Representation of Eleanor Antin's Selves: Photography â Film â Text â .... Selvesâ Multiple Occupancy Eleanor Antin's Selves, ed. ...... Worked with Mary Swift,.
Candidate number: 12927863
The Representations of Eleanor Antin's Selves Photography – Film – Text – Performance
Abstract Title: Representation of Eleanor Antin's Selves: Photography – Film – Text – Performance Course: MA in Art History 2013/14 Word count: 14 300
This dissertation examines artworks made by the American artist Eleanor Antin. Between 1972 and 1991, Antin invented several fictional characters which she enacted in different contexts and used in different art projects. The characters are collectively known as Antin's ”selves”, and through them she aimed to stretch, what she considers to be, the usual aids of self-definition. The focus of the thesis is primarily on the characters the King, the ballerina, and Eleanorna Antinova. These characters are represented in a variety of different media: photography, film, text, drawings and enacted in live performances. The aim of this thesis is to discuss how the different modes of representation establish and de-establish an authenticity of the selves' identity and how the relation affects the representations' trustworthiness. The dissertation's analysis is split into three sections: Performance and Documentation; Photography and Film; and Text and Image. Each chapter examines how the different media interplay with each other. The analysis is followed by a discussion regarding how the authenticity around the selves identity is created and to what extent the characters can be considered to be real. The reading of Antin's characters is done in relation to post-modern ideas regarding identity, primarily Judith Butler's theories about (gender) identity. Finally, the dissertation's conclusion summarises the result of the analysis and points at that Antin, through her work, is able to stretch her bodily limitations of self-definition. However, she is yet constrained by pre-existing patterns and behavioural gestures. Furthermore, the examination shows that the authenticity of the representations, and thus the characters, is simultaneously established and broken down by the interplay between the different media. Key words: Eleanor Antin; Eleanora Antinova; Being Antinova; Performance; Documentation; Photography; Film; The King of Solana Beach; Caught in the Act
Table of Content Introduction....................................................................p.1 Structure and Questions.............................................................p. 2 Methods and Theory...................................................................p. 3 Presentation and Selection of the Selves....................................p.4
Analysis.........................................................................p.7 Performance and Documentation...............................................p.7 Photography and Film................................................................p. 14 Text and Image...........................................................................p. 26
Discussion: The Selves' Authenticity and Representation..p.39 Conclusion.....................................................................p. 44 Bibliography...................................................................p. 46 List of Artworks mentioned in the Dissertation.............p. 49 By Eleanor Antin in Chronological Order..................................p. 49 Other Artworks Mentioned in the Dissertation..........................p. 50 Exhibitions Mentioned in the Dissertation.................................p. 51
List of Illustrations.........................................................p. 52 Appendix 1 From the Archive of Modern Art..........................p. 53 Appendix 2.....................................................................p. 57
Introduction Since the 1960's, the American artist Eleanor Antin (b. 1935) has been working with a variety of different media. She graduated 1958 from City College of New York, where she majored in creative writing and minored in fine art. During her studies, she also took acting classes on the side and after she graduated she pursued a short career as an actress. Her eclectic background of writing, acting and fine art has been present throughout her career. Her artwork often explores the concept of identity and personal narratives. Her earliest conceptual artwork, Blood of a Poet Box, contains a collection of blood samples from American poets, preserved on microscope slides together with name and date.1 The artwork plays with the Romantic idea of the Poet and delves around the idea of life and art merged together. Antin began to take further interest in how personal histories could be evoked through objects. In 1969 and 1970 she began to experiment with the idea of identity and representation in the exhibitions California Lives and Portraits of Eight New York Women.23 Both projects exhibited installation ”portraits” of fictional and real people. The persons were portrayed through consumer goods which were presented alongside with personal narratives. Between 1972 and 1991, Antin worked on several on-going art projects in which she invented and enacted different fictional characters, collectively known as her ”selves”.4 It is the portrayal of these characters that is the topic for this dissertation. In an essay from 1974, she states that she ”consider[s] the usual aids to sef-definition – sex, age, talent, time, and space – as tyrannical limitations upon my freedom of choice”.5 Through her enactments of her invented selves, she questions her bodily limitations of self-definition. In this sense, the self, or identity, becomes something that is actively chosen, and also multiple. During these two decades, Antin used her body to explore the world as a King, a black movie star, a Russian director, nurses and ballerinas. The characters are enacted in different artworks. Antin enacted her selves in live performances, staged plays, movies and photography series. 1 Blood of a Poet Box, (Wood box containing one hundred glass slides of poet's blood specimens and specimen list. 1965-1968). 2 California Lives, Gain Ground Gallery, New York. January 30 – February 13, 1970. 3 Portraits of Eight New York Women Chelsea Hotel, New York. November 21 – December 6, 1970. 4 Emily Liebert ”A King, a Ballerina and a Nurse – The Act of Looking in Eleanor Antin's Early Selves” Multiple Occupancy Eleanor Antin's Selves, ed. Emily Liebert ( New York 2013) p. 13. 5 Eleanor Antin,m ”An Autobiography of the Artist as an Autobiographer” Journal – The Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art 2 (October 1974) p. 20.
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Moreover, Antin produced drawings and texts assigned to the characters. At a first glance, each individual representation appears to be a trustworthy document of the self. However, examining the representations in relation to each other, the documents begin to contradict each other. The aim of this dissertation is to discuss how the authenticity of identity and of representation is established and de-established.
Structure and Questions
The analysis focuses on how authenticity is created, both in the representation and concerning the self. By using the word authenticity, this essay refer to the representation's reliability and how it can be read as an evidential document. Regarding the selves' authenticity, the analysis focuses on how the fictional characters can be considered to be real and accurate. In order discuss how the representations' authenticity is established and de-established, it is necessary to begin by exploring how different media work and what happens when the representations are viewed together. The different modes of representations are divided into three sections: Performance and Documentation; Photography and Film; and Text and Image. The first section discusses Antin's work quite broadly in terms of ”performance” and ”documentation”, which includes all of the media that is subsequently analysed in the following sections. The first chapter aims to highlight the relationship between the enactments and the its results of the documentations. The two main questions to answer are: how can a performance be documented and to what extent can the performed selves and the documentation be considered authentic? The second chapter examines the difference between still and moving images and further discusses how the media are employed in order to bring authenticity to the characters. Finally, the relationship between text and image is examined. The last section aims to discuss the interplay between text and the photographic image and how they affect each other. The analysis mainly focuses on examining material made in the name of Eleonora Antinova, Antin's ballerina persona and discusses how how text and image are employed to establish her authenticity. The examination of the different modes of representation is then followed by a discussion of how the selves' authenticity is 2
established and de-established. The selves are read in relation to post-modern ideas regarding identity. To what extent can the characters be considered to be authentic and real? And what does Antin's work say about the concept of identity?
Methods and Theory Each section begins with a brief critical survey which provides a theoretical framework for the examination of the different representations. The texts used in the critical survey mainly problematise how the representations' authenticity is established. Against the presented ideas, the characters are then examined through close readings of a few selected artworks. During the two decades that Antin worked on her selves, she produced a large amount of artworks in a vast variety of media. Due to the spacial limitations of this thesis, this analysis only focuses on the King and Antin's two ballerina personas. The selection of this material is further explained in the following section, ”Presentation and Selection of the Selves”. Along with the examination of the different representations runs a discussion regarding the authenticity of the selves. As stated before, the selves' existence are discussed in terms of ’authenticity’ rather than identity. By focusing on their authenticity I wish to highlight what aspects of the characters are made trustworthy and real. Since their enactment is only accessible through documentations, the authenticity of the selves and the documentation are dependent on each other. However, the authenticity around the selves is also discussed in the light of identity. In her article, Antin states that she wished to expand the physical limitations of selfdefinition and through her work show ”the transformational nature of the self”. 6 With this statement as a background, this essay examines the extent to which Antin's fictional characters can be argued to be authentic. Her work is read in relation to postmodern ideas regarding identity. The selves are particularly examined in relation to Judith Butler's theories regarding (gender) identity and performativity, which are presented in her book Gender Trouble.7 The concept of performativity emphasises how one's identity is dependent upon an exchange with its surroundings and thus focus on the importance of an audience. With these post-modern approaches to 6 Antin, 1974, p.18. 7 Judith Butler Gender Trouble (New York 2006).
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identity as a background, the enactments of the characters open up a discussion concerning the self's transformational nature.
Presentation and Selection of the Selves This section gives a brief presentation of Antin's selves and motivates the selection of the material that the analysis primarily examines. The first character to appear was the King, in which Antin began to question self definitional limitations of sex, age, talent, time and space. 8 In an interview, Antin claims that she wanted to explore her male self, and aimed to become a archetypical male – a King.9 The character’s appearance is freely based on Charles I of England, and in the invented history, the king now rules over the kingdom of Solana Beach. This character was first performed in the filmed performance The King from 1972 in which the viewer is able to witness the transformation from the artist Eleanor Antin to the the King.10 Later, the King appeared in live performances which took place in the public sphere. Here, he was walked around the streets of his kingdom and talked to his citizens. These performances are documented in the photography series The King of Solana Beach from 1974-1975.11 Furthermore he was performed in The Battle of the Bluffs, a one-hour-long monologue that was performed in the Venice Biennale 1976 and then repeatedly in the US and Canada between 1975 and 1976. 12 The art project also consists of a photography series of representational portraits and a collection of watercolour drawings, titled The King's Meditations.1314 As Antin developed the King, other characters simultaneously came to existence. The Black Movie Star was only performed once for an exhibition and appeared in the video Black is Beautiful.15 The character was then ”retired” because
8 Eleanor Antin, ”Notes on Transformation”, Flash Art 44/45 (March-April 1974) p. 69. 9 Howard N. Fox, ”In Dialogue with Eleanor Antin”, Eleanor Antin ( Los Angeles 1999) p. 212. 10 The King (Video tape: Black-and-white, silent, 52 mins). See Appendix 2, Illustration 17. 11 The King of Solana Beach (Black-and-white photographs, 1974-1975). 12 Howard N. Fox ”Waiting in the Wings: Desre and destiny in the Art of Eleanor Antin” Eleanor Antin (Los Angeles 1999) p. 60. 13 Portrait of the King (Black-and-white photographs, 1972). See Appendix 2, Illustration 16. 14 The Kings Mediations (wash, ink, chalk on photosensitive paper, 1974). 15 Black is Beautiful, University of California, Irvine, June 5 – 6 1974.
