Body art
Encyclopedia
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
made on, with, or consisting of, the human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
body. The most common forms of body art are tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
s and body piercing
Body piercing
Body piercing, a form of body modification, is the practice of puncturing or cutting a part of the human body, creating an opening in which jewelry may be worn. The word piercing can refer to the act or practice of body piercing, or to an opening in the body created by this act or practice...
s, but other types include scarification
Scarification
Scarifying involves scratching, etching, burning, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification.In the process of body scarification, scars are formed by cutting or branding the skin...
, branding
Scarification
Scarifying involves scratching, etching, burning, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification.In the process of body scarification, scars are formed by cutting or branding the skin...
, scalpelling
Scalpelling
Scalpelling is a body art procedure similar to body piercing for the creation of decorative perforations through the skin and other body tissue, and is most commonly used as a replacement for or enhancement of ear piercing...
, shaping (for example tight-lacing
Tightlacing
Tightlacing is the practice of wearing a tightly-laced corset to achieve extreme modifications to the figure and posture and experience the sensations of a very tight corset. Those who practice tightlacing are called tightlacers...
of corsets), full body tattoo and body painting
Body painting
Body painting, or sometimes bodypainting, is a form of body art. Unlike tattoo and other forms of body art, body painting is temporary, painted onto the human skin, and lasts for only several hours, or at most a couple of weeks. Body painting that is limited to the face is known as face painting...
.
More extreme body art can involve things such as mutilation or pushing the body to its physical limits. For example, one of Marina Abramović
Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...
's works involved dancing until she collapsed from exhaustion, while one of Dennis Oppenheim's better-known works saw him lying in the sunlight with a book on his chest, until his skin, excluding that covered by the book, was badly sunburn
Sunburn
A sunburn is a burn to living tissue, such as skin, which is produced by overexposure to ultraviolet radiation, commonly from the sun's rays. Usual mild symptoms in humans and other animals include red or reddish skin that is hot to the touch, general fatigue, and mild dizziness. An excess of UV...
ed. It can even consist of the arrangement and dissection
Dissection
Dissection is usually the process of disassembling and observing something to determine its internal structure and as an aid to discerning the functions and relationships of its components....
of preserved bodies in an artistic fashion, as in the case of the plastinated
Plastination
Plastination is a technique or process used in anatomy to preserve bodies or body parts. The water and fat are replaced by certain plastics, yielding specimens that can be touched, do not smell or decay, and even retain most properties of the original sample....
bodies used in the travelling Body Worlds
Body Worlds
Body Worlds is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal inner anatomical structures...
exhibit.
Body art is also a sub-category of performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, in which artists use or abuse their own body to make their particular statements.
In more recent times, the body
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
has become a subject of much broader discussion and treatment than can be reduced to body art in its common understanding. Important strategies that question the human body
Human body
The human body is the entire structure of a human organism, and consists of a head, neck, torso, two arms and two legs.By the time the human reaches adulthood, the body consists of close to 100 trillion cells, the basic unit of life...
are: implants
Implant (body modification)
In body modification, an implant is a device placed under the human skin for decorative purposes. Such implants may be subdermal or transdermal...
, body in symbiosis
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
with the new technologies, virtual
Virtual
The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the salient qualities of the real....
body etc. Scientific research in this area, for example that by Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...
, can be considered in this artistic vein. A special case of the body art strategies is the absence of body
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
. Some artists that performed the "absence" of body
Body
With regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
through their artworks were: Keith Arnatt
Keith Arnatt
Keith Arnatt was a British conceptual artist and photographer. In 2004, he was exposed at Rencontres d'Arles festival . In 2007 a retrospective of his work was held at The Photographers' Gallery, London....
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, Anthony Gormley and Davor Džalto
Davor Džalto
Davor Džalto is an artist and art historian born in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina on May 17, 1980.He graduated from the High School of Art in Niš. His academic career started in Belgrade where he received an M.A. degree from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy in History of Art...
.
