goldwater
What is this?
This is an attempt at collating, gathering, reminding, returning, revisiting, revealing, rustling up.
A place of beginnings. A starting point.
A desire to include. To acknowledge.
A desire to experience.
A springboard into action.
This is an introduction.
What it cannot be?
Definitive, the whole truth, the whole picture, all the answers, all the moments, objective.
Everything that it was.
The experience of being there.
Memories.
Reminiscences.
Why am I doing this?
Because I wasn’t there.
Because these artists were.
Because they changed the ground they inhabited.
Because we inherited.
Because this is a chasm of pleasure, knowledge, and performances into which I hope you wish to fall. As I did.
Because what remains is all we have.
Because what remains is scattered.
Because of what remains.
Traces.
Glimpses of before.
Of then.
Stuart Brisley , Between, 1979, Performance (with Iain Robertson), De Appel, Amsterdam
What are these borders?
‘United Kingdom’ is a construct, a constrict, a myth, a boundary, a political problem, disputed territory.
The ‘1970s’ is a construct, a constrict, a myth, a boundary, a political problem, disputed territory.
‘Performance Art’ is a construct, a constrict, a myth, a boundary, a political problem, disputed territory.
There’s slippage in all things.
There’s a question for all words.
There are no certainties.
There’s no beginning, middle or end except in language.
Language is all I have. I have to find a beginning.
My language is subjective. My terms are learnt.
Something has happened in places. Something has happened in time. Something has shifted our present plane.
I note these somethings.
United Kingdom
Something unclear.
Something fraught.
‘United’ and ‘Kingdom’.
Both offer a great deal of anxiety.
Although some kind of parameter.
A place of beginnings. A starting point.
A desire to include.
A desire to acknowledge.
In these places. This so-defined nation.
In this place.
A place to redress that which is omitted.
The 1970s
I don’t remember the beginning. I can’t offer a clear sweep of history from a distanced position.
I remember my nostalgia, confusion.
I remember seaside holiday camps, ‘gender-bending’ in music, the realisation of my difference, the devastating violent racism, overt sexism, social deprivation, hooliganism, hidden abuse, the threat of nuclear armaggedon, bombings, power cuts, polarised (albeit clear) political positioning.
I was too young to remember the possibilities of making change. Through community. The decade of experimentation borne of the raising of consciousness of sexual and gay liberation, feminism, anti-racism. That you could live cheaply, that artists could make and survive with some measure of vibrancy and could pose questions.
I remember asking questions.
I remember wondering how I would live in such uncertainty.
I remember looking for answers.
I can date the end with the coming to power of Thatcher, the beginning of money as the new god, and my sense of urgency.
Shirley Cameron Roland Miller, Inspection Pit, (1978). Plener Miastko, International Symposium, Warcino, Poland. Duration: 45 minutes
Performance Art
I made decisions later.
But I decided here. I distinguished.
A distinction was: not theatre, though some might be theatrical.
A distinction was: not dance, though many move.
A distinction was: not experimental, though all experiment.
A distinction was on the live, or once live, and all might be only a marking of the occasion.
A distinction was the tradition of Performance Art emerging from Fine Art.
A visual art practice steeped in the history of not only art but of the politics of identity and the politicised identification.
And the clear aspect of the live body present in time and being the art itself.
A tradition that wasn’t a career move, but a radical position.
A resistance to commodity and containment.
A letting go.
A desire for the fleeting, ephemeral, which disrupted the order of things.
A guide?
I heard stories about these disruptions, these moments in time.
Things were said – ‘there’s a work by… I was there/I heard about it… it was… no, I don’t think there’s anywhere you can see images of it… I’m not sure it was videoed… it really challenged…’
I watched some videos.
I saw some stills.
I read some texts.
I collected.
I recollected the mythical.
I saw an intertextual, multiple, layered story.
It wasn’t consistent.
It wasn’t complete.
It wasn’t authoritative.
It was piecemeal.
It was not a level playing field.
I had a beginning.
A starting point.
A desire to include. To acknowledge.
A desire to experience.
A springboard into action.
This is an introduction.
Image Credit (first image): A LITANY FOR WOMEN ARTIST’S – Devised & Performed by Hannah O’ Shea, at The Tate, Hayward & ICA Gallery’s, London; Franklin Furnace, N.Y; Berlin, Frankfurt; Holland, The Sydney Biennale; Eire & N. Ireland etc.Photo © Hannah O’ Shea
Helena Goldwater has been making performance art since 1989 and paintings since 2003. In both practices she is interested in the meeting of the erotic and grotesque through the exploration of bodily-related materials. Her performance works can equally be seen as installations. She shifts materials and territory over time, transforming the everyday or repetitive tasks into extraordinary acts and environments to dwell upon. She creates miniature spectacles, which are concerned with re-positioning, revealing and re-forming the spaces we inhabit. Recent performances and exhibitions include: 1st Morni Hills Performance Art Biennial, India; El Palomar, Barcelona; 1st Venice International Performance Art Week, Italy; Tate Britain; and de Appel, Amsterdam.