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DIALOGUE

NOV/DEC '84

941

Smith's character "Mike" has all the depth of a pizza box. Underscoring the banality of everyday life and the pervasive influence of media hype, the Mike of Bill Loman: Master Salesman inhabits an "it's-only-temporary" type of apartment. A victim of media overload, Mike's greatest aspirations include becoming a member of the "coffee generation," getting a VISA card, and vacationing at Club Med. Mike is such a blank slate wanting only to "belong," that while we can sympathize with him, at the same time it's clear he's a real nowhere man. The "Mike" of The Dirty Show already "belongs." Just one of the boys, this Mike's most human moment occurs when he psyches him into staying home from work to ready himself for his starring role in the guys' annual stag party. Most of The Dirty Show is getting a series of cheap laughs from sight gags and scatalogical humor. Smith's best piece was non-verbal; as Baby Ikki the compact Smith outfitted himself in t-shirt, gigantic suspendered diaper, bonnet, and sun-glasses bobbling from one part of the audience to the next. A bizarre sight, Ikki lurched from person to person, offering to share his icky, squashed cupcake with a solicitous viewer. Recreating the uncertainty of a child's first efforts at sharing and self-discovery, Baby Ikki is Smith's most well-defined character.

Smith and Bogosian, through skillfully using humor as an intrinsic element of their work, seduce us into looking below the surface of their words and actions. While Smith's characters emphasize superficiality, they call attention to the insidious intrusion of mass media in our lives. In contrast, Bogosian's world may include more than its fair share of society's disposables, but his humanity makes us reassess our initial reaction, and in doing so affirms the folly of superficial judgements. The CAC should be congratulated; we clamor more.

Sandye Utley is Board President of C.A.G.E., Cincinnati.

Documentary Performance

Rauschenberg/Performance: 1954-1984 / Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art / 7 September - 6 October

By Virginia B. Bettendorf

While an exhibition such as this - containing objects as documentary evidence rather than objects of art - inevitably raises issues of categorization and boundaries, such problems must be addressed individually for each artist. For Robert Rauschenberg, the reduction of boundaries between art and life, or, by extension, art and documentation, is central. Sets, costumes, and photographs, with audiotapes and videotape also available, from performances in which Rauschenberg collaborated reflect the essence of his work. Rauschenberg has asserted: "Neither [art nor life] can be made. (I try to act in that gap between the two.)"1

Rauschenberg sought to use materials in ways which reveal inherent qualities and to decrease his artistic control, with the underlying desire to work with materials rather than have them work for him. This practice of incorporating found objects was also used for his set, props, and costume designs. For example, when Story (1963) was performed during the Cunningham Company's world tour, Rauschenberg improvised new sets and costumes for each stop, using materials he found. Furthermore, in pieces such as Antic Meet (1958) and Aeon (1960), objects, including a chair and draperies, were used as a part of the costumes, and thus became a part of the choreography.

Nina Sundell, curator of this exhibition, addresses these issues in her essay for the catalogue prepared by the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. The relation of Rauschenberg's documentary artifacts with his art is explained and the role of a documentary exhibition of Rauschenberg's collaborative works clarified:

Photographs of Rauschenberg's theater pieces reveal the same kind of mysterious and powerful images that he was able to create with similarly ill-assorted objects in his Combines. The raw material is often identical: objects which embody a sense of the past and the erosion of wear; others, mass produced

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Robert Rauschenberg, Installation view with bed-springs. Photo: Steve Friedman.