Examples of body art
Vito AcconciVito Acconci
Vito Hannibal Acconci is a Bronx, New York-born, Brooklyn-based designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist.-Education:...
once documented, through photos and text, his daily exercise routine of stepping on and off a chair for as long as possible over several months. Acconci also performed a 'Following Piece', in which he followed randomly chosen New Yorkers.
The Vienna Action Group
Viennese Actionism
The term Viennese Actionism describes a short and violent movement in 20th century art that can be regarded as part of the many independent efforts of the 1960s to develop "action art" . Its main participants were Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. As "actionists",...
was formed in 1965 by Herman Nitsch, Otto Muhl, Gunter Brus and Rudolf Schwartzkogler. They performed several body art actions, usually involving social taboos (such as genital mutilation).
In France, Body Art appeared as "Art Coporel" with artists such as Michel Journiac
Michel Journiac
Michel Journiac was one of the founders of the 1960s and 1970s Body Art movement in France, called "Art corporel". During these years, many artists started to use the human body as their material. Accordingly, this artist used his own body to perform rituals which he documented through...
and Gina Pane
Gina Pane
Gina Pane..... was a French artist. She was one of the founders of the 1970s Body Art movement in France, called "Art corporel". Pane was best known for her performance piece The Conditioning which was recreated by Marina Abramovic as part of her 7 easy pieces in 2005....
.
In Italy in the 1970s, one of the famous artists in the movement was Ketty La Rocca
Ketty La Rocca
Ketty La Rocca was one of the most important artists in the European art of the 1960s–1970s. She was a leading exponent of body art and poesia visiva movements....
. While in the year 2000 Vito Bongiorno
Vito Bongiorno
- Biography :He moved to Rome at a young age where, while studying art, he met the aero-painter Mino delle Site, who had already been highly praised by Marinetti.He then lived in Monaco where he worked hard for two years....
considers a performance a kind of open work, which also works the audience.
Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...
performed 'Rhythm O' in 1974. In the piece, the audience was given instructions to use on Abramovic's body an array of 72 provided instruments of pain and pleasure, including knives, feathers, and a loaded pistol. Audience members cut her, pressed thorns into her belly, put lipstick on her, and removed her clothes. The performance ended after six hours when someone held the loaded pistol up to Abramovic's head and a scuffle broke out.
The movement gradually evolved to the works more directed in the personal mythologies, as at Jana Sterbak
Jana Sterbak
Jana Sterbak is a Canadian artist best known for her works constructed from meat. Two sculptures, Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic and Chair Apollinaire , were both works whose primary medium was cured flank steak also known as skirt steak in the UK butcher trade.Born in Prague,...
, Rebecca Horn
Rebecca Horn
Rebecca Horn is a German installation artist and film director most famous for her body modifications such as Einhorn , a body-suit with a very large horn projecting vertically from the headpiece, and Pencil Mask, a mesh harness for the head with many pencils projecting out...
, Youri Messen-Jaschin
Youri Messen-Jaschin
Youri Messen-Jaschin is an artist of Latvian origin, born in Arosa, Switzerland, in 1941. He often combines oils and gouaches. His favourite colors are: strong reds, yellows, greens, and blue. He also works in body painting, exhibiting his works in nightclubs.-Life and works:Messen-Jaschin studied...
or Javier Perez
Javier Pérez
Javier Pérez Iniesta is a retired basketball player.-Clubs:*1988-90: Real Madrid*1990-98: Ourense Baloncesto*1998-99: Cantabria Baloncesto*1999-00: Gijón Baloncesto*2000-02: Club Instituto Rosalía de Castro...
.
Jake Lloyd Jones, a Sydney based artist, conceived a body art ride called the Sydney Body Art Ride
Sydney Body Art Ride
The Sydney Body Art Ride is a community-driven art event which raises funds for children's cancer research while promoting healthy sustainable living. It is held annually in the middle of February in Sydney, Australia...
which has become an annual event. Participants are painted to form a living rainbow that rides to the Pacific Ocean and immerses itself in the waves.