Painting’s liveness

Abstract

Sarah Kate Wilsons’s article ‘Painting’s liveness’ is written from her vantage point, as an artist/curator/researcher/collaborator/educator. Here she reveals how painting’s relationship with performance, particularly during the second part of the twentieth century, has led to painting’s liveness. This, she asserts, is apparent in paintings by Daniel Buren, Robert Rauschenberg, Yoko Ono, works by the Gutai Art Association and performances by Ei Arakawa. The inauguration of a performance programme at Bauhaus in Germany, Black Mountain College in America and the formation of the Gutai Art Association in Japan are highlighted by Wilson as important milestones. Writing by RoseLee Goldberg and Peggy Phelan on performance, J. L. Austin’s speech act theory as well as Satori, an expression from Zen Buddhism meaning enlightenment, are woven into this text. David Joselit’s declaration that the medium of painting is live and ‘On Air’ is drawn into her argument for painting’s liveness, whilst Catherine Wood’s curatorial project A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance (2012) Tate Modern, London and her own curatorial project Painting in Time (2015–16) set the stage for this text.