Authors and contributors: Neylan Bagcioglu, The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Barbara Büscher, Giuseppe Campuzano, Katalin Cseh-Varga, Tim Etchells, Sarah Happersberger, Zhana Ivanova, Amelia Jones, Joe Kelleher, Bojana Kunst, Massa Lemu, Miguel A. López, Kirsten Maar, Roger Nelson, Paul B. Preciado, Emily Roysdon, Robin Kathleen Williams, Stephanie Sparling Williams and Arnisa Zeqo
Editors: Sophie Berrebi and Hendrik Folkerts
Stedelijk Studies is the online, peer-reviewed academic journal published bi-annually by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The journal publishes research related to the Stedelijk Museum’s collection and institutional history, as well as museum studies (think of education and conservation practice) and current topics in the field of visual arts and design. The first issue (fall 2014) was dedicated to “Collecting Geographies,” followed by the second issue (spring 2015) on “Exhibition Histories.”
This third issue of Stedelijk Studies, edited by Sophie Berrebi and Hendrik Folkerts, is proposing a discursive “stage” for performance—as a term that denotes a collection of (art and exhibition) histories, a set of definitions or disruptions, and an equally large variety of artistic practices against different cultural and geographic backgrounds. Entitled “The Place of Performance,” this new issue of the journal imagines “place” as not only evoking the geographic, spatial, and temporal parameters of performance, but also as an invitation to explore the disciplinary place or non-place of performance amidst dance and choreography, theater, public space, visual art, and political activism. Moreover, the editors see it as an invitation to explore the places of performance within the discourse of art history.
The authors who were invited to contribute to this issue and responded to the call for papers approached this theme in multiple ways:
–monographic approaches, devoted to historical as well as lesser-known contemporary figures
–immaterial and material labor of performance
–questions around documentation, the document and the “object-hood” of performance
–political articulations of performance and its relationship to political activism
–an examination of queer and/or feminist positions
–perspectives on performance informed by local and/or national narratives
–a review of disciplinary traditions and questions of display, pertaining to the visual arts, theater, choreography and public space
–issues of audience of spectatorship
A number of artistic positions are disseminated throughout the issue, intermingled amidst the academic articles. On the one hand, these documents perform the question of how we can envision the prevalent chronological relationship between the live event and the document(ation)—as the one preceding the other—in a different manner. On the other hand, they show the variety of ways that text can be used in performance, as a score or script, a collection of textual references, an