It is interesting to follow the development of modern art forms, and performance art seems to be on the rise. It can not easily be put into nice and predictable category-boxes, it is a challenge for all of us: to take part, be surprised, to understand, to think afterwards.
This weekend the city of Bergen, Norway had an arrangement called Never or Now, also presenting a seminar to discuss, explain and contextualize the art.
Performance art shows the active body in space interacting with others, pictures, things and artefacts, videos in real time. The possibilities for variation are immense – for suprises also.
The aim is to be quiet, dramatic, tense, funny, shocking, abnormal – it is all up to the artist who is a free spirit. The artist wants to make you part of his world, to make you better understand your own.
So the members of the audience can expect anything, unpredictability is part of performance art, real life comes up. Performance art is also a one-off, so you have to be there.
The Never or Now festival in Bergen takes place in the former Bergen Kjøtt (meatproduction facility), an old 4-storey, 2000m2 building which has been converted into studios for artists of all kinds, and that can take about 1000 spectators.
There are many simultaneous performances, most specially made for the site – and beware also of the off-site performances. Artists have been given carte blanche – boundaries are loose.
Is this kind of art bringing us closer to what life is all really all about? There is resistance, some surprises surpass what we like, the thinking is often so-called bizarre – but maturity must never come or the performance art loses itself.