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Antin did not feel that her persona had been ”fully conceived”. 16 The next character that Antin began to explore deeper was the life of a ballerina. In 1973 the ballerina appeared in the art piece Caught in the Act which contains both still photographs and an accompanying video.17 The anonymous ballerina later appeared in several films, for an example The Ballerina and the Bum and The Little Match Girl Ballet.1819 The first version of Antin's ballerina eventually developed into the character Eleanora Antinova, a black ballerina from the 1920's who performed in vaudeville plays and in Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Antinova is the most developed and complex character among Antin's selves. She appears in plays, films and still photographs. Moreover, there is a series of drawings and texts assigned to Antinova. In October 1980 Antin lived as Antinova for three weeks during a trip to New York. During this three-week-long performance, she kept a diary, arranged still photographs and a performed a play at the Ronald Freeman Gallery in New York, all of which were later published in the book Being Antinova.20 Moreover, Antin also explored the life of two nurses and, lastly, a Russian director. In an interview with Howard N. Fox, Antin describes the development of the nurse character as an outcome of the cultural imagination of nurses. 21 On one hand, the profession represents service and care; on the other hand, the role had been given pornographic connotations in culture. Antin's first nurse, Little Nurse, appeared in two films: The Adventures of a Nurse and The Nurse and the Hijackers.2223 The cast of the videos are cut out paper dolls which the Little Nurse narrates and directs. Later on Antin wanted to explore ”the nature of ”service” and its historical role in women's life” through her next nurse, Eleanor Nightingale. 24 This character is freely based on the life of Florence Nightingale and appeared in several still photography series, a film and live performances. The project The Angel of Mercy contains a film and two photography projects – The Nightingale Family Album and My Tour of Duty in the
16 Cherise Smith, Enacting Others: Politics of Identity in Eleanor Antin, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, and Anna Deavere Smith (Durham 2011). 17 Caught in the Act (Video Installation. Black-and-white photographs and Videotape: black-andwhite, with sound, 36 mins, 1973) 18 The Ballerina and the Bum (Videotape: black-and-white, with sound 54 mins, 1974). 19 The Little Match Girl Ballet (Videotape: colour, with sound, 27 mins, 1975). 20 Eleanor Antin, Being Antinova (Los Angeles 1983). 21 Fox, ”In Dialogue with Eleanor Antin”, p. 213. 22 The Adventures of a Nurse (Videotape: colour, with sound, 64 mins, 1976). 23 The Nurse and the Hijackers (Videotape: colour, with sound, 64 mins, 1977). 24 Fox, ”In Dialogue”, p. 213.
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Crimea.25 The photographs are faux antique looking gelation silver prints, which Antin later made look old with stains and scratches. Eleanor Nightingale also appeared in a live performance and a video, where all the other actors were nature sized Masonite cut out dolls. At last Antin explored the life of the russian director Yevgeny Antinov, a silent movie director which appeared in the film project The Man Without a World.26 As stated earlier, this essay focuses on the representations of the King and the ballerinas. There are several reasons for especially focusing on these personae. Firstly, they are the most developed of Antin's selves. Their material is richer and more complex than the Antin's other characters, which allows for a discussion regarding identity and authenticity. Secondly, both characters share the common ground of being historical figures. In the art projects their historical presence is merged with the contemporary America in the 1970's and 1980's. The representations are made in a faux vintage style, which further raises questions about the documents' accuracy and how history is constructed through documents. However, due to the dissertation's spatial limitations, this essay will focus primarily on the artworks: Caught in the Act, the film From the Archive of Modern Art, the book Being Antinova, and the photography series King of Solana Beach.27
25 The Angel of Mercy (Videotape: colour, with sound 66 mins. Photographs: Tinted gelatin silverpints photographs, 1977). 26 The Man without a World (Videotape: black-and-white, with music, 24 mins, 1987). 27 From the Archive of Modern Art (Videotape: black-and-white, with music, 24 mins, 1987). For images, see Appendix 1.
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Analysis
Performance and Documentation
This section begins by discussing performance and body art in the terms of its relationship to documentation and authenticity. It aims to outline how Antin's portrayal of her different characters participates in its contemporary art scene and intellectual debate regarding the self and identity. In 1974, Antin stated that: ”I consider the usual aids to self-definiton – sex, age, talent, time, and space – as tyrannical limitations upon my freedom of choice”. 28 Through her work with her selves, she strives to expand her own bodily limits and explore ”the transformational nature of the self”.29 This analysis intends to discuss to what extent the enactment of her selves, and the documentation left of the performances, can considered to be authentic and ”real”. The notions on Antin's work will be discussed in relation to ideas around identity and subjectivity, namely Judith Butler's ideas regarding performativity and gender. Lastly, this section also briefly examines the relation between a live performance and its documentation. How can performances be documented and what does the documentation do to the artwork? Antin's art projects contains several layers of performance. The enactment of each self is a performance of the character. Moreover, in several of the artworks made in the name of Eleanora Antinova, the performed self is acting in a play. In order to make these multiple layers of performance a bit clearer, it is necessary to point out a few distinctions between performance and body art. In the introduction to The Object of Performance, Henry M Sayne states that the emergence of performance art in the 1960's came as a part the art world's shift towards a de-materialised and idea-based art.30 Performance art, as it appeared in the Western post-war era, is characterised by its transience: it only occurs once for a limited space of time. Furthermore, much of the academic writing regarding performance art emphasises its ephemeral nature, and 28 Antin, 1974, p. 20. 29 Antin, 1974, p. 18. 30 Henry M. Sayne, The Object of Performance: The American Avant-Garde since 1970 (Chicago 1989) p.6.
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that it is, most often, performed in front of an audience. 31 In the introduction of the book Body Art Performing the Subject, Amelia Jones states the term ”body art” rather refers to how artists come to use their own bodies and selves (Jones uses the word body/self) in their work.32 The body/self and the artist's subjectivity began to appear as an artistic method within visual culture in postwar America. The appearance of body art, she argues, is linked with the ”profound shift in the conception of subjectivity [...] as constitutive of the condition of postmodernism”. 33 To Jones, the appearance and use of the artist's body/self is deeply intertwined with the overturning of the Cartesian subject of modernism, and points towards a postmodern approach to the body and self. Thus, the enactment of the different selves by Antin participates in the concept of body art because she is using her own body and viewing position as a point of departure for her art. Ultimately, there is no clear distinction between performance and body art; both terms can often be used for the same art piece. Antin's work is to be considered both as body art and performance art. She uses her body to experience the world as another self, which expands the conception of subjectivity and uses performance art to further explore the concept of the self and identity. The audience's reception of the artwork is another important feature of both performance and body art. The development of the art concept in the Post-War era emphasised that the artwork is no longer an autonomous piece, but instead created in the meeting between art and viewer. This notion is also intertwined with the shift in considering the self as being an embodied performance, formed by cultural discourses. 34 Precisely as art, the self became discentered, and dependent and created in relation to its surroundings. As the following chapters show, the surrounding's affirmation and engagement come to play an important role in the attempt to create an authenticity around Eleanora Antinova. The political climate and the art scene in 1970's America had an impact on the development of Antin's selves. Emily Liebert points out that by the time Antin began to work with her different personas, she was a part of ”a wider network of mostly female artist who were altering their own identities as a political artistic strategy”. 35 Her play with, and transformation of, her persona, has resulted in her grouping with 31 32 33 34 35
Ameila Jones, Body Art Performing the Subject (London 1998) p. 12-13. Jones, 1998, p. 13. Jones, 1998, p. 13. Jones, 1998, p. 39 Liebert, ”A King, a Ballerina, and a Nurse”, p. 14.
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other contemporary artists, such as Cindy Sherman and Adrian Piper. 36 Although her still photographs seem to share common ground the masking and unmasking the idea of a ”real” identity - Antin's enactment and embodiment digs deeper than only revealing identity and gender as a masquerade. The political climate in America in the 1970's – particularly the feminist movement and the reaction against the Vietnam war – influenced the direction Antin's selves took. The appearance of the King, and his hopeless situation, was informed by the political climate around the Vietnam war. 37 Both in Antin's street performances and in the later developed monologue-based performance The Battle of the Bluffs, the King is presented as a powerless leader.38 In contradiction to the type of leadership a king usually represents, Antin's King is challenged and unable to protect his kingdom from the outside world's influences and directions. The feminist movement in the US also affected Antin's work. Antin says in an interview that she was ”immediately attracted to the discourse” of the women's rights movement, but explains that she never actively participated in any network for a longer time.39 However, the movement clearly influenced her work as it allowed the use of personal narratives, and the use of art to represent everyday life. Later on in the 1970's, Antin's work with Antinova appeared alongside a shift in the feminist movement in America where it was becoming more nuanced, coming to represent women of colour and blending with the LGBTQ movement.40 The art projects are affected by its contemporary political climate, but also based on Antin's own experience and subjective experience of the world. It is often stressed in interviews, both by Antin herself and by the interviewer, is her and her selves status as an ”outsider”.41 In an interview, Antin states:
I didn't choose the positioning, but I've always felt like an outsider. In a sense I'm an exile, as a Jew [...] As a woman, I'm an outsider [...] I'm an artist – the perfect outsider!42 36 Huey Copleand ”Some Ways of Playing Antinova” Multiple Occupancy Eleanor Antin's Selves, ed. Emily Liebert (New York 2013) p. 30-40. 37 Glenn Philips, ”Eleanor Antin” California Video: Artists and Histories, ed. Philips, G (Los Angeles 2008) p. 25. 38 Fox, ”Waiting in the Wings”, p. 60-61. 39 Fox, ”In Dialogue”, p. 206-207. 40 Smith, 2011, p. 6-7. 41 Fox, ”In Dialogue”, p. 217, Liebert, Emily ”Multiple Occupancy – An Interview with Eleanor Antin” Multiple Occupancy Eleanor Antin's Selves, ed. Emily Liebert ( New York 2013) p. 117. 42 Fox, ”In Dialogue”, p. 217.
