Essay 3: Analysis of an Art Project

Tim Kianka
November 5, 2007


Analysis of An Art Project

The general view of art by many people who are not so enthusiastic about art tends to be that art must serve to please the eyes of the viewer. However, throughout the twentieth century many artists are moving away from that general misconception with new genres of art emerging throughout the century, such as avant-garde, “dialogic”, public and participatory art. These new genres of art have been focusing mainly on the conversation, participation or ideas from the general public to create the definition for the pieces of work. What clearly has arrived is that art is considered in a much wider array of forms then we previously believed.
It is a common misconception that the visual experience of art is simply a static form. Art has evolved into much more dynamic forms culturally and broadened our perspective of what it means to be involved in art. The clarity of the art form and the message it is intended to deliver remain very subjective, but newer forms are opening up to even more interpretation then forms of the past. Some times these forms stretch the imagination of both participants and audience and are more probable social statements on society.
This is especially true in the case of participatory art. Participatory or public art directly uses participation and interaction from the community in order to unite the viewers or community to a common theme. In her lecture at Syracuse University on October 30, 2007, Mary Jane Jacob highlighted many of the main aspects of participatory or public art. She began the lecture by discussing how public art started in the early to mid 1900s because artists did not want their art to be confined to museums since museums tended to be isolated and reflected a “superior cultural status”. These artists decidedly took their works to communities and used the past or present history of the community to define the message that their piece of artwork displayed and involve the community in the art form. With the beginning and evolution of public or participatory art forms, art has started to become much less focused on the aesthetic values of the piece of art and much more focused on the meaning or feelings that the piece of work extracts from the viewer.
Adrian Piper serves as an excellent example of a present day participatory or public artist. Her work “Funk Lessons” provides one example of the how the medium of participatory art captures an audience in an unorthodox manner. The expressions of her medium are not in the form of canvas and paint but through an involvement of her audience urging them to forego their inhibitions and learn the art of dancing funky. Sound, mood and rhythm form the foundation of her artwork. Piper explains the simplicity of the dance, the featured two-step form and sets the musical mood to encourage participants to let the rhythm of the beat move them to join in a celebratory manner. The attitude is that there is no magic to the dance scene, but there is a pleasure to be derived from joining in the group. The form of her art is purely dance and it takes shape as the participants blend with the music and one another. The sound is pumping and the beat of the music pulsates repetitiously to drive every participant to pick up the steps in time with the music. There is no precision to the step because the nature of the dance form presses the participant to find their own center as long as they join the dance. It has a delirious and almost euphoric effect on its participants because a person can avoid the inhibitions they might feel in a contest where they are singularly displayed compared to belonging to the group.
This is an art form intended for everyone. There is no targeted audience or cultural group. It is not intended to be viewed as a static form of art. It is intended to help its participants break down barriers and feel the pleasure of dance in a most simplistic step. By the very definition of the word participatory, “Funk Lessons” looks to bridge cultural divides and join people into the dance form of funk. There is no perfect result to the dance and the picture this form paints changes constantly and is never the same in each setting. The participants become united and the audience feels the emotion of the participants as they move together.
“Funk Lessons” takes place in a typical lecture hall setting. However, the dance form and the creation of the art form could clearly be played out in a variety of locations. The setting is not as important as gaining the participation from the audience. Stimulating the members of the audience is critical to the success of the fulfilling the artistic medium. A simple emotion stirred by the music hopes to unleash more creativity in the dance. The creativity acts as an elixir in breaking down the barriers among the participants. It is live art and it grows as the dance scene consumes its subjects.
Funk music was originally found to be impolite or indecent by many white people because of its association with sexual connotations. People disliked it because of its association to African beats and rhythm, and others disliked it because it was thought to be too “loosely” structured. In “Notes on Funk”, Piper gives a detailed account of the emotions that her lessons on funk provoked in the middle class college educated white students taking her course when she stated,
