In various locations over the past year, in the name of art,

in front of small groups of people (many of them strangers),

performance artist Cara Tierney has:

 

•    occupied the bathroom of a house and concluded the

hours of preparation for a non-existent prom by completely

covering herself head-to-toe in beige foundation make up 

•    attended a fundraiser for homeless shelters where she

continually soaked herself in water while wearing a shirt

that read “not the good kind of wet”

•    sewn the left cuff of her blouse to the skin on her wrist,

cut away all of her clothes save for the dangling left sleeve,

and used the sleeve to apply purple paint all over her body

•    had onlookers screw her shut inside a wooden box,

removed her clothes, smashed her way out of the box and

destroyed it with a sledgehammer

•    eaten and then vomited shredded images of beautiful

women from fashion magazines, then mixed the regurgitated

images in a paste spread onto her face to create a mask

Strange? Certainly. Out there? No doubt. Inaccessibly

conceptual? Never. Not with Tierney. Though she is

employed in programming at the National Gallery of Canada

and can certainly hold her own in any art theory conversation,

Tierney takes pains to ensure that her messages centring

around gender and socialization are not lost on the audience.

Though rarely witnessed by mass audiences, contemporary

performance art is rooted in practices as old as any art form.

Due to its live, spontaneous, in-the-moment nature,

performance art is difficult to effectively reproduce or

commodify—and that’s perfectly okay with Tierney. She

views the “guerrilla” aspect of what she does as one of the

elements she uses to her advantage in an effort to make

herself and her audience more than a little uncomfortable.

At right: stills from Tierney's Foundation, 2007

 

 When did you start doing what you'd define as performance art?

While the first “official” piece of performance art that I delivered was September of 2006, I have always been very engaged by the idea of the human body as a medium for meaning making. As a child and teenager I was very active in the theatre and as I got into the fine arts I found that my strongest tool was, in fact, my body. When I finally got around to putting on my first performance it was a very easy and natural process.

What attracted you to this art form?

The prospect of a medium that combines how I feel when I see really good theatre with how I feel when I see really good art. Performance art combines the aesthetic of human being-ness, acting/being, with the conceptual approach of the fine arts. It’s less rigid and controlled than theatre and more immediate/alive than most fine art mediums. It is a quick and powerful means of communication. If I make a sculpture and exhibit it in a gallery space I separate myself from my audience. People are much more prone to reacting to/noticing/being affected by a human, than they are an inanimate object.

Did other artists in particular inspire you?

Absolutely. The list is immense. To name a few I’d begin with Joseph Beuys. His piece Coyote is an incredibly intricate and beautifully composed work. I always admired how he used his body as a pre-defined and political site that could incite change though carefully conceived actions. The Guerrilla Girls were a huge inspiration to me as a teenager. What’s not to like? Art world professionals donning gorilla masks and waging ideological warfare against the art establishment? Andy Warhol is another artist whose work and life influenced the choices I have made as an artist. Come to think of it, what I like the most about these artists is how they play with and blur the lines between they’re lives, their social identities—both private and public—and their artistic practices.

Are all your performances centered around gender?

Given that the primary tool of the performance artist is his/her body, gender is an issue of strong consideration when conceiving a piece. The trick is to decide whether or not that particular characteristic of your tool is an important element to the final message of the work. Gender then becomes a tool, a device that can be used to open onto larger concerns. Concerns that, while they may be colored by my particular gender, or the gender I am portraying, are not specific to one gender.

You have tried to make your performances very accessible and easy to "get." Why?

Quite simply its no fun if no one “gets” it! I’ve been left feeling more than underwhelmed and/or confused by a lot of performance art. Pieces that operate on that level maintain the idea that art is a highbrow endeavor available only to those with an art background or, worse yet, education. Art is a language. If that language does not succeed in its communication then it is not successful. Art should be available and accessible to everyone.

Are you concerned at all by the reality that you stand to make little or no money from your art?

Being creative is rewarding in and of itself if you have the right outlet. However, this is an issue that performance artists are currently taking up within the practice itself. As performance art hasn’t historically generated money in the same way that paintings do, anyone involved in performance art either is into conceptual philanthropy or is actively challenging our value systems for art as a consumable good, creating “sell-able” products out of their performances.

Where this exchange falls short however, is that the museum ends up buying photographs or leftover objects to display in their galleries. The problem here is quite obvious. One cannot compare the experience of viewing photos of a performance to seeing the actual performance itself.  Where is the art? Is it in the galleries or have the galleries just paid a nice sum for the concert book and posters? In a way, museums are becoming advertising venues for performance artists. If the ultimate goal is to see the “art”—in this case the artist in the flesh doing a performance—then the galleries that display documentary evidence of performances are doing no more than advertising on a small scale!

 Does the nudity in some of your performances ever make you uncomfortable?

YES. The thought alone starts to make me uneasy in the weeks leading up to a performance. I think that the discomfort is another dynamic in the communication, another tool that I can choose to use or not. My discomfort is immediately considered by anyone watching. And not just on one level. The viewer is discomforted with both the act of watching me get naked and the thought of what it would be like to be me, getting naked in front of a room full of strangers in a context entirely unfamiliar.

 

What kinds of reactions do you get?

All kinds. I consider some of my work to be hard to watch. Largely because I tend to push the limits on what people are used to seeing. As a result I have gotten a lot of very strong and vocal reactions to my pieces. I must admit however that I can’t always anticipate the types of reactions or what particular part of a piece might trigger that reaction. People are never ideologically empty handed when they enter an art viewing experience and as a result the interpretations are always varied. I recently did a performance in which, amongst other things, I sewed the cuff of my blouse to my wrist, cut off my clothes, painted my body purple and printed myself. Surprisingly, the strongest reactions—in fact the only questions I received—were with regards to my choice of the color purple.

Who is your "audience"?

I guess that depends on the venue and promotion of the events. The local artist-run centres have their built-in audience of artists and art fans just as the bars have their regulars. Often though the audience is mostly made up of other artists and people “in the know.” It’s not a mainstream art form and therefore doesn’t glean a lot of attention or have its specialized space or following to support a regular hosting of such events. In order to not become a victim to the fact that this art form doesn’t amass resources or attention it has also been used as one of the more subversive mediums, whereby artists may decide to stage a piece whenever, wherever they like. This particular guerrilla/interventionist style of performance essentially chooses its own audience and has always been a particular favorite of mine because it reminds us to keep our eyes open because art can be anywhere and can be anything!

From where do your ideas originate?

I always have about half a dozen ideas kicking around in my head and in my notes but nothing completely solid. The minute I hear about a particular venue I consider my audience, the space and time frame I am working with. It entirely depends on these three elements. Once a deadline is set in place I'll generally zone in on an idea or two and start to refine the logistics of its physical manifestation.

I anticipate creating more performances that explore some of the themes I have already started to develop: one's relationship to one's own hair and how that relates to the larger socialmatrix we inhabit; rituals and ceremonies of popular culture that are developmental landmarks in our social existences, i.e. the prom, marriage, family building; how architecture and our concrete surroundings influence and gender our space and experiences; hegemonic structures that silently dictate our concept of the individual's role in society.

 

 

Cara Tierney currently has no performances scheduled for the immediate future, but you never really know when and where she might appear.