CRAWLING IN AN EXAGGERATED MANNER AROUND THE PERIMETER OF A SQUARE
CRAWLING IN AN EXAGGERATED MANNER AROUND THE PERIMETER OF A SQUARE is a feminist appropriation of the famous Bruce Nauman piece – ‘Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Qml505hxp_c
In the 1967 work, the parameters are set with the white tape on the studio floor, and the fixed camera angle. Nauman- chained to the square- slowly, painfully, steps one foot in front of the other, exaggerating his movements and accentuating his body in a ludicrously strained manner. He moves back and forth continuously around the square, with the video on loop.
The video was part of the so-remembered ‘great dawn of conceptualism’ in the late 60’s, and the dematerialization of the art object. Despite its progressiveness, performance art was still a very male dominated scene. Not to say there were no women making art; they just weren’t given the superstardom of such players as Nauman.
This is where Liv’s piece is so brilliant, it comes at the work with a feminist critique, not of the content but of the male dominated studio ideal. In CRAWLING IN AN EXAGGERATED MANNER AROUND THE PERIMETER OF A SQUARE the audience looks down on a pink bikini clad, blonde wigged, heeled woman, as she laboriously crawls back and forth around the matching fluorescent pink square. At the same time though, she manipulates the audience- winking and licking her lips and blowing kisses, so she is the one in control.
Nauman’s point of view is still celebrated, the awareness of the body as a medium, and the repetition of a pointless action – but here it is made new by fetishizing the artist/studio relationship. And the wig and heels.
See more of Liv’s work here.