A Beautiful Deep Dive Into Our Worldwide Arts + Culture
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A Beautiful Deep Dive Into Our Worldwide Arts + Culture |
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BOB & BOB: BIRTH OF AN ART WORLD DUO AT THE DAWN OF PERFORMANCE ART, Part Two The Dark Bob Interview by Gordy Grundy Read Part One of this Interview: Click Here! Art Report Today: You are a performance art pioneer, an originator of a new medium. How does that feel? The Dark Bob: Well, in the early years, we knew we were forging into new territory. It felt very rebellious to us and we embraced that notion. But I’ve been called a ‘pioneer’ so many times I feel like I should sell my car and get a covered wagon! Bob & Bob began working in what could be called the "Golden Age" of LA Performance Art in the '70s, alongside Chris Burden, Paul McCarthy, Barbara Smith and others, and we all came from a studio practice in the visual fine arts. That’s where performance art came from. It came from visual artists. But things changed. And in the 1980s, doing my solo work as The Dark Bob, I suddenly found myself sharing stages and spaces with John Fleck, Rachel Rosenthal, Lin Hixson and others, who came from disciplines outside of the visual art world, from disciplines such as theater, dance and music. Anyway, it was all good, and art was continuing to evolve fast, and the '80s and '90s were still a very exciting time to be making art. Did this expansion in performance art change the way you or The Light Bob approach your live art pieces? Oh yes, it almost completely changed my approach to doing performance works. All these actors and musicians and political pundits created a new template for "performance art" that was very different from my early work. My press release at the time said, “Not just a performance artist, but a weird entertainer,” because that’s what people were looking for… entertainment! Well, entertainment with some gravity and courage. Back in the '70s, Bob & Bob performances were unannounced and done on the streets. We literally had NO audience, other than those who happened to witness the “action,” or maybe just a handful of other artists would be invited. But in a very short time, and in part because of spaces like LAICA and LACE, performance art eventually found a devoted audience and pretty soon there were flyers, posters, admission tickets, folding chairs and refreshments! By the early '80s, performance art was a thing that was happening regularly in art spaces, nightclubs and theaters—very different from the first wave of performance in the '70s. So yeah, back to your very first question, I think my performance work does have two lives. In the '70s it was all about rebellion, defiance and revolutionary ideas, but by the '80s, there was a lot refinement going on with presentation, and it became more topical with sociopolitical messaging taking over. A lot of performance art became a soapbox for grievances.
Bob & Bob were LA icons. The home team performance artist duo. Your shows were far ahead of their time. What is one outstanding performance that might brand Bob & Bob? Give us the details. OK, well, you brought up this idea that some of Bob & Bob’s performances were "ahead of their time" and maybe that’s so. I mean, in some ways our early street performances may have anticipated a certain trend I've seen in social media, of people pulling pranks or taking actions to test how random observers will react in absurd or challenging situations. So in that context, one of my favorite Bob & Bob pieces was “We Must Be In The Wrong Place.” This was an ongoing work we did over a period of several years beginning in 1976. Whenever we’d see a sign that said “Private,” “Do Not Enter,” or “Authorized Personal Only,” we’d just barge in. Of course, we’d eventually be stopped by some authority figure, who would ask what we were doing there, and we’d say, “Oh, we must be in the wrong place,” hence the title of the piece. We did this everywhere we could. In fact, we even did it at LAX where we’d probably get shot or arrested if we did it there today!
These are great. Tell us another piece. Another live work I remember fondly was our “Deals.” In this piece, which we did for a couple of years, we’d go around, late at night, and slip Xeroxed notes under the doors of all the businesses in the famed Beverly Hills corridor—between Canon Drive to the east and Rodeo Drive to the west—with Wilshire Boulevard as the southern border and Santa Monica Boulevard to the north. The store owners or employees would get these notes the following morning when they opened the store. The notes simply commented wryly and subversively, on current social or political events of the day. Although some were just nuts, like “You love us and we dig it.” I can’t help but to think of our "Deals" as being exactly the same as what we all do today when we post on Facebook or X, except we did it on the streets, in the real world. Anyway, some shopkeepers felt threatened. Especially after we xeroxed a “WHILE YOU WERE OUT” slip that read, “While you were out, we were robbing the place.” Eventually the Beverly Hills Police tracked us down and told us to stop.
Now that's a perfect conclusion to a piece! You have always been prolific. Tell us about another work. Other events that stand out in my memory were the so-called Happenings we did. There was “Sex Is Stupid,” “Forget Everything You Know,” “Across America,” and “Russia Needs Help.” I’m not sure why, but these events drew huge crowds. A thousand to two thousand people for an art show was unheard of, but there they were! In our Happenings, we set out to create an event that was more than just an art exhibition. With an eye towards the Happenings of the '60s, we combined theater, comedy, spectacle and music with the artworks we had done. We would attach ourselves to a wall, high above the crowd, or sit up in the rafters wearing masks of our faces and bombard people with absurdist monologues while loud music blared.
