Life modelling and live art (Part 2)

Photographer: Elina
I am continuing in this post the discussion about life modelling, and in particular, whether I believe life models are artists. I tend to say they are not.
 As it happens, I modelled for a group of artists yesterday evening. It was freezing outside, we are having such a spate of bad weather.  The class was held in the basement of a club and thankfully there was a fan heater. Being warm is very important to me when I model, you can injure yourself if you attempt certain poses without being properly warmed up.
The structure of this class was such as to give me an opportunity to select more adventurous poses because I had to hold them for shorter periods of time.  There was music in the background, I enjoyed the selection of tracks the artist who led the class had chosen, quite a mix, including Smashing Pumpkins - it had been ages since I heard them. And work wise, there was the usual request to do something dynamic and dance inspired. At some point I remembered, while posing, the question about life modelling (art or not art).  My experience of last night confirmed that no, I was not the artist, I was the one who enabled the artists. I saw some very good drawings and was struck by the talent of the participants. I felt I did well with my modelling, I took up contortion classes some months ago and this is definitely giving me greater flexibility and endurance. But even though I was an enabler, posed creatively and performed satisfactorily what I did was a far cry from art.

Photographer: Milly-Anne Kellner
I think that when people claim life modelling is art what they really have in mind is live art and equate life modelling to live art. But there are crucial differences. Live art is the term chosen in the UK by the Live Art Development Agency (elsewhere it has been variedly called performance art or time based art), to describe "a strategy to ‘include' a diversity of practices and artists that might otherwise find themselves ‘excluded' from all kinds of policy and provision and all kinds of curatorial contexts and critical debates". This description is somewhat technical and assumes these creative individuals are involved in an artistic practice of sort. Could that be life modelling?  Well , no.
Live art is conceptual and is totally controlled by the performer. I may choose to do a live art performance, totally naked and somewhere public. To do so I will have a concept , an idea that I have developed and am  presenting to my audience. Someone might photograph me, someone might want to draw me but I would be leading this whole process, I would not pose for anyone, any posing would be incidental.
Photographer: Milly-Anne Kellner
Think of Marina Abramovic, the acclaimed live art performer originally from Serbia, whose work, in her own words, explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. She enjoyed a long collaborative partnership, a symbiosis,  with the German live artist Ulay. They famously performed their split by staging a walk along the Great Wall of China, both coming from opposite directions. It took ninety days for them to finally meet and when they met  they immediately parted for good, walking alone, each in their own direction. Abramovic commented that it was a spiritual journey and the best way to mark the end of their intense association. "At the end, we are all alone", she said.
In 2010 Marina was given a retrospective at MOMA in New York and there she performed The Artist is Present, a 700 hour long act, recorded on camera,  in which she shared a minute of silence with each stranger that sat opposite her, closing her eyes as every new person came by and fully engaging with each individual through intense gazing throughout the 60 seconds interaction. Lady Gaga went, that tells you the scale of Marina's popularity. At some point Ulay arrived, walked among the reconstructions of his work with Marina and then sat opposite her. She knew he would be coming but did not know when. When Marina opened her eyes, all they did was look at each other.  I have never seen anything as moving and as intense as the moment when Marina and Ulay saw each other at MOMA and am so glad it is available on film for all to view. Absolutely no word was exchanged. The only departure from what Marina usually did was her sudden decision to lean across the table and hold his hands. After the one minute was up Ulay left and Marina continued her performance with the next stranger.


Over her long career Marina Abramovic has had someone point a loaded gun at her head and even set herself on fire (not on purpose, it was an accident while performing). "I test the limits of myself in order to transform myself," she says, "but I also take the energy from the audience and transform it. It goes back to them in a different way. This is why people in the audience often cry or become angry or whatever. A powerful performance will transform everyone in the room."


Granted, not every live artist has achieved the same pinnacle as Marina Abramovic. I have briefly discussed her work because most compellingly she provides evidence for settling for good  this debate on whether life modelling is art or not.  We really have to conclude that life modelling can be a wonderful creative endeavour, and good life models are highly skilled individuals, often with a strong performance background, but no, it is not an art form. It is not live art.
And why would everyone want to have the 'artist' label attached to them, may I ask?

(All photos modelled by Alex B.)

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