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All of Antin's selves, including the nurses and the black movie star, share the characteristic of alienation. Although that she through her selves seeks to stretch the limits of self-defintion, each character seems to derive from Antin's own personal viewpoint. New interest in the subject's embodiment came to prominence at the same time as a shift in western philosophical discussion regarding subjectivity and identity. The Western tradition of a dualistic, Cartesian concept of a disembodied subject became challenged by post-structuralist ideas claiming identity to be formed by discourses and culture.43 Identity then became dynamic and changeable, a result of social structures, and not determined by any natural or ”essentialist” conceptions. Judith Butler's book Gender Trouble has become a central piece of literature in the abandonment of the essentialist notion of gender identity. In her text she argues that both sex and gender identity are produced through heterosexual normative practices. She questions the binary concept of men and women as being too narrow when it comes to gender identities. Through her concept of genealogy she argues an individual's sex does not equate to one's gender, but rather, both are socially constructed and maintained through taught behaviour and repetition. Although Bulter's text has been influential many different fields of academic research, it has also been criticised for its inaccessible language and lack of political action. 44 Martha Nussbaum also criticises Butler's dismissal of binary division between two sexes. 45 To view sex as a social structure and not a natural given is, in Nussbaum's opinion, to take the argument too far. She argues that although culture shapes one's bodily existence, it is not possible for it to influence every aspect of it. 46 However, what Butler's text aims to emphasise is the importance of understanding that sex, like gender, is assigned rather than assumed. Moreover - and as important for this thesis – according to Butler, social structures always precede the subject. Although an individual has the freedom to choose a gender identity to perform, one still has to maintain a pre-existing pattern of gestures and behaviours. In Gender Trouble, Butler presents her theory of performativity, in which she argues that gender is based upon doing and not a being. Butler writes that: 43 Jones, 1998, p. 39. 44 Warren J Blumensfeld and Margaret Soenser Breen ”Introduction to the Special Issue: Butler Matters” International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies (Vol. 6 Issue 1-2 2001). p. 1- 5. 45 Martha Nussbaum, ”The Professor of Parody” New Republic (February 22, 1999) p. 37 – 44. 46 Nussbaum, 1999, p. 37-45.
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Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being.47
The notion of gender, and thus also identity, is here constructed through repeated acts. Pre-existing gender norms are performed, and the repetition of those acts add up to be a part of the subject's identity. In the examination of Antin's selves, the concept of performativity is of interest because it allows for a performance of gender and identity that does not necessarily follow the body's sex or ethnicity. It is important to keep in mind, however, that although Antin chooses to stretch the limits of her own body and perform other selves, she is still constrained by the heterosexual matrix. To create an authenticity around the self's identity, Antin performs a set of repeated acts which follow the pre-existing pattern of gestures. Finally, a few aspects of the relation between performance and documentation need to be outlined. As mentioned earlier, ephemerality and de-materialisation are key aspects of performance-based art. What this thesis is based upon is not the experience of Antin's performances per se, but upon the documentation of them. The relation between performances and documentation is complex. On one hand, it contradicts the notion of transience, being created in the meeting with the viewer and a move away from objecthood. On the other hand, documentation and materialisation of the ephemeral moment is necessary for preserving and spreading the artwork to a bigger audience. Documentation is sometimes even an important feature of the artwork itself. In Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, Peggy Phelan argues that the disappearance is a important feature of the ontology of performance. 48 She states that ”[p]erformance cannot be saved [...] once it does so, it becomes something other than performance”.49 Although the documentation may no longer be a part of a performance, it is still a part of the artwork. Matthew Reason discusses Phelan's statement in Documentation, Disappearance and the Representation of Live Performance, in which he argues that the disappearance becomes visible through documentation and that the two aspects are important for the artwork. 50 47 48 49 50
Butler, 2006, p. 33. Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (London 1993). Phelan, 1993, p. 146. Matthew Reason, Documentation, Disappearance, and the Representation of Live Performance (Basingstoke 2006).
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There are several methods through which live performances can be documented and preserved. In her PhD thesis from 2012, Liang May Wee outlines different categories of documentation: mimetic documents, such as still photographs or film; descriptive documents, such as written text or gossip; sound recordings; and objects and props left from the production.51 Of all the different options of preserving a live performance, mimetic documentation is the most common method. According to Lucy Lippard's text from the early 1970's, photographic documentation has been used since the emergence of performance art in the post-war era and developed together with the artform itself.52 In his article ”The Performativity of Performance Documentation”, Philip Auslander makes a distinction between what he claims to be two main categories of performance photography: documentary and theatrical.53 Documentary photography, to which most performance photography belongs, is used for its evidential qualities. Theatrical photographs are characterised by being staged in front of the camera and are not necessarily performed in front of an audience. With Auslander's view on performance photography, the representational pictures of the King and Antinova are thus also to be considered to be performances. It is important to take into account that all methods of documentation are, as Phelan stated, a transformation of the live performance into something else. Descriptive documentation is a mediation of the visual into language, where it can then be ruled by another linguistic code. Through still photography, the performance's temporality is lost; in this way it allows the viewer to contemplate a few, singled out moments from the whole event.54 This selection of preserved moments directs the viewer's understanding of the performed event. The same critique can be applied to moving images. Although it is possible to record the duration of the event, this recording is still a result of an individual's choice. In the case of the still and moving images of Antin's selves, the photographs are directed by the artist herself, even the documentary style photographs that are taken of the selves on the street. Experiencing a performance through its documentation allows the viewer to contemplate the representations for as long as the viewer wants, it even allows the viewer to take a 51 Cecilia Liang May Wee, Rationales of Documentation in British Live Art Since the 1990's: the Pragmatic, Memorial and Holistic (University of Sussex 2012) p. 119. 52 Lucy Lippard, ”’Preface’ and ’Postface’” in Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (London, 1973). 53 Philip Auslander ”The Performativity of Performance Documentation” Performing Arts Journal (Vol. 84 September, 2006). 54 Liang May Wee, 2012, p. 111.
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break and go back to the representations later. Also, it most often is a single person's activity, the viewer is no longer a part of an audience. Today, Antin's work is only available through its representations. The photographs taken of the selves in a contemporary setting are today also historical documents and records of a past America. The performance by Antin(ova) in the 1980's is only accessible to the viewer on the same conditions as those that Antin(ova) is claimed to have performed in the 1920's. All the photographs of Antinova are staged and arranged to represent Antinova in a contemporary context and style. In the following examination of Antin's enactments, it is important to keep in mind that the analysis is completely based upon documentation. The characters' authenticity and the authenticity of the documentation are therefore closely linked to each other.
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Photography and Film
The aim of this section is to define the relation between still and moving images and to discuss how the media are employed in order to bring authenticity to the characters. This section begins with a presentation of the examined material. Next, there will be a part which defines several similarities and differences of the media, together with a brief historical context of the development of each medium. By giving a historical context of the media, this thesis aims to highlight how they have been used through history and how their usage affects the evidential value of the representations. The historical use and development of the media are important for the analysis of Antin's characters and her postmodern play with historical styles. This section ends with a discussion regarding the ways still and moving images interplay with each other in Antin's art projects. Eleanor Antin has worked with photography and film since the 1960's. Her character the King first appeared in the movie The King, in which Eleanor Antin's transformation from her artist self to her king self is filmed. For example, Antin is filmed applying a fake beard to her face, bit by bit. The viewer is able to witness how the artist change from one self to another. The performed transformation resembles Antin's first film Representational Painting from 1971, which shows a continuous close-up shot of Antin as she puts on make-up. 55 In both cases, the process of the metamorphosis is revealed to the viewer. The King also appears in the photography series The King of Solana Beach. Antin performed the King on the streets of Solana Beach, wandering around and talking to an unprepared and unaware audience. The photographs depicting the street performances are taken from a distance, and most of the photographs show the King when he is interacting with other people. The camera is not acknowledged by the King nor the other people, which gives the impression of being documentary snapshots by an unknown photographer. A similar style is used in the depiction of Eleonora Antinova during the live performance in the 1980's, later published in the book Being Antinova. This book also contains faux-vintage publicity shots and photographs of different performed plays. The mock-vintage style is also used in the film From the Archives of Modern Art. This film is an 18 minute-long 55 Representational Painting (Videotape: Black-and-white, silent, 38 mins, 1971).
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montage which combines fragments of seven film clips, presented as fragments of silent movies and filmed dance performances. It begins with a text explaining that the film clips were unknown until recently and that the film cans have been rescued by an archivist. The film's combination of moving image and text will be further discussed later on, under the section ”Text and Image”. The work Caught in the Act from 1971 is the first artwork in which Antin's ballerina persona appears. Still photographs of the Ballerina depict her holding perfect ballet poses, wearing a white tutu against a black background. The film is a 36-minute video which documents the same event as the still photographs, but with the difference that the viewer can now see the whole event, especially how she requires assistance to find the positions and how that she is unable to hold them. Since this artwork combines still photographs and film, it is central in this section's examination of how the interplay between the two representations establishes and breaks down the the media's authenticity and ability to function as an accurate document. The media share a common technological ground. The mechanical reproduction of images appeared in the western part of the world during an era which, on the one hand is characterised by positivism and science and on the other hand by a fascination for the spectacular. Although they share technical similarities and a common desire to mechanically record the world, film is not to be considered as ”an extension” of photography; similarly photography s not the parent of cinema. 56 At first, the most prominent difference between the two media is stillness versus movement. Early photographic attempts to capture movement and freeze it, such as Eaweard Muybridge's photo series Transverse Gallop and Etienne-Jules Marey's Cheval au galop, aim to capture the movement of the horses.575859 The images made what was invisible for the eye visible. From this point of view, Campany writes, the Lumineres' Cinematigraphe, which recorded motion, was considered to be uninteresting because it only reproduced what the eye already saw. 60 However, the film's movement and duration brought motion and the liveliness back to the previous still representations. Maria Tortajada suggest in her essay ”Photography/Cinema: Complementary Paradigms in the Early Twentieth Century”, that rather than be 56 57 58 59 60
David Camoany, Photography and Cinema (London 2008) p. 22. Campany, 2008, p. 23. Eadweard Muybridge, Transverse Gallop, (Black-and-white photographs, 1887). Etienne-Jules Marey, Cheval au Galop, (Black-and-white photographs, 1886). Campany, 2008, p. 22.
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considered opposites to each other, the difference should instead be considered to be a double paradigm, in which the two media define each other. 61 The stillness of the photographs became definite when seen in relation to film's ability to capture movement. However, as Campary points out, the assumption that film is about movement and photography is about stillness comes from how the media have been used.62 The fact that film has the capability to record movement has shaped how the medium has been used, and thus shaped the viewer's knowledge and expectations of the form. The same argument can be used in relation to photography. Through the historical usage of still photography, the viewer expects the depicted moment to be singled out and of importance. The play of media in Antin's work is also a play with the viewer's expectations. To a certain extent, how Antin employed the media fulfil the viewer's expectations. For an example, the still photograph's frozen moment is given importance as a document. Moreover, the film From the Archives of Modern Art' overlying narrative which implies that the film is produced by the archive of Modern Art. The individual film clips follow the tropes of vaudeville silent movies. Both narrative layers of the film fulfil the viewer's expectations; the film unfolds an event, shows a transformation and follows a narrative. As will be shown in the following examination, Antin's way of employing the two media plays on the historical tradition of the two media and, therefore, also plays with the viewer's expectation.
1. Choreography I from Caught in the Act, 1973. 61 Maria Tortajada, ”Photography/Cinema: Complementary Paradigms in the Early Twentieth Century” Between Still and Moving Images, ed. L. Guido and O. Lugon (Eastliegh 2012). 62 Campany, 2008, p. 24.
