Endurance art explained

Endurance art is a kind of performance art involving some form of hardship, such as pain, solitude or exhaustion.^[1] Performances that focus on the passage of long periods of time are also known as durational art or durational performances.^[2]

Human endurance contests were a fad of Depression-era America from the 1920s-1930s.^[3] Writer Michael Fallon traces the genre of endurance art to the work of Chris Burden in California in the 1970s.^[4] Burden spent five days in a locker in Five Day Locker Piece (1971), had himself shot in Shoot (1971), and lived for 22 days in a bed in an art gallery in Bed Piece (1972).^[5]

Other examples of endurance art include Tehching Hsieh's One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece), in which for 12 months he punched a time clock every hour, and Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece), in which Hsieh and Linda Montano spent a year tied to each other by an eight-foot rope.^[6]

In The House with the Ocean View (2003), Marina Abramović lived silently for 12 days without food or entertainment on a stage entirely open to the audience.^[7] Such is the physical stamina required for some of her work that in 2012 she set up what she called a "boot camp" in Hudson, New York, for participants in her multiple-person performances.

The Nine Confinements or The Deprivation of Liberty is a conceptual, endurance art and performative work of critical and biographical content by artist Abel Azcona. The artwork was a sequence of performances carried out between 2013 and 2016. All of the series had a theme of deprivation of liberty. The first in the series was performed by Azcona in 2013 and named Confinement in Search of Identity.^[8] The artist was to remain for sixty days in a space built inside an art gallery of Madrid, with scarce food resources and in total darkness. The performance was stopped after forty-two days for health reasons and the artist hospitalised.^[9] Azcona created these works as a reflection and also a discursive interruption of his own mental illness, mental illness being one of the recurring themes in Azcona's work.^[10]

Examples

• Marina Abramović^[11] – Rhythm 0, 1974; Rhythm 5, 1974; Luminosity, 1997, 2010; Nude with Skeleton, 2002, 2005, 2010;^[12] The House With the Ocean View (2003); Balkan Erotic Epic, 2005.^[13]
• Marina Abramović with Ulay^[14] – Point of Contact, 1980;^[12] Night Sea Crossing, 1981; The Lovers: Walk on the Great Wall, 1988.^[15]
• Vito Acconci – Seedbed, 1972.^[16]
• David Askevold – Fill, 1970.^{[17] [18]}
• Abel Azcona - The Death of The Artist,^[19] 2018. The Fathers, 2016. Amen or The Pederasty, 2015. Buried, 2015. Eating, 2012. The Nine Confinements or The Deprivation of Liberty, 2013-2016.
• Stuart Brisley – And for today ... nothing, 1972.^[20]
• Chris Burden^[14] – Five Day Locker Piece, 1971.
• David Blaine^[21] – Witness (1999),^[22] Buried Alive, Frozen in Time, Vertigo, Above the Below, Drowned Alive, Revolution, Electrified , Ascension .
• Nikhil Chopra, – Give Me Your Blood And I Will Give You Freedom, 2014.^[23]
• Houston Conwill – Juju Rituals, 1975–1983.^[24]
• Elevator Repair Service – Gatz, 2005.^{[23] [25]}
• EJ Hill – A Monumental Offering of Potential Energy, 2016.^{[26] [27] [28] [29]}
• Tehching Hsieh – One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece); One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece).^{[30] [31]}
• Tehching Hsieh with Linda Montano – Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece).
• Ragnar Kjartansson – A Lot of Sorrow, 2014.^[32]
• Stan Lai – A Dream Like A Dream, 2014.^[23]
• Eric Millikin – My Drinking Problem, 2016.^{[33] [34]}
• Bruce Nauman – Stamping in the Studio, 1968; Revolving Upside Down, 1969.^{[17] [35] [36]}
• Bryan Lewis Saunders – Under the Influence, 2001;^[37] Deaf Month, 2011;^[38] While Being Tortured, 2014;^[39] 30 Days Totally Blind, 2018.^[40]
• Carolee Schneeman – Up To And Including Her Limits, 1973—1976.^[17]
• Wolfgang Stoerchle – Attempt Public Erection, 1972–1975.^[24]
• Emma Sulkowicz – Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), 2014–2015.^{[41] [14]}
• Zhang Huan – 12 Square Meters, 1994.^[42]
• Benjamin Bennett – Sitting and Smiling, 2014 – ongoing.^[43]
• Guido Segni – A quiet desert failure, 2013 – ongoing.^{[44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49]}
• Paul Wong – In Ten Sity, 1978.^[50]

