Claude Wampler
DiverseWorks
- Claire Ruud -
Claude Wampler, PERFORMANCE (career ender), 2007; installation and performance, DiverseWorks, Houston
Upon entering the installation that accompanied Claude Wampler’s PERFORMANCE (career ender) at DiverseWorks, it was impossible to miss the point—the purported end of Wampler’s career as a performance artist. Outside the entrance, a block of text began with “1906 die brucke,” “1909 futurism,” and so forth, ending with “2006 PERFORMANCE.” This list positions performance art—and specifically Wampler’s career—as the endpoint in an impressive lineage of avant-garde movements, implying that all avant-garde movements flourish then die.
Inside the gallery, Wampler further riffs on the exhaustion of the genre. A letter to DiverseWorks’ co-director Diane Barber informs of the artist’s intention to drop out of the performance art world. A coat hanging on the wall puns on the adage, “it’s time to hang up your coat.” A floor-to-ceiling projection depicting a candle burning down to a puddle: burn out. Another projection culminates with an electric guitar crashing to the floor, producing a 60-cycle hum: short out.
Wampler uses this somewhat overbearing concept—the exhaustion of an art movement—to explore the limits of performance, and her exploration is certainly timely. The performance itself was an exhilarating yet mournful investigation of the medium—its popularity, its affectual relationship with an audience, its ephemerality. In DiverseWorks’ darkened theater, keyboards and drum kit stood center stage. Next to the drums, an electric guitar and amps were projected onto a temporary wall. When the “performers” enter, they too appear as projections. The first installment of the piece at The Kitchen in New York featured music by the John Carpenter Band. While classic rock conjures rock’s performative legacy, the band at DiverseWorks suggested a more recent pop phenomenon—the all-girl band. The dialogue between these two incarnations adds a new subtext to the piece, drawing out gender specificity in both rock and performance art.
Although dressed to evoke a post-riot-grrrl aesthetic, the band practiced a doleful, generic rock ballad over and over again. Exhilarating, however, was the gradual materialization of real performers, as if out of thin air. First the torso, then arms, then a head over the drum kit; likewise, a ghostly figure rose beside the keyboard, and so on. As the music played, the guitarist put down her instrument and began to dance. Soon Wampler appeared and the keyboard player joined them, moving in synchrony through an instrumental bridge. The appearance of the artist felt momentous, but her presence was fleeting; she disappeared again as the musicians returned to their instruments.
The climax: the band reenters in the flesh. Each takes her position at an instrument and they begin to play the same now familiar tune. Throughout the audience, smiles break out and heads bop to the music. A woman in the front row (an audience plant) stands up to dance. At the end of the song, the crowd offers a hearty round of applause as the women exit.
Wampler’s bewitching performance provokes a number of significant discussions about audience response and participation, the presence and absence of the artist and the intersection of performance genres such as theater, music and visual art. While at times heavy-handed, she uses the onerous concept of the exhaustion of the avant-garde to push herself to explore the limits of her medium and the continued viability of performance art itself.
Claire Ruud is the Managing Editor of …mightbegood.