Thank you to the review committee for considering this grant proposal for my performance art project, “I Love You I Have Always Loved You: Masochist Encounters with Large-Scale Public Art.”
Describe the nature of your project: I will be traveling to various American cities to visit large-scale pieces of public art in urban settings. Instead of experiencing these works from a respectful distance, however, I will be challenging the nature of the art/viewer encounter by interacting with them so intimately that I intentionally hurt myself. I will climb tall, dangerous sculptures with “do not climb” signs in order to fall. I will embrace rusted metal statues in order to draw blood. When a piece of public art is too “safe” to hurt myself on (such as a smooth-sided, prominently displayed bust of a memorialized politician), I will camp out beside it without shelter, occasionally getting down on one knee on the crowded sidewalk to proclaim, “I love you! I have always loved you!” — with the goal of inflicting upon myself personal emotional turmoil, or inciting a judgmental passerby to shame me with laughter, whichever comes first.
What does your project offer that other contemporary work does not? There is plenty of great art that tries to affront, overwhelm, or change the viewer. However, our culture promotes well-being first and foremost, and we experience even the most arresting art with the remove of the museum-goer or the passerby. Our unwillingness to put ourselves in danger, physically or ideologically, often leaves us numb. Some performance and sculptural work, like that of Kal Spelletich, does tease us with the threat of physical harm. I’m not teasing. I want to remind people that sculpture is real, physical, there for us to wrap our arms around, whatever the consequences. And I want to show that, if we embrace an art object hard enough, it can affect us to much that it really does hurt.
How will your project impact the community? I expect that local communities will be pretty uncomfortable and confused about “I Love You I Have Always Loved You,” and that I may encounter problems with law enforcement. However, I hope to share my work with the large artistic community by posting online videos. Also, I feel good about making people uncomfortable and confused. I’m an art object too, in this piece. If they want to hug me hugging art until I bleed until they bleed, I encourage that.
What were your inspirations for this project? I recently saw Mary Coss’ “Three Graces.” Her sculptural figures have lower bodies made out of barbed wire, and are surrounded by white ropes that keep the visitor at a safe distance. This made me want to run past the rope and cling onto them. Without the illusion of safety and distance, I may not have felt the contrasting desire for physical connection and pain. Some of the barbed wire had gotten really rusty.
How much funding does your project require? I am estimating $2,000 in travel expenses, as well as an additional $2,000 in medical bills. I am currently insured, and will strive not to break any limbs, but feel I should be prepared for wherever the art encounter may take me — which is to say, possibly to the emergency room.
I look forward to hearing from you.