See also

• Hunger artist
• Stylite

Further reading

• Brown, Sierra. "Discover Endurance Art," California State University, Long Beach, 2008 (report on an exhibition).
• Kafka, Franz. "A Hunger Artist", 1922.
• Montano, Linda M. "Endurance Then and Now," Letters from Linda M. Montano, Routledge, 2012, p. 123ff.
• O’Brien, Martin. "Performing Chronic: Chronic illness and endurance art", Performance Research, 26 September 2014, pp. 54–63.
• News: Snorteland. Kevin. Endurance Art and painting collide at BFA show. 13 May 2014. The Lantern.
• von Ah, André. "Performance Art: A Bit of History, Examples and a Fast Dictionary", The Huffington Post, 9 November 2013.

Notes and References

1. For artists in endurance performances "[q]uestioning the limits of their bodies," Tatiana A. Koroleva, Subversive Body in Performance Art, ProQuest, 2008, pp. 29, 44–46.
2. Paul Allain, Jen Harvie, The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance, Routledge, 2014, p. 221. Other terms include duration art, live art or time-based art.

   Beth Hoffmann, "The Time of Live Art," in Deirdre Heddon, Jennie Klein (eds.), Histories and Practices of Live Art, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 47.

3. Web site: Dance Marathons of the 1920s and 1930s .
4. Michael Fallon, Creating the Future: Art and Los Angeles in the 1970s, Counterpoint, 2014, p. 106: "Burden's performances were so widely observed that they took on a life beyond the artist, helping create a new art genre, 'endurance art' ..."
5. Emily Anne Kuriyama, "Everything You Need to Know About Chris Burden's Art Through His Greatest Works", Complex, 2 October 2013.
6. Andrew Taylor, "Tehching Hsieh: The artist who took the punches as they came", Sydney Morning Herald, 30 April 2014: "Don't try this endurance art at home. That is Tehching Hsieh's advice to artists inspired to emulate the five year-long performances he began in the late 1970s."
7. Thomas McEvilley, "Performing the Present Tense – A recent piece by Marina Abramovic blended endurance art and Buddhist meditation," Art in America, 91(4), April 2003.
8. News: García García . Oscar . The artist Abel Azcona will remain locked up for sixty days without light. . January 14, 2020 . Contemporary Art Platform . July 12, 2013.
9. News: Guisado . Paula . An artist ends up in the hospital after 42 days emulating life in a placenta . January 14, 2020 . El Mundo . August 17, 2013.
10. News: Corroto . Paula . Abel Azcona: "I feel more a prostitute's son or mentally ill than an artist" . January 14, 2020 . El Confidencial . June 16, 2019.
11. Miriam Seidel, "Pioneer Of Endurance Art To Give Lecture", Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 December 1998.

    John Perreault, "Lady Gaga Rejected by Marina Abramović, Plus MoMA Sound", Artopia, 13 September 2013.