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The difference between stillness and movement is demonstrated in Caught in the Act. The still photographs are grouped together in sequences, Choreography I, II, and III. This series is reminiscent of book illustrations of ballet positions and, as Fox comments, its images are juxtaposed in a similar manner as Muybridge's photographic series.63 Like Muybridge's photographs, each individual photograph shows a frozen perfection. Moreover, the change of position between every image implies movement and time passing. The film shows the same event, but tells a different story. Going back to Tortajada's essay, it is evident that the stillness in the photographs becomes more defined when they are seen in relation to the film. Without the film, the movement between the photographs would have been more prominent in a similar sense that the horse's movement is emphasised in Muybridge's photographs. The change of position between each individual photograph would have implied movement and been read as a sign of passing time. Juxtaposed next to the film, however, the sequence's movement is frozen. The film is documenting the photo shoot of the Choreography series. The viewer sees how the ballerina has to support herself with a stick and a chair in order to find the right positions. Although she receives help, she is barely able to hold the pose for the 1/125 of a second that the camera's shutter is open. She constantly loses her footing, falls down and laughs. By viewing the two representations of the same event together, the film reveals the ballerina's inability to dance. At first, the two representations seem to contradict each other. The event shown in the still photographs and the film do not agree with each other. To view the two media together raises questions whether one representation is more true than the other. Antin comments on the artwork in an interview, and defends the ballerina by saying that ”for that split second, I am engulfed in truth as a ballerina”.64 The short moment the ballerina is capable of holding the pose is enough for the camera to document it. The images are not a montage. In order to produce a series similar to a choreographic study, the time she was able to hold the pose was as much as necessary. Hence, the photographs cannot be dismissed as being untrue, nor photography to be unreliable. However, by viewing the two media together creates an awareness of the risk of reading still photographs as evidence of a past event. In the end, the contradiction between the two media raises questions of the media's trustworthiness. 63 Fox, ”Waiting in the Winds”, p.72. 64 Philips, 2005, p. 25.
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2. From Caught in the Act, 1973.
Due to their shared technical foundation the two media, according to C.S. Pierce's semiotic system, are to be considered indexical signs.65 Briefly explained, Pierce divides signs into three categories: icon; index; and symbol. An iconic sign resembles 'the thing' it refers to through similarities. A symbolic sign refers to 'the thing' through conventions that need to be decoded by the viewer. An indexical sign is produced by 'the thing' it refers to.66 That it to say that the sign is dependent on what it represents. Signs are unstable and can shift over time and an image can also belong more than one of the categories. Peter Wollen argues in Signs and Meaning in the Cinema that cinema is able to be all three of them, even symbolic, but that the indexical aspect dominates.67 Laura Mulvey's book Death 24x a second, problematises cinema's, and to a certain extent even photography's, indexical qualities. In the first chapters of the book she emphasises that the media not only have a close connection to its physical referent, but also a privileged relation to time. 68 The book mainly investigates how the digitalisation of film changes spectatorship, but also discusses how the photographic index of cinema holds traces of both the past and the present. Since Antin's movies are pre-digital, Mulvey's writing regarding their relation to time is more important for 65 Charles Sanders Pierce ”Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs” Philosophical Writing of Pierce ed. J. Buchler (Dover 1955) p. 98-119. 66 Laura Mulvey, Death in 24x a Second – Stillness and the Moving Image (London 2006) p. 9. 67 Peter Wollen, Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (London 1969) p. 153. 68 Mulvey, 2006, p. 9.
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the analysis of Antin's art projects. She argues that film, which creates movement from still picture frames, holds both the photographic image's indexical trace of the past at the same time as the movement brings back its liveliness. 69 Both film and photography show traces of the the past. In the early days of the media, they were, on one hand, used as a scientific tool in the era of positivism, on the other hand considered to be supernatural and experienced as uncanny.70 Both Mulvey and Tom Grunning discuss the media in the terms of Freud's concept of the uncanny. 71 The representations show indexical recordings of something familiar, but presented in an unfamiliar state. In both cases the viewer has to suspend the knowledge of the past and, like when reading a marvellous narrative, accept the representation's illusion of present time.72 As mentioned in the introduction, the ways that the media have been used have shaped the ideas of what the media are about. 73 John Tagg argues in The Burden of Representation that the photograph's evidential guarantee is a result of how institutions repetitively come to use photography as evidence in the emergence of the modern society and governmental state. 74 Tagg writes that:
What gave photography its power to evoke a truth was not only the privilege attached to mechanical means in industrial societies, but also its mobilisation within the emerging apparatuses of a new and more penetrating form of the state.75
The mechanical reproduction of indexical images filled a function in a society where the state required tools for surveillance. The institutionalised treatment of photography created an acceptance of reading the image as an evidence of the past. However, the emerge of photography, and film, is not only an outcome of a surveillance society. The appearance of the two media is not only a result of a time 69 Mulvey, 2006, p. 17-32. 70 Tom Gunning, ”Phantom Images and Modern Manifestation: Spirit Photography, Magic Theatre, Trick Films, and Photography's Uncanny” Fugitive Images – from Photography to Video ed. Petro, P (Bloomington 1995) p. 42. 71 Mulvey, 2006, and Gunning, 1995. 72 Mulvey, 2006, p. 42. 73 Campany, 2008, p. 25. 74 John Tagg, The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories (Basinstoke 1988). 75 Tagg, 1988, p. 61.
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characterised by positivism, science and realism; it also springs out of a fascination for the magic and spectacular.76 A similar approach was held towards photography in the nineteenth century. Grunning's essay ”Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations” examines how, when it first appeared, photography, was considered to be closely connected to the supernatural. 77 The text is especially focusing on spirit photography, but also discuss how early photography in general came to be used as evidence by both natural science and spiritualism.78 Due to its indexical qualities and mechanical reproduction of the world both media come with a history of being used and interpreted as evidence of reality and illusions. A few differences between the two media are outlined in Christian Metz's article ”Photography and Fetish”.79 The first difference he points at is the spatiotemporal duration of the object. Whilst the film is pre-fixed by the filmmaker, the duration of viewing of a photography is dependent upon the viewer. Secondly, the media differ in their materialism. In other words, photography is an immobile, kept moment and (when Metz wrote the article 1985) also often a printed image. Film, on the other hand, is constructed around movement and plurality of images. It is combined with sounds and requires other technical devices to be seen. These differences expand further in what Metz calls the ”off-frame effect”, which is the viewer's understanding of the content even when it is outside the picture frame. In film, due to its temporal flow, off-frame is not the same as off-film. For an example, even though something can be off-frame, it can still be a part of the content an return to the frame later on. Through the concept of off-frame, Metz addresses the issue of belief and disbelief in the media. In both cases, the viewer knows that what is seen is a representation, but ignores this knowledge; the viewer suspends her or his disbelief and interprets the represented as reality. However, Metz argues that the two media make us believe in different things, he writes: ”[w]here film lets us believe in more things, photography lets us believe more in one thing”. 80 Film is thus defined by its ability to make longer scenes of images, sound and movement believable. In photography, on the other hand, the viewer has no idea of what exists outside the frame and what happened off-frame is lost in the past. The off-frame in a photograph 76 Wollen, 1969, p. 153. 77 Grunning, 1995, p. 42-71. 78 Gunning, 1995, p. 51. 79 Christian Metz, ”Photography and Fetish”, October Magazine (Vol. 24, Autumn 1985) p. 81-90. 80 Metz, 1985, p. 88.
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also affects the in-frame by making it ”the place of presence and fulness”. 81 Since the off-frame is unknown for the viewer, the in-frame is interpreted as being of great importance. The black and white photographs in the The King of Solana Beach series was produced in the mid 1970's, the series has a documentary aesthetics. Most of the photographs give the impression of being snapshots without the people noticing the camera's presence. A few of the images' composition is coincidental and appear as if the photographer has pressed the shutter release without even looking through the lens.
3. From the photography series The King of Solana Beach, 1974-1975.
The people are placed in the centre of the picture, but their legs are cut off and the top of the head of the man standing up is almost outside of the picture frame. None of the portrayed people look into the camera lens, instead all of the attention in the picture is drawn to the King, who seems to be speaking. He is holding his hand raised in a rhetorical gesture and he is the centre of attention. They are sitting close to each other on a bench, and when sitting so close together they all look rather similar to each other. The other men have long hair too, wearing jackets and jeans; it is only the 81 Metz, 1985, p. 87.
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King's grand chapteu that makes his appearance different. Within the photograph's frame they all exist under the same condition and in the same reality. The King appear as authentic and real as the other men and the background of the picture.
4. From the photography series The King of Solana Beach, 1974-1975.
The King appears in other milieus from 1970's California. In another picture he is standing in line in the grocery shop. This photograph is capturing the King in the same snapshot style as the previous picture. The foreground depicts a woman's back, and the King only appear as a small figure in the background; he is not given any greater importance than any of the other women. As Metz points out, regarding the off-frame effect of photography, the viewer has no idea of what is happening outside of the picture frame. By only viewing the pictures, the King seems to exist in the same conditions as the other people. Through the employment of the photographic medium, the viewer is led to believe that the King belongs to reality and that the picture frames that are documenting his existence are of importance.
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Although most of the photographs from the series give the impression of being snapshots, there are a few exceptions. Several of the photographs appear arranged and staged.
5. ”Men” from the photography series The King of Solana Beach, 1974-1975.
This photograph depicts the King from behind, whilst he is looking out towards the endless ocean. The photograph brings to mind Caspar David Freidrich's painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.82 The art historical reference recalls Romanticism's fascination with the nature as sublime and man's insignificance in the world, but also the myth regarding the male genius. The photograph is given the individual title ”Men”, as if the subject matter contains more than just a single man. Together with the art historical reference the photograph function as a comment on the construction 82 Caspar David Freidrich Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (Org. title: Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, oil on canvas, 98.4 cm x 74.8 cm, 1818).