“The intimate scale of the dialogue permitted a more extensive exploration of individual reactions to funk music and dance, which are usually fairly intense and complex. For example it sometimes elicited anxiety, anger or contempt from middle-class, college-educated whites: anxiety because it association with black, working-class culture engenders unresolved racist feelings that are then represses or denied rather than examined; anger; because it is both sexually threatening and culturally intrusive to individuals schooled exclusively in the idiom of the European-descended tradition of classical, folk and/or popular music; contempt, because it sounds “mindless” or “monotonous” to individuals who, through lack of exposure to musicological training, are unable to discern its rhythmic, melodic and topical complexity”(Bishop 133).
In her lessons Piper attempts to bridge the gap between the culture of funk dance and the many white people during the time period that failed to accept funk, or found it immoral. The passage above shows the various amount of negative emotion that was generally originated from Piper’s work. This character of the piece of Piper’s art shows how “Funk Lessons” can be considered a piece of participatory art. It engages the audience in the community with full intention and it uses the developing emotions of the audience in order to create a definition for the piece of art.
The effect of Piper’s participatory art form subverts all prejudices and emboldens participants to “Get down and party together”(Bishop 132). It is a unification strategy where each participant in the group can find trust among the next person in an unselfconscious form. Through becoming an active part of the dance, people are joined together in a trusting mood, yet isolated environment. There is no room for a passive bystander in this art form and an atmosphere of “feel good” through involvement is the message Piper seeks to evoke. Her theory is that a bond is created and once that bond is established more harmonious discussions, decisions and debate can be formulated between the participants.
Piper’s theory is clearly only a matter of attitude and an observation of a short period in time. Her theory can be supported in a small setting; however, on a larger scale it has several short comings. As a medium of art the audience must be a willing participant and the setting must be a non-hostile environment. The concept of the art form in a video context is fascinating; however, the ability to make critical judgments on the piece is limited. The emotion of the art is more closely felt by the participants rather than the audience. It is much more of a social statement than art form. While dance itself certainly has artistic context and regularly choreographed forms of dance can be critiqued, Piper’s participatory form is much more free form. No two settings would necessarily create the exact same mood or feeling and the interpretation of the medium changes with the music and attitudes of the audience. It is arguable that in order to reach a true breakaway from the cultural barriers that a larger audience would be needed. But in terms of the effectiveness of “Funk Lessons” on the participants and Piper, than it can be seen as a large success. Piper describes the results as:
“The result was often cathartic, therapeutic and intellectually stimulating: to engage consciously with these and related issues can liberate one to listen to and understand this art form of black, working-class culture without fear or shame and so to gain a deeper understanding of the cultural and political dimension’s of one’s social identity”(Bishop 133-134).
Furthermore, Piper also goes on to summarize her beliefs in the practice of participatory art in the destruction of cultural barriers in the last paragraph of “Notes on Funk” where she discusses how she believes that the continuation of these stimulating demonstrations will open up the minds of the public and tear down cultural barriers between black and white cultures.
“Funk Lessons” provides the ultimate example of a piece of participatory or public art display. The piece of work perfectly parallels what Hafthor Yngvason stated in Miwon Kwon’s “One Place After Another”, when her states “As Public Art has developed over the last two decades, its emphasis has been on techniques of integration-not just to incorporate art physically into buildings and parks but also to foster social assimilation”(Kwon 115). “Funk Lessons” also falls into an example of participatory art by following the guidelines set forth by artist Mary Jane Jacob. “Funk Lessons” calls for the unification of the community and the breaking away from cultural barriers which so perfectly defines the purpose of participatory art. By allowing people, cultures and entire communities to participate in easy demonstrations such as dance enables the social assimilation that Yngvason discusses.



Works Cited
Bishop, Claire, ed. Participation: Documents of Contemporary Art. London and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Whitechapel and the MIT Press, 2006.

Kwon, Miwon. One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Idenitity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004.