Suzanne Lacy, Mona paints at Tikal, from Travels with Mona, 1977-1978, Offset color lithograph (post card), Allan Kaprow papers, 980063, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, © Suzanne Lacy.

The J. Paul Getty Museum
The Getty Center
1200 Getty Center Drive
310-440-7300
Los Angeles
Evidence of Movement
July 10-October 7, 2007

Attempts to transpose the dynamic and experiential qualities of performance into documentary and archival media have influenced the field of art as a whole and have posed challenges to established notions of the art collection and the archive. These documents are often exhibited as works of art, although the artists have rarely accepted such documents as a sufficient record of their work. Drawn primarily from the collections of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute, this exhibition presents artists' different approaches to developing lasting records of their performance-based works.

This exhibition surveys the variety of ways that artists in the 20th century have documented and represented performance-based art using nearly every medium imaginable — from photographs, films, video, and audio recordings, to notes, drawings, scores, books, and objects.

Performances of extremely long duration pose strategical challenges, as well as opportunities, for documentation and display. For Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984, artists Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano were tied together by a length of rope for an entire year. They were never allowed to be more than eight feet away from one another, but they also agreed not to touch for the extent of the performance.

Receptions held at three month intervals allowed the artists to "exhibit" the progress of the work, while time-stamped snapshots documented the artists' daily routines. By shaving their heads at the beginning of the performance, the artists effectively used their hair as another documentary medium, registering the passage of a year as it grew.

Sometimes a single project can lead to the creation of artworks in multiple media by multiple artists. The Identical Lunch developed after Philip Corner noticed that his studio mate, Alison Knowles, ate the same meal at the same restaurant every day. This ritual — ordering a tuna sandwich with butter and lettuce, no mayo, and a cup of soup or glass of buttermilk at the Riss Diner — became the score for a performance, which Knowles then asked other artists to perform.

Journal of the Identical Lunch is Knowles's compilation of those individual artists' widely varying performances, written and sometimes photographed by each performer either during or just after the ritual. Knowles later used images from some of these performances to create limited-edition screenprints.

Documenting Suzanne Lacy's travels through Europe, the United States, and Latin America, Travels with Mona depicts the artist visiting great historical monuments while in the process of completing a paint-by-numbers painting of the Mona Lisa.

The images are presented as a fold-out set of postcards, with an accompanying text by art historian Arlene Raven, who notes that "A performance artist speaks but does not generally paint canvases. In this journey, a performance about tourism, imitation, art, artists, art objects, women and culture, she seeks the promises of art long ago whispered to Mona (is that why she's smiling?) — visibility, acknowledgement, fortune, even immortality. Under these circumstances, it is best to have a Famous Painting by a Great Artist along."

Photographers of performance sometimes produce powerful imagery that, in addition to recording the details of a live event, also function strongly and independently as photography.

This image from Robert Rauschenberg's performance of Elgin Tie is an example of artists using photographs that appear to depict key moments in a performance. Many of these photographs have been widely reproduced, thus becoming canonical and emblematic images of the performance.

Poster from Art/Life One Year Performance, 1983-1984, Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano (American), 1983, Offset print, Records of the magazine High Performance, 2006.M.8, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Art in the Public Interest and 18th Street Arts Center.

Yvonne Rainer, Film About a Woman Who … (1974).