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of gender and the male genius rather than establishing the King's existence. The film From the Archives of Modern Art establishes the viewer's belief in the character by its frame narrative and vintage aesthetics. As Metz points out, the film allows the viewer to believe in more than one thing. First of all, the off-frame effect allows the viewer to connect the different film fragments with each other. The viewer accepts that the same characters appear in different settings. Although Antinova performs different roles there is a coherence between the film clips through her presence. This connection is deepened by the film's music, 1920's aesthetics and the text which creates a framing narrative to the individual film fragments. The text and the film's aesthetics place the film fragments and the character in a historical context which gives the film authenticity as a historical document although that the individual films are clearly fictional. As stated earlier, the special characteristics of the two media are not mainly embedded in the media, but, rather, dependent on how the media have been used through out history. Antin uses the media in an expected and traditional manner in order to establish the characters' authenticity. She re-uses the aesthetics from different time periods to connect the characters to different historical contexts and, due to the media' indexical qualities, the representations are read as evidence of their existence. By looking at the artworks one by one, the representations appear to be authentic. However, when examined together, the trustworthiness of the representations is destabilised. The film's temporal flow reveal aspects of the characters that the still photographs are unable to show. In case of both The King and Caught in the Act, the moving image allows the viewer to see ”behind the scenes” material. The King reveals the transformation and the underlying nature of the King's appearance, and Caught in the Act shows the ballerina's inability to dance. By looking at the two media at the same time, the film raises questions about the limitations of photographic representation. A still photograph only shows a selected part of the moment, and as in the case of the ballerina's dance, it is unable to tell the whole story. At first, the photographs appear to be incorrect since the film reveals that she is unable to dance. However, what the film actually prove is that she was able to hold the pose for as long as the camera required. In that sense, one could argue that Antin has used the media for their specific ability to capture stillness and movement. In other words, photography's stillness is used for making the ephemeral moment visible, whilst the 24
film's duration brings back the liveliness to the self and deepens the character's connection to reality and this unfolding narratives which create supposed histories around the characters.
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Text and Image
This section discusses the relation between text and image. As a point of departure, it is necessary to outline how the two different methods of representation affect each other when they exist within the same artwork. Which media dominates the viewer's reading of the artwork? The thesis then moves on to two close readings of From the Archive of Modern Art and Being Antinova. In the film, the short film clips are presented together with explanatory texts, supposedly written in the mid 1980's by an anonymous co-worker of the fictional Archive of Modern Art. 83 The texts comments on the archival process of rescuing the fragments and puts the films in a historical context. A similar use of a mock-historical style is used in Being Antinova. This analysis focuses on the text's narration and how text and images are juxtaposed. This section aims to discuss how the internal play between text and image creates an authenticity around the self and the representations as trustworthy documents. Before beginning the examination, a small paragraph about the sections title and material is required. The ”images” discussed are primarily photographic images from series of still and films. However, there are also drawings attributed to the selves, such as The King's Meditations and drawings made by Eleanora Antinova, which are combined with captions. However, I have chosen to primarily examine the photographic images to limit the visual material of this thesis. As already stated, this discussion focuses on how text and image are used alongside each other to create an authenticity around the characters. To focus the analysis on the photographic image as a document continues the discussion regarding photography as an indexical sign. Here, this examination is stretched further and discussed in the light of Roland Barthes semiotic approach to define and explain photography. The drawings included in Being Antinova is not completely excluded; they are present as supporting material in the analysis. Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that the two artworks made in the name of Eleanora Antinova in this section are mixed media; these works combine text and images within themselves and are intended to be watched and read together. To read photography as a linguistic sign, and emphasise its indexical qualities, 83 For images, see Appendix 1.
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as discussed in the previous section, is also relevant in its relation to text. The photographic code is, according to Roland Barthes, ”[b]y definition, the scene itself, the literal reality”.84 In his essay ”The Photographic Message”, he writes regarding the characterisation of the photographic image and how the medium can be used for communication. In order to understand the photographic message, Barthes divides the image into layers of denotation and connotation. The semiotic approach that explains the photographic message also helps to define and understand the photograph, how it functions as a sign that needs to be decoded. In his essay, Barthes famously states that the photograph is ”a message without a code”, due to the analogon itself. 85 He compares the photographic image to other modes of representation, such as text, which on the contrary, requires that the represented be divided up and translated into a series of words and then re-constituted again. The representation is then ruled by the linguistic code of words. It is the photograph's ability to be a message without a code that defines the medium. However, Barthes adds, this also means that the photograph is a continuous message. The photographic image also contains another layer with a coded message – a connotation. The photograph's connoted message is dependent upon the cultural treatment of photography. The ”photographic paradox”, both being with and without a code, becomes more complex because the connoted message, to a certain extent, is developed with the underlying support of the photograph's denotation. In other words, a part of the cultural treatment of photography origins from the photograph's perfect analogoun and how its exact depiction of the literal reality. However, as M.T.J Mitchell points out in his reading of Barthes, ”[t]he distinction between connotation and denotation does not resolve the paradox of photography; it only allows us to restate it more fully”. 86 Barthes text, in particular, investigates press photography, where in which the image is supposed to function in tandem with a journalistic text in a newspaper. Together they communicate information of a past event to the reader. Regarding text and image, Barthes writes:
84 Roland Barthes, ”The Photographic Message”, Image, Music, Text, trans. By S. Heath (London 1977) p. 17. 85 Barthes, 1977, p. 17. 86 M.T.J. Mitchell, Picture Theory, (Chicago 1994) p. 285.
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Firstly, the text constitutes a parasitic message designed to connote the image, to ’quicken’ it [...] In other words, and this is an important historical reversal, the image no longer illustrates the words; it is now the words which, structurally, are parasitic on the image.87
Barthes argues that the text adds to the image's connotation and, through that, undermining the photographic code by ”burdening it with a culture, a moral, and imagination” and that the text predetermines the decoding of the photograph. 88 The text and images in Antin's artworks are not press photographs and the texts have no journalistic aspirations. Unlike the circumstances presented by Barthes, where the text and image work in tandem, the text and images in Being Antinova at first seem to contradict each other. However, the ideas presented in Barthes' essay creates an awareness of the different layers of the photographic message and how this message is predetermined by texts and dependent upon both the photograph's analogon and the cultural treatment of the representations. A common idea which is shared and deeply investigated in commentary writing on photography, such as that by Barthes and Victor Burgin, is that the photographic image always coexist with text. Barthes comments on this in his essay, in which he argues that there has been a shift of power between the two media. 89 Earlier, Barthes points out, the image illustrated the text in order to make the text clearer for the viewer/reader, but now, as stated earlier, the text constitutes a parasitic message which connotes the image and, therefore, directs the photographic message. Barthes text discusses the relation between journalistic texts and press images, a field where the two structures are deeply interwoven with each other. However, the juxtaposition of text and image appears in other contexts. In the essay ”Photography, Phantasy, Function”, Victor Burgin states that ”[w]e rarely see a photograph in use which is not accompanied by writing”.90 He asserts that image and text most often seem to be coexisting, such as in journalism or commercials. During these circumstances, the image mostly is subordinated by the text. Burgin then further remark: 87 88 89 90
Barthes, 1977, p.25. Barthes, 1977, p. 26. Barthes, 1977, p.25. Victor Burgin ”Photography, Phantasy, Function” Thinking Photography ed. V. Burgin (London 1982) p. 192.
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The influence of language goes beyond the fact of the physical presence of writing as a deliberate addition to the image. Even the uncaptioned photograph, framed and isolated on a gallery wall, is invaded by language when it is looked at: in memory, in association, snatches of words and images continually intermingle and exchange one for the other; what significant elements the subject recognises ‘in’ the photograph are inescapably supplemented from elsewhere.91
What Burgin highlights, except the illustrative and reductive function that Barthes claims the image fills, is the inevitable junction between language and images and the way language subsequently directs the photographic message, even when the image has any written text accompanying it. Interestingly, the decoding of a photograph has to be done through language, which then directs the image's connotation. The photographic image's subordination to language, and how easily it is affected by external structures, is caused by the image's ability to freeze a moment, and, because of that, its inability to unfold a narrative in itself; it needs language to be unfolded. In The Spoken Image, Scott comments that ”[l]anguage alone seemed to have the authority to bestow meaning on images”, but also that ”when the function of photography is to create or reinforce the evidential, by virtue of its indexicality, it is paradoxically, most vulnerable to language and to linguistic manipulation”.92 This is exemplified in Being Antinova. Although the photographic medium has been employed because of its indexical aspects, the photographs are left as evidence of the performance, they lose their evidential authority when seen in relation to the text. This chapter aims to discuss what text and image do to each other when they co-exists. Most of the texts regarding this field seem to agree that a text directs the de-coding of a photograph. It is important to bear in mind that academic texts have concerned cases where text and image work in tandem and are part of a uniform narrative. In an examination of Being Antinova, the discussion rather focuses on answering the following question: what happens to the documents' evidential value and authenticity of the representations when text and image contradict each other? The book Being Antinova is a record of Antin's three-week-long live performance as Antinova. The text is written as a diary. Each chapter is titled with a date; the text is 91 Burgin, 1982, p. 192. 92 Clive Scott The Spoken Image: Photography and Language (London 1999) p. 326.
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narrated from a first person point of view and covers the whole duration of the performance, from October 11 to October 31. The text is accompanied by photographs and drawings. Five different types of images can be identified. Firstly, there are photographs from 1980, which show Antinova during the performance in New York. These pictures depict Antinova in a documentary, snap shot style. The camera's presence is rarely acknowledged by her. In most photographs she is gazing out of the picture frame. The second category of pictures are grouped together in the middle of the book and titled Recollection of my life with DIAGHILEV. These are a collection of staged publicity shots of Antinova from her acting career in the 1920's, all in a faux vintage style. The book also contains drawings from Antinova's sketch book and small, decorative line drawings of ballerinas, which resembles illustrations from ballet manuals. Finally, the third category of photographs is described with the caption: ”Before the Revolution as performed at the Kitchen Center for Video and Music, New York City February 22, 23 1979”. 93 The images are spread over three pages and juxtaposed with quotations from the play. As stated earlier, Antinova is the most complex self of all the characters. Through the work of Antinova, the artist raises questions about the limits of selfdefinition, namely ethnicity, talent, and time. During the enactment of Antinova, the artist applied dark make-up and claimed to be a black ballerina from the 1920's. The supposed history that Antin establish around her self is linked to actual historical events and people. Through drawings, still photographs and performances, Antin connects her ballerina to Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, a ballet company from Paris which toured around Europe and North America in the early 20th century. Moreover, the film From the Archive of Modern Art further establishes a belief in Antinova as an actual ballerina and vaudeville actor from the interwar period. The invention of Antinova as being both present in the 1920's and in the 1980's is impossible, but through the self's make-believe ability the limitations of time are stretched. The dissolution of time limitations is also, to a certain extent, present in the King. Antin's male self is said to be loosely based upon Charles I, but the historical connected narrative and faux documents of the King are less developed than Antinova's. As Fox points out, the King developed a deeper complexity through the ink and watercolour drawings collected under the name The King's Mediations.94 Although he is a 93 Antin, 1983, p. 74. 94 Fox, ”Waiting in the Wings”, p. 61.
