Section 2. Article Ex.1 Read and express each paragraph in three sentences (present your speech by memory without using text or notes) Performance art

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. (Oscar Wilde)

1. The term "Performance Art" got its start in the 1960s in the United States. It was originally used to describe any live artistic event. What are the characteristics of Performance Art? Performance Art is live and experimental. It has no rules or guidelines. It is art because the artist says it is art. Performance Art may be comprised of painting or sculpture, dialogue, poetry, music, dance, opera, film footage, turned on television sets, laser lights, live animals and fire. Or all of the above. So, there are no foreseeable boundaries for Performance Art. Performance Art is not for sale. It may, however, sell admission tickets and film rights. Performance Art may be entertaining, amusing, shocking or horrifying. No matter which adjective applies, it is meant to be memorable.

2. It's worth noting that, even though we're referencing the 1960s here, there were earlier precedents for Performance Art. The live performances of the Dadaists, in particular, meshed poetry and the visual arts. They in their turn were inspired by the ideas and works of some artists and creators like Marcel Duchamp for example. The German Bauhaus, founded in 1919, included a theater workshop to explore relationships between space, sound and light. The Black Mountain College continued incorporating theatrical studies with the visual arts. You may also have heard of "Beatniks" - stereotypically: cigarette-smoking, sunglasses and black-beret-wearing, poetry-spouting coffeehouse frequenters of the late 1950s and early 1960s. All of these were forerunners of Performance Art.

3. By 1970, Performance Art was a global term, and its definition a bit more specific. "Performance Art" can be defined as an event which implies a fusion of several artistic media and is performed in a public place as a prescribed action constituting a work of art. Performance artists see the movement as a means of taking their art directly to a public forum, thus completely eliminating the need for galleries, agents, brokers, tax accountants and any other aspect of capitalism. One of the controversial aspects of every type of performance art lies in the fact that aesthetic taste and perspective vary not only by culture but also by individual preference. Performance Art is closely related to Conceptual Art, Body Art, Happening, Action Painting, Fluxus, Flash mob and so on.

Inspiring or Degrading?

4. Just as beautiful art can inspire and ennoble, degrading art can depress and demean. The degradation of art has reached epidemic proportions. Museums feature exhibits that can best be described as cultural trash. Regardless of the form of artistic expression whether it be painting, sculpture, dance, drama, music, writing, photography, or motion pictures the emphasis has shifted from the portrayal of beauty to the exhibition of the bizarre, the blasphemous, and the obscene. There seems to be a rush within the artistic community to find the lowest common denominator and then to lower it even further.

5.Instead of artists like Michelangelo and Beethoven who dedicated their talents to the glory of God, we are plagued with artists who traffic in the lewd, the sensational, and the profane. Our society is in the grip of a spiritual crisis. Art reflects that crisis, but it also contributes to it. Our governments have contributed to the assault of art upon our godly heritage. We are now faced with the incredible scenario whereby our government takes our tax money and gives it to artists who use it to attack the very values that we hold dear! And when we object, we are accused of being censorship bigots who do not believe in freedom of speech! Art has become a tool of propaganda in the hands of anarchists who are determined to destroy the Judaic-Christian foundations of Western civilization.

Ex.2 Describe the performance action