We would give away our paintings, or sell them super cheap, and overall, we did our best to drive everyone mad for hours on end. And it worked! It definitely resonated with the cultural climate of the day for people to get crazy. Not only was performance art a new thing, but punk music was the soundtrack for all this craziness. I’m not sure why, but we attracted the punk rock crowd who unfortunately showed their affection for us by spitting and setting off Cherry Bombs. It was kind of terrifying, because we were often positioned as sitting ducks, strapped against the wall or poised in some other precarious position. Often times, scuffles erupted, and pandemonium was the vibe. One of these Happenings, “Forget Everything You Know,” was 12 hours long. LAICA had secured a huge empty warehouse in downtown LA for us. We filled the place knee-deep in popcorn that was delivered to the space in a dump truck. The smell was intoxicating! We then lined the walls with 100 feet of blank canvas and supplied gallons and gallons of paint and hundreds of brushes to over 1,000 people. They spent the entire night getting drunk and painting to a futuristic live band of five synthesizers and a drummer. Bob & Bob were painted gold and silver and we sat on a precarious little platform we built up in the rafters. We had microphones and we were chanting to the crowd and directing them to forget everything they knew about—well, about everything and anything. You name it! We literally talked for 12 hours! People were out of control and everyone was covered in paint. In High Performance Magazine, Linda Frye Burnham decreed one of our Happenings as "the perfect night of punk/art chaos-culture.” And we have the photos to prove it! Ha-ha!
Speaking of documentation, I believe you are currently involved in making a film? For the last few years, I’ve been working with Michael J. Masucci on a documentary film that chronicles the early years of performance art in Los Angeles. Michael is a filmmaker and producer, and also a founding member of the video art group called EZTV. Our working title for this project is "Off The Wall" and we have already interviewed more than a dozen artists, critics and academics who created, innovated, and advocated for performance art, way back in its infancy. Currently we are editing these interviews into 'episodes,' which we’ve decided is the best way to make the presentation. Michael and I both agree that the history of performance art in Los Angeles is an important story. Our opinion is that the performance artwork in LA established many of the ground rules and options for all the subsequent performance art that followed. There was body-art performance, time-based performance, cabaret-style performance as well as performances about endurance, gender, race and politics. Some very serious innovations were happening here in LA while our compatriots in New York, artists like Laurie Anderson, Eric Bogosian and Spalding Gray, they were essentially just weird “entertainers” when compared to what was happening here on the West Coast.
These days, there is a flurry of activity to write and definitively codify the history. What do you see going on? Currently in Los Angeles, there is a fellow named Samuel Vasquez who, along with others, is establishing a museum dedicated to performance art. Aptly called the Performance Art Museum (PAM). Their mission is to present new works, as well as preserving, collecting, and honoring the history and practice of performance art! They also want to recreate some of the landmark pieces. They’ve met with me, and with Bob & Bob several times, and they seem to be smart, passionate and dedicated people doing great work. My definition of performance art is when an artist does a live action, at a specific moment in time, and freezes that moment with photographic, video or written documentation. The documentation part is important. Chris Burden’s two books Chris Burden: 71-73 and Deluxe Photo Book 1971-1973 laid out the template for how a performance artist can codify their work, for it to exist in the world, after the fact. Then Linda Frye Burnham's High Performance Magazine came along in 1978. This allowed artists to submit their work for publication and provide the documentation in their own words and photographs, without any editorial input from a critic. High Performance Magazine was essentially the "cafe'" where performance artists from all over America—and even the world—would meet to see each other's work. When I say the magazine was like a cafe, I’m thinking of all those modern artists and writers in Paris, who gathered at Les Deux Magots or The Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, where the painters, jazz musicians and poets would gather for camaraderie in the '50s. High Performance Magazine was where performance artists came together to see what others were up to, and thereby influence, and open doors for each other. Finally, what’s it like working together again as Bob & Bob for this new show? Is it as easy as it used to be or more complicated now? That’s a good question and it needs to be asked even though I don’t want to think about it! The best way to answer would be with the other Bob here and a highly trained shrink. So this is just my point of view. In the old days, and even now, our best work happens when we merge so seamlessly and totally. When neither of us can remember which one did what or whose idea it was. When we were really young, like 20 and 21, it was super easy to make art with each other. This Bob & Bob thing was our creation, so we were super clear about who they were and how they dressed and talked and what they wanted. We knew Bob & Bob better than we knew ourselves, because we pretty much learned together, at the same time, what it meant to be an artist.
There have always been times when we’d butt heads or disagree, but we’d resolve those issues with the flip of a coin. If I win the toss, we do it my way. If he wins the toss, we still do it my way! No, no, I'm kidding! If he wins the toss, then yeah, we do it his way, with no whining or complaining from the other. That always worked for us. But here’s what makes it so challenging to be in an art team. We understood from the get-go that there’s a serious gravity to fine art that doesn’t exist in, say, entertainment or the commercial arts. Fine art needs to come from a deep part of one’s being or psyche. For most artists it would be impossible or unthinkable to collaborate or be in a team. But we started doing it when we were basically kids, so it came easy to us.
You can probably count all the "art teams" in the world on both hands with a few fingers left over. The current reality for Bob & Bob is that we have both done more solo work over the years than we have as Bob & Bob. But the Bob & Bob legacy looms over us all the time.
Bob & Bob are in museums and books and our old work is still talked about. I don’t know if either of us can out do what we did back then. We were in the right place at the right time to make a difference. Anyway, when we do get together to make art, there’s always a certain warm up period required. We each have this inner-Bob that eventually rises to the surface. And then suddenly we lock into place and the art and the ideas start flowing. It’s pretty strange. I’m not that guy with anyone else. To wrap it up, I just want to point out that The Light Bob would probably disagree with everything I’ve said.
Read Part One of This Interview: Click Here. Buy the Dark Bob's double album on collectible vinyl. Or classic CD. Or all of his creations!
Gordy Grundy is the Editor-in-Chief of Art Report Today.
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