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character with a historical basis, he mostly exists in the 1970's America, as shown in the examination of photographs from the street performance. Being Antinova contains representations which document Antinova as an actor in the 1920's and in the 1980's. The impossibility in the character's dual existence in time is not commented on in the text, but accepted, as if it were a marvellous story. The documents of Antinova's life in the 1920's have until now been referred to as ”mock historical” in this essay. The still photographs, the film From the Archive of Modern Art and the drawings assigned to Antinova are not only made to resemble the aesthetics of the 1920's, but are claimed to be historical documents. The drawings published are a mix of scenic drawings and quickly sketched portraits of people at the theatre. The people, all published with names, are dressed in typical 1920's fashion. The sketches from Antinova's sketch book depict, can to assume, the composer Igor Stravinsky, who was one of the composers that Diaghilev commissioned works from.95 The other drawing depicts an anonymous flapper girl. These two drawings, made in the name of Antinova, link her deeper to Diaghilev's Ballet Russe and to the 1920's. The drawings by Antinova are sketchy and stylized and appear as if they were made spontaneously in the present moment. To an uninformed viewer, the drawings could be interpreted as historical document rather than histoicised documents. The film From the Archive of Modern Art begins with an explanatory text. 96 The film is made in the 1980's and the text's sender is an anonymous ”we”, speaking on behalf of the archive of Modern Art. The institutionalised voice puts Antinova in an historical context, and invents a supposed history not only of Antinova's life, but also a history which justifies why these film clips are only fragments; why up until 95 These drawings are not published in Being Antinova, but in the separate publication Recollection of My Life with Diaghilev (from the performance and exhibition 1981). Drawings: ink on paper. See Appendix 2, Illustrations 18 and 19. 96 The full text: “Eleanora Antinova, the once celebrated black ballerina of Diaghilev's Balltet Russe, is known through photographs and rumor as a choreographer and dancer of exotic ballets. It is not commonly known that after the great Impressario's death in 1929, she returned to her native America to tour vaudelville houses around the country.
”It was not an auspicious time for ballerinas. The Great Depression raged from sea to sea...” Since her memoirs only recall her life with the Russian dancers, nothing was known of this period until recently. In 1985, an abandoned film studio was to be demolished in Culver City, when thanks to the aggressive tactics of our archivist, hundreds of old film cans were rescued. It had long been rumoured that Eleanora Antinova had performed in several short narrative films of a decidedly questionable character. Some of these films were found in the Culver City cans by our irrepressible archivist.”
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1985 they have been unknown; and why they are important for the archivist to preserve. Interestingly the fragmentalising of the material seems to function as a historical guarantor in Antin's work. To imply that the bits shown are parts of a bigger whole leaves space for the viewer to interpret them as historically more authentic; it suggests that time has passed. Similar effects are added to the staged publicity shots of Antinova.
6. The Hebrews from Recollections of My Life with Diaghilev, 1975-1976.
These photographs are not only printed in a sepia tone, but are also given scratches and defects. These conscious imperfections create an illusion that time has passed and left marks on the images. The film is also historicised. As mentioned earlier, the film is a montage which contains seven short films, made to appear as if they are fragments saved from full movies. Due to the archival approach, the film clips are given certain values and importance. In Archive Fever, Jaques Derrida presents the 32
archive as a place where objects and documents are systematically preserved for the future.97 In order for a document to be archived, it has to go through a selection and be important enough to be saved for posterity. The archive also holds connotations of being objective and neutral. In the essay ”Historical Discourse”, Barthes scrutinise the construction of historical discourse. 98 Barthes writes that the objective mode, in which the author of the history is non-present, belongs to historical discourse. The discourse, as it was formed as an academic field, is a guarantor of factual stability; it contains a promise that the reported event has happened. The text in From the Archive of Modern Art imitates this objective mode, thus the films are given authenticity as historical documents. Hayden White claims that there are two different methods of writing history: the past either is narrated or non-narrated. 99 The non-narrated method retells history in the form of chronicles or annals, which leaves out the context and is rather inaccessible for the reader. Narrated history offers context, but because it aims for a referent which is ”outside” of the narrative, the historical event itself, a past that never truly can be reached. The narrated past becomes a product of the historian and ideology. Barthes summarise his notions by saying: ”Historical discourse does not follow reality, it only signifies it; it asserts at every moment: this happened, but the meaning conveyed is only that someone is making that assertion”. 100 As a result, and contributing fact, to the discourse, history has come to contain a ”reality effect”. The connection to the past signifies ”this has been”. Barthes claims that:
[o]ur whole civilization is drawn to the reality effect, as witness the development of genres like the realist novel, the diary, [...] and above all the massive development of photography.101
Although Barthes phrasing of the statement is simplified and rather problematic, he emphasises how both the diaristic text and photography are developed from a similar desire for representation. They both come to signify, and be read and interpreted as, representations that have close connections to reality and the past. In the documents of the ”supposed history” of Antinova, Antin plays with the reader/viewer's expectations and knowledge. The text directs the interpretation of the films in the 97 Jaques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (Chicago 1996). 98 Roland Barthes, ”Historical Discourse” Structuralism A Reader (London 1970) p. 149. 99 Hayden White, The Content of Form (London 1987). 100Barthes, 1970, p. 154. 101Barthes, 1970, p.154.
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sense that they, through their objective mode, give the films an authenticity and historical value. Through artworks' ”reality effect”, she is able to stretch the limitations of time and identity. Furthermore, through this impossibility in time, she exposes the constructed nature of historical discourse and its evidential promises. In the book, there is a distinction between the representations of the historical and the contemporary Antinova. The material produced with the intention of being from the 1920's, collected under the title ”Recollections of my life with DIAGHILEV” is placed together in the middle of the book. The documentary photographs, which confirms Antinova's existence in 1980's New York, are placed together along with the diary text. At a first glance, the images seem to function as illustrations to the text. The documentary snapshot style that Antin uses seems, at first, to accompany the text as documentary proof of the diaristic text. Both the style of the text and the photographs have a connection to reality and possess evidential qualities. However, as stated earlier, in the case of Being Antinova the relation between image and text is different because, to a certain extent they contradict, or reveal, each other. Regarding the photographs, it is written:
Monday
October
27
[Photographed] Antinova around town today. Worked with Mary Swift, who shot some pretty pictures of my King performance in Washington last year. Her work has a wistful romanticism which suits Antinova.102
The text that follows a completely transparent description of the process of taking the pictures of Antinova. The text retells how she and the photographer walked around in New York and sought locations suitable for Antinova, ”I figured if I went to her [Antinova's] places she would be there and I would be her”. 103 The photographs that at first seem to be snapshots of Antinova are revealed as staged photographs, which are the result of a collaboration between Antin and the photographer. Although Antinova seems to be unaware of the camera, Antin still directs the images of herself. Later on she writes: 102 Antin, 1983, p. 66. 103Antin, 1983, p. 66.
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My eyes adjust to the somnolent light. It's only Mary checking out the angles from above. I sigh and go up to have a look. ”We should get some good pictures,” she says. [...] The little poodle jumps up to be petted. [...] ”But you will work for a living this afternoon, little beast,” I whisper into his silky ears. ”You must pretend to be my dog for the camera.104
7. Photograph from Being Antinova, 1980.
The image's borrowed snapshot aesthetic is made through what seems to be bad timing by the photographer. Antinova is captured with her eyes almost closed, and it seems as if she is in the middle of a conversation with someone who is outside the picture frame. As in the photographs of the King, the image's composition is coincidental. The two women barely fit into the picture frame, the other woman's leg 104 Antin, 1983, p. 70.
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is cropped. The camera angle is rather low, as if the photographer was either sitting down or taking the photograph from the hip. Exactly as argued regarding the photographs of the King, the snapshot aesthetic functions as evidence that Antinova is ”as real” as the people and milieus around her. The text's description then reveals and deconstructs the image, rather than directing the viewer's interpretation of it. The written word still dominates the image; after reading the text it is hard to view the photograph as evidential proof of a past event. In Being Antinova, the text goes further than only directing the interpretation of the photographs. Viewed together, the text not only reveal the constructed nature of the snapshots of Antinova, but the constructed nature of photography in general. The evidential aspect of photography, and of how photography has been used and read throughout history, is oscillating. If the photographs that first established an authenticity around Antinova's existence are exposed as fiction, what then happens to the trustworthiness of photography? The text's narration is rather complex. There is a split between the narrator of the text and its focalisation. The diaristic text, which, due its the style is written in past tense, is based on her memories and retells what has happened during the day. The narrator who contemplates and describes the events of the day for the reader is not Antinova, but Antin-the-artist who reflects over her performance as Antinova. Moreover, the focalisation of the story is varying. The viewpoint from which the story is told shifts from Antin-the-artist and Antinova. In the text, as presented to the reader, there is a duality in how the world is encountered. As seen in the previous quotations, Antin's narration states a clear distance from Antinova. The sentence ”she would be there and I would be her” is rather representative for how the shifting focalisation of the text. Most of the time, Antin is the ”I” and Antinova is spoken about in third person. However, sometimes the focalisation of the text slides into description of the world from Antinova's point of view and the ”I” becomes ”her”; the first person subject becomes a third person object. In the text, it is sometimes difficult to tell from whose perspective the story is told. Smith points out a paragraph early on in the book, in which Antin(ova) meets the first other black person, a delivery boy, during her live performance. 105 Smith notes that during this encounter, Antin(ova) makes herself feel more comfortable in the situation by reminding herself of class hierarchy and that ”ballerinas have no relation 105 Smith, 2011, p. 131.
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to delivery boys”.106 In her analysis, Smith asks who is making this statement. Is it from the position of the black dancer Antinova or from a ”liberal white feminist who had expectation of privilege and entitlement?”.107 Although Smith in particular writes regarding Antin(ova)'s racial performance, she emphasises an important aspect of the text; how the text's shifting pronouns constantly slide between the different personas, without the reader always noticing the change. The duality of the text's narration undermines the trustworthiness of the narrator. Due to the the past tense and first person narration, the text shows no attempt to give an objective view. The slippage between the two viewpoints, the inconsistency and sometimes contradiction, make the narration appear doubtful as a primary source. Due to the first person narration and diaristic style, in this case, text undermines itself as a trustworthy document. Smith discusses Antin and her use of documents in terms of being a post-conceptualist. 108 As opposed to Antin's earlier, conceptual work in the 1960's when she systematically employed different methods to map out and explore the concept of identities, the documents now weaken themselves as truthful sources.109 Instead, here, the text undermines the the evidential qualities of the photographs, and the text internally diminishes its trustworthiness as a document. One feature that makes the text, and photographs, appear reliable as documents is how they include other people and authentic surroundings. As in the establishment of Antinova as a historical character, such as through her links to Diaghilev's Ballet company, Antin connects Antinova to her surroundings in 1980's New York. The diary acts as a record of whom Antin(ova) met during the performance; it is full of names and places from the New York art scene. For example, on October 16 she “went to Judy Chicago's opening at the Brooklyn Museum [...] This was my first big social event. I was sure to meet lots of people I knew”. 110 Throughout the book, Antinova meets people that are friends or otherwise connected to Antin-the-artist. Due to their names and the accurate addresses and places described in the text, the text itself gain evidential value.