12. E. C. Feiss, "Endurance Performance: Post-2008", Afterall, 23 May 2012.
13. Karen Rosenberg, "Provocateur: Marina Abramovic", New York Magazine, 12 December 2005.
14. Jillian Steinhauer, "Two Weeks Into Performance, Columbia Student Discusses the Weight of Her Mattress", Hyperallergic, 17 September 2014 (citing Jon Kessler).
15. Paul Allain, Jen Harvie, The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance, Routledge, 2014, p. 15.
16. [John Perreault]
17. Emily Vey Duke, Kevin Rodgers, "Two types of sacred: 1970s endurance art today", C Magazine, 22 June 2005.
18. Web site: David Askevold. www.umanitoba.ca. 2017-07-23.
19. News: Zas Marcos . Mónica . Abel Azcona offers a gun to those who fantasize about killing him in his latest performance . January 8, 2019 . El Diario.es . October 18, 2018.
20. [Dierdre Heddon]
21. Cindy Adams, "He'll stay awake the longest ever", New York Post, 5 December 2007.
22. Linda M. Montano, Letters from Linda M. Montano, Routledge, 2012, p. 185.
23. Deepika Shetty, "Endurance art: Five memorable marathon performances", The Straits Times, 14 August 2013.
24. Karen Gonzalez Rice, "Sexing the Monk: Masculinity and Monastic Discipline in American Endurance Art Circa 1975", College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, 12–15 February 2014.
25. Trout Monfalco, "Endurance Art – Six Hours is Too Long", Art Here and Now, accessed 24 February 2014.
26. News: What to See in New York Galleries This Week. The New York Times. 15 September 2016. The New York Times.
27. Web site: Alive Someplace Better: EJ Hill's Horizontal Poetics by Amber Officer- Narvasa. 2017-02-17. 2017-02-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20170218063828/http://www.arts.black/alive-someplace-better. dead.
28. Web site: Video: Studio Museum in Harlem Artists in Conversation. 2017-02-17. 2017-02-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20170218063934/http://www.thegreenespace.org/story/video-webcast-studio-museum-harlem-artists-conversation/. dead.
29. Web site: EJ Hill: In Conversation with Nicole Kaack. 28 November 2016 .
30. Web site: 2014-04-30 . Tehching Hsieh: the man who didn't go to bed for a year . 2022-11-18 . the Guardian . en.
31. John Perrault, "Tehching Hsieh: Caged Fury", Artopia, 1 February 2009.
32. http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2015/01/20/ragnar-kjartansson/ "Sorrow on repeat: Ragnar Kjartansson on endurance art"
33. News: Celebrations abound for Vernors' 150th anniversary: Pop Art. Detroit News. 2017-07-23. en.
34. News: My Drinking Problem: Pumpkin Spice Odyessy. Eric Millikin. 2017-07-23. en-US.
35. Web site: Electronic Arts Intermix: Stamping in the Studio, Bruce Nauman. www.eai.org. 2017-07-23.
36. Web site: Electronic Arts Intermix: Revolving Upside Down, Bruce Nauman. www.eai.org. 2017-07-23.
37. News: Bryan Saunders: Portrait of the artist on crystal meth. The Guardian. 2012-11-30. Ronson. Jon.
38. Web site: Bryan Lewis Saunders Deaf. 2018-04-13.
39. Web site: Bryan Lewis Saunders Draws While Being Tortured. 2014-12-23.
40. Web site: 30 days totally blind: Bryan Lewis Saunders. 2018-06-13.
41. [Roberta Smith]
42. Hentyle Yapp, Verona Leung, "Revisiting performance art of the 1990s and the politics of meditation", Leap, 8 August 2013.
43. News: Putney. Dean. Internet man sits and smiles at camera for hundreds of hours. 17 February 2017. Boing Boing. 7 October 2015.
44. Book: A Quiet Desert Failure. 2018-01-23. en.
45. Book: A Quiet Desert Failure. 2018-01-23. en.
46. News: A Quiet Desert Failure, be patient, the desert is coming. 2018-01-23. en.
47. News: A Quiet Desert Failure. 2018-01-23. en.
48. News: A Quiet Desert Failure. 2018-01-23. en.
49. Web site: Guido Segni's A quiet desert failure. 2015-11-25. 2018-01-23. en.
50. Book: Knights, Karen. 2000. Abbott. Jennifer. Making Video “In”: The Contested Ground Of Alternative Video On The West Coast. Vancouver: Video Inn Studios. 53. Sculpting The Deficient Flesh: Mainstreet, Body Culture And The Video Scapel. 9781551520223.