106 Antin, 1983, p. 8. 107 Smith, 2011, p. 131. 108Smith, 2011, p. 86-87. 109 See for an example the artworks Library Science (black-and-white photographs with accompanying Library of Congress catalogue cards, 1971) or Carving a Traditional Sculpture (black-and-white photographs and text panel, 1972). 110 Antin, 1983, p. 15.
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In Being Antinova, the images and the text are presented to first give an impression of being documentary or diaristic. By taking on a style that the viewer/reader is familiar with as a primary source for a historical event, they first appear to be as valid as documents. However, reading them closely, the text reveals the photographic medium, but the text itself is not reliable, then what is to be trusted as a document? The book not only undermines the authenticity of the information presented of the performance itself, but creates an awareness of the arbitrariness of historical documents in general.
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Discussion: The Selves' Authenticity and Representation
This section intends to discuss what the oscillating internal play between the different representations say about the selves' authenticity and the concept of identity itself. In the article by Antin, she claims that she wished to stretch her body/self's ”limitations upon my freedom of choice” through her work with her selves. 111 As argued in the examination of Caught in the Act, the different media she uses are employed to specifically show the event differently and at the same time show the media's specific ability to be used as evidence. For an example, as described, the ballerina is able to hold the pose for as long as the medium requires. This discussion focuses mainly on the artworks of and by Antinova, due to the broad variety of representations of the selves and because she is the most developed of the characters. The representations of the ballerina will be read in relation to Butler's theories regarding (gender) identity. If (gender) identity is unstable and emerge through repetitive acts which follow a preexisting and culturally constructed patterns of gestures, to what extent can Antinova then be argued to be authentic? Finally, what does Antin's work say about the concept of identity and of representation? In Being Antinova, the narrative layers are rather complex. Throughout, Antin reflects upon her performance as Antinova. Although, as argued, there is a shift between the two viewpoints of the book, the narrator most often makes a clear distinction between the ”I” subject/body, i.e. Antin-the- artist, and the performed self. The book begins with this paragraph:
S[pent] four hours at Madame Joli preparing for my New York trip by having long porcelain nails attached to my stubby fingers. Not the tips of my fingers aren't the furtherest extension of my hands anymore, and they can't reach for the world the way they used to the new nails get in the way.112
The long nails are applied in order to make the subject's ”stubby fingers” appear more graceful. The literally glued-on surface creates a distance between the subject and the 111 Antin, 1974, p.18. 112 Antin, 1983, p. 1.
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world and it prohibits her from acting normally. In the enactment of the ballerina, another type of femininity is performed by the artist. She wears feminine attributes, such as long nails or high heels, which she considers to be suitable for a ballerina. Thus the performed femininity that Antinova presents is made through an enactment of pre-existing gestures and attributes which Antin(ova) adapts. The construction of the ballerina self is, as follows Bulter's argumentation, a performed act; the self forms its appearance in order to fit into pre-existing patterns of gestures. Although Antin and Antinova are the same sex, the text reveals certain gender differences between the two of them. Antinova acts out a gender performance that is unknown for Antin-theartist. This is not only established through outer attributes, but also in Antinova's behaviour. The distinction between the inner and the outer self is clearly stated when she formulates a script for how to ”play” Antinova:
1 – Focus my attention outward. Look at people closely. This will give me a romantic appearance. It will also force people to notice me – who can resist the persistent stare of a stranger? 2 – Kidnap them. Grab them off the street and chuch them back into the old world. So the broad-shouldered young man I see on 6 th Avenue will become a yachtsman from the British Regatta, sporting white flannel trousers and a malacca cane on the boardwalk at Monte Carlo.113
This paragraph is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, it states the distinction between the inner body/self's ”I” and how the performed self is a conscious constructed act. Secondly, the construction of this performed self requires the presence of other people. Antinova appear in a intersubjective exchange between the body/self and the affirmation of her surrounding. As with any other performance, the act requires an audience to be fulfilled. It is in relation to other people that Antin(ova) claims that she is Antinova. It is in conversations with others that Antinova's identity is claimed to be authentic.
113 Antin, 1883, p. 4.
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Linda Shearer, the new director of Artist's Space, sat next to me. Later she complimented me on my tan. [...]
”I know,” I said. ”I was born that way.”114
In particular, the statements of Antinova's authentic identity regards the self's racial performance. In interaction with others her black identity is claimed to be real. In the diaristic text's internal reflections the narrator describes how she darkens her skin with layer of make-up. It takes her two hours ”to darken and glamorize” herself. 108 The procedure which her persona-play requires every day resembles the process documented in Antin's first film Representational Painting and the film The King. The artist's metamorphosis is made through an outer transformation. Traditional masculine and feminine attributes, such as a beard, make-up and high heels, are used in the creation of the selves.
8. Photograph from the live performance Being Antinova, 1980. 114 Antin, 1983, p. 10.
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In Smith's examination of Antin(ova)'s racial performance, she asks whether Antin(ova) really aims to pass as black or not. Smith emphasises the distinction between passing and cross dressing, terms usually employed in the discussion of transgender and persona-play performances.115 By ”passing”, the subject aims to go unnoticed as another. Cross dressing, on the other hand, involves the subject adapting the behaviours of another, but not necessarily aiming to pass unnoticed as the other. What Antin(ova) aims for is, as Smith points out, hard to determine. 116 On one hand, according to the narrator's claims in the diaristic text, it occasionally seems as if the artist's aim is to pass as Antinova. On the other hand, as Smith writes in her essay, the ballerina's self is a consciously well-linked play on stereotypical assumptions and history. Looking closely at the staged documentary-style photographs of the live performance, the images present identity as a form of masquerade. As Smith points out, by scrutinising the photographs, the superficiality of her skin tone becomes visible.117 Her hands, face, and legs are in different dark shades, and if the aim is to pass as a black woman, the result is not successful. Racial performances are problematic, especially when the subject/body behind the surface is a white middle class body. Although Antin herself points at her position as an outsider, her position as ”an other” is not the same as the position as for racified people and racialization is more than applying layers of dark make-up and adopting assumed gestures. 118 Antinova is make-believe, but to what extent can the self be argued to be authentic?119 Reading the diary text and viewing the photographs closely reveal that there is an inner self/body onto which the outer performative self is attached. Within the black ballerina there is a white self who consciously performs another self. However, considering what Butler argued, identity is not an essential or biological absolute state, but, rather, a performative act. The appearance of Antinova is coherent. As the examination shows, the representations, in which she appears all form a consistent narrative. The narrative's authenticity increases through the ways the self is linked to reality. In the performance, as one can read in the text, the self that the body/self performs appears in an intersubjective exchange when other people affirm her being. Moreover, in the documentations, the participation of other people function 115 Smith, 2011, p. 12-16. 116 Smith, 2011, p. 126-127. 117 Smith, 2011, p. 88-89. 118For further reading and analysis of Antin(ova)'s racial performance, see: Smith, 2011; Copeland 2013. 119 Liebert, ”An Interview with Eleanor Antin”, p. 121 – 122.
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as a guarantor of authenticity. What does Antin's work say about identity and representations? In the case of both Antinova and the King, there is a distinction between an inner body/self and an outer appearance. In the artworks the preceding transformation is revealed; because of this, one cannot assume that Antin's aim with her selves is to pass as another; the inner body/self is always partly visible through cracks in the surface. Would it be correct to suggest, then, that Antin's work implies that there is an ”essential” body/self underneath the performed surface? In other words, is there an identity that might be covered, but exists that as an inner core self? If there is, after all, a true self hidden under the performed self, this fact would refute Butler's argumentation. Although Antin-the-artist's body is the foundation of all of her selves, it is not strongly argued that her body/self might be more ”real”, essential, or correct than the others. Rather than only show the masquerade persona-play of identity that the subject and its surroundings participate in, Antin's work unmasks the multiple layered nature of identity. By performing what to her biological body is ”other” and by revealing the process of her transformation, she points at the complexity of identity. Furthermore, by inventing several selves, Antin's work suggests a dissolution of the absolute, essentialist concept of identity. In Antin's work, one body is allowed to contain a multitude of selves, and identity is not a stable fact. Moreover, the self is not an internal essence, but appears and is formed in relation to other people and with its surroundings. As the art projects dissolve the idea of one single and absolute identity, they also break down the idea of the documentations' objective mode. By conscious defects and contradictions, the different media reveal each other and create an awareness of the unreliableness of representations. In the way that none of the selves are not completely untrue, none of the representations are completely lying. The work points to an acceptance of the idea all of the representations are to a certain extent correct, despite their difference.
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Conclusion
In the introduction, the aims presented for this dissertation were to examine how different media are employed and, through this, discuss how authenticity of identity and documentation is established and de-established. Due to the fact that today the performances of the selves only are accessible through its documentation, the authenticity and trustworthiness of the characters are closely connected to the trustworthiness of the documentation. In her work, Antin has connected her fictional characters to real people and historical contexts, which deepens the authenticity of the documentations because they are read as evidence of the past. In the photographic images, this result is achieved through adoptions of historical and documentary styles and the participation of real people. The aesthetic that are used gives the representations the impression of reality. The participating people and well known milieus function as guarantors of their authenticity; as a result, the fictional character appears to be as connected to (the past) reality as everything else within the picture frame or in the text. Throughout the examination of the selves, there is an oscillating effect between establishing and revealing the authenticity. This effect becomes prominent when one looks at how different modes of representation relate to stillness and duration. Photography's stillness represent the self instantly, whilst film and text both require time to unfold. The duration allows the media to tell narratives. As seen in this examination, there is a contradiction between what the still photographs show and what the film or the text reveals to the viewer over time. The still photographs immediately establish an authenticity around the characters. Due to its indexical qualities and how the medium has been used throughout history, the photographic medium holds promises of depicting reality. The evidential qualities are further established through the way that Antin adapted different photographical styles in order to present supposed histories of her selves. The snapshot aesthetics and the faux-damaged vintage photographs play with the viewer's pre-formed of the medium. The images are immediately interpreted as a historical documents. However, as seen in the analysis, the photographic promise is broken down when viewed in relation to film or text. The artwork Caught in the Act clearly demonstrates the play between 44
photography's instantaneousness and film's duration. Both of the media are employed in a manner that affirms the viewer's expectations of them. Viewed separately, each medium works within the framework set by the historical usage. By examining of all the artworks of Antin's selves, a similar internal play emerges. The film The King shows the artist's transformation, which opposes the evidential promise given by the documentary style photographs from the street performances in Solana Beach. In the case of Eleonora Antinova, the live performance, the photographs and the mockhistorical documents are unmasked by the diaristic text. However, as stated in this essay, the still photographs cannot simply be dismissed as untrue, because they cannot be accused of lying. What is depicted in the image has taken place in the past, the King did wander around on the streets of Solana Beach and the ballerina was capable to hold a perfect position for as long as the photo shoot required. In Antin's essay ” An Autobiography of the Artist as an Autobiographer”, she declares that she wishes to explore the ”transformational nature of the self” through her work.120 The characters have therefore been read in relation to post-modern ideas regarding identity and the self. Butler's argumentation concerning identity has been present throughout this examination. The concept of identity as it is represented in Antin's work agrees with Butler's argument. Although identity is considered to be non-essential and based upon performativity, the subject is still constrained by socially constructed patterns of gestures and behaviours. Through her work, Antin is able to stretch her bodily limitations of self-definition and explore the world as another self. Her active choice to transform from one self to another points at the instability of identity. Here, identity is a performed act and dependent upon its surrounding's affirmation. However, what Antin's work also shows is that this consciously chosen self still participates in social and cultural constructed behavioural patterns. In order to deepen her selves' authenticity, she plays with stereotypical attributes and gestures. What the close reading of her characters shows is that Antinthe-artist's masked body always is present. Her body shines through the visible defects in the representations, which undermines the performed self's authenticity. Due to the conscious revealing of her body and her simultaneous claim that her fictional selves are authentic through their representations, she points at the dynamic nature of the self. Through the visible-defects, she points at the body's ability to contain multiple selves. 120 Antin, 1974, p. 18.
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Bibliography Auslander, Philip ”The Performativity of Performance Documentation” Performing Arts Journal (Vol. 84 September, 2006) Antin, Eleanor ”An Autobiography of the Artist as an Autobiographer” Journal – The Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art 2 (October 1974) Antin, Eleanor Being Antinova (Astro Artz, Los Angeles 1983) Antin, Eleanor ”Notes on Transformation” Flash Art 44/45 (March-April 1974) Antinova, Eleanora Recollections of My Life with Diaghilev (Black Stone Press San Fransisco 1981) Barthes, Roland ”Historical Discourse” Structuralism: A Reader ed. Lane, M. (Jonathan Cape Ltd London 1970) Barthes, Roland ”The Photographic Message” Image, Music, Text trans. By S. Heath (Fontana, London 1977) Blumenfeld, Warren J. & Soenser Breen, Margaret ”Introduction to the Special Issue: Butler Matters” International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies (Vol. 6 Issue 1-2, 2001) Burgin, Victor ”Photography, Phantasy, Function” Thinking Photography, ed. Burgin, V (Macmillan Press, London, 1982) Butler, Judith Gender Trouble (Routledge New York 2006) Campany, David Photography and Cinema (Reaktion, London 2008) Copeland, Huey ”Some Ways of Playing Antinova” Multiple Occupancy Eleanor Antin's Selves, ed. Liebert, E. (The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and Columbia University, New York 2013) Derrida, Jaques, Archive Fever: a Freudian Impression (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996) Fox, Howard N., ”In Dialogue with Eleanor Antin” Eleanor Antin ed. Fox, H. N (Los Angeles County Museum Los Angeles 1999) Fox, Howard N., ”Waiting in the Wings: Desire and Destiny in the Art of Eleanor Antin” Eleanor Antin, ed. Fox, H. N, (Los Angeles County Museum Los Angeles 1999)
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Gunning, Tom ”Phantom Images and Modern Manifestation: Spirit Photography, Magic Theatre, Trick Films, and Photography's Uncanny” Fugitive Images – from Photography to Video ed. Petro, P (Indiana University Press Bloomington 1995) Jones, Amelia Body Art – Performing the Subject (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis London, 1998) Liebert, Emily ”A King, a Ballerina and a Nurse – The Act of Looking in Eleanor Antin's Early Selves” Multiple Occupancy Eleanor Antin's Selves, ed. Liebert, E. (The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and Columbia University, New York 2013) Liebert, Emily ”Multiple Occupancy – An Interview with Eleanor Antin” Multiple Occupancy Eleanor Antin's Selves, ed. Liebert, E. (The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery and Columbia University, New York 2013) Liang May Wee, Cecilia Rationales of Documentation in British Live Art Since the 1990's: the Pragmatic, Memorial and Holistic (University of Sussex 2012) Lippard, Lucy ”’Preface’ and ’Postface’” in Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (London, 1973) Metz, Christian ”Photography and the Fetish” October Magazine (Vol. 24 Autumn 1985) Mitchell, M. T. J, Picture Theory (University of Chicago, Chicago, 1994) Mulvey, Laura Death in 24x a Second – Stillness and the Moving Image (Reaktion London 2006) Naussbaum, Martha ”The Professor of Parody” New Republic (February 22, 1999) Phelan, Peggy Unmarked: the Politics of Performance (Routledge London, 1993) Philips, Glenn ”Eleanor Antin” California Video: Artists and Histories, ed. Philips, G (Getty Resrearch Institute, Los Angeles 2008) Reason, Matthew Documentation, Disappearance, and the Representation of Live Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006) Sayre, Henry M., The Object of Performance: the American Avant-Garde since 1970 (University of Chicago, Chicago, 1989) Scott, Clive The Spoken Image: Photography and Language (Reaktion, London 1999) Smith, Cherise Enacting Others: Politics of Identity in Eleanor Antin, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, and Anna Deavere Smith (Duke University Press, Durham, 2011)
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Tagg, John The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories (Macmillan Education, Basinstoke 1988) Tortajada, Maria ”Photography/Cinema: Complementary Paradigms in the Early Twentieth Century” Between Still and Moving Images ed. Guido, L. & Lugon, O. (John Libbey Publishing, Eastliegh 2012) White, Hayden, The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (John Jopkins University Press, London 1987) Wollen, Peter Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (Secker & Warburh, British Film Institute, London 1969)
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List of Artworks Mentioned in the Dissertation By Eleanor Antin in chronological order Blood of a poet box, 1965-68 Wood box containing one hundred glass slides of poets' blood specimenns and specimen list, 29.2x19.7x3.8 cm Tate Collection Representational Painting, 1971 Videotape: black-and-white, silent, 38 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix Library Science, 1971 25 black-and-white photographs, each 30.8x21 cm, with accompanying Library of Congress catalogue cards, each 7.6x12.7 cm The King of Solana Beach, 1971 Black-and-white photographs, mounted on board, each 15.2x22.9 cm Carving a Traditional Sculpture, 1972 144 black-and-white photographs and text panel, each 17.8 x 12.7 cm The Institute of Chicago, Twentieth-Century Discretionary Found Portrait of the King, 1972 Black-and-white photograph mounted on board, 34.9 x 24.8 cm The King, 1972 Videotape: black-and-white, silent, 52 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix Caught in the Act, 1973 Video Installation: Videotape: black-and-white, with sound, 36 mins. Photographs: Black-and-white photographs mounted on board. Courtesy Roland Feldman Fine Arts The Kings Meditations, 1974 series of drawings made by wash, ink, chalk on photosensitive paper, 44.5 x 53.3 cm Ballerina and the Bum, 1974 Videotape: Black-and-white, with sound, 36 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix The Little Match Girl Ballet, 1974 Videotape: colour, with sound, 27 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix
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Battle of the Bluffs, 1975-1976 Live Performance The Adventures of a Nurse, 1976 Videotape: colour, with sound, 64 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix The Nurse and the Hijackers, 1977 Videotape: colour, with sound, 85 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix The Angel Mercy, 1977 Videotape: colour, with sound, 66 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix Photographs: The Nightingale Family Album: 25 tinted gelatin-silver prints, mounted on board, each 45.7x33 cm My Tour of Duty in the Crimea: 38 tinted gelatin-silver prints, mounted on board, each 77.2x55.6 cm Being Antinova, 1980 Live Performance; Photographs; Text From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987 Videotape: compilation of six silent, black-and-white, 16-mm films, with music sound track, 24 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix The Man Without a World, 1991 Film: 16-mm, black-and-white, silent with soundtrack, 38 mins Courtesy Milestone Film and Video
Other Artworks Mentioned in the Dissertation Freidrich, Caspar David Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818 Org. title: Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, oil on canvas, 98.4 cm x 74.8 cm Kustnhalle Hamburg, Germany Marey, Etienne-Jules Cheval au Galop, 1886 Muybridge, Eadeard Transverse Gallop, 1887
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Exhibitions Mentioned in the Dissertation California Lives, January 30 – February 13 1970 Gain Ground Gallery, New York Portraits of Eight New York Women, November 21 – December 6 1970 Chelsea Hotel, New York Back is Beautiful, June 5 – 6 1974 University of California, Irvine Recollections of My Life with Diaghilev, October – November 1980 Ronal Feldman Fine Arts, New York As a part of the live performance Being Antinova
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Illustrations 1. Choreography I from Caught in the Act, 1973 Black-and-white Photographs Courtesy Roland Feldman Fine Arts 2. From Caught in the Act, 1973 Videotape: black-and-white, with sound, 36 mins Courtesy Roland Feldman Fine Arts 3. Photograph from the series The King of Solana Beach, 1971 Black-and-white photograph, mounted on board, 15.2x22.9 cm 4. Photograph from the series The King of Solana Beach, 1971 Black-and-white photograph, mounted on board, 15.2x22.9 cm 5. ”Men” from the series The King of Solana Beach, 1971 Black-and-white photograph, mounted on board, 15.2x22.9 cm 6. ”The Hebrews” from Recollection of My Life with Diaghilev, 1975-1976 Courtesy Roland Feldman Fine Arts 7. Photograph from the live performance Being Antinova, 1980 Published in Being Antinvova, 1983 8. Photograph from the live performance Being Antinova, 1980 Published in Being Antinova, 1983 9 - 15. From From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987 Videotape: compilation of six silent, black-and-white, 16-mm films, with music sound track, 24 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix 16. Photograph from the series Portrait of the King, 1972 Black-and-white photograph mounted on board, 34.9 x 24.8 cm 17. From The King, 1972 Videotape: black-and-white, silent, 52 mins Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix 18. ”Stravinsky and Friends” from Recollections of My Life with Diaghilev, 1981. Drawing: Ink on paper. 19. ”The Flapper” from from Recollections of My Life with Diaghilev, 1981. Drawing: Ink on paper.
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Appendix 1 From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
9. From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
10. From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
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11. From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
12. From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
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13. From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
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14. From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
15. From the Archive of Modern Art, 1987.
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Appendix 2
16. Portraits of The King, 1972.
17. The King, 1972.
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18. ”Stravinsky and Friends” from Recollection of My Life with Diaghilev, 1981.
19. ”The Flapper” from Recollection of My Life with Diaghilev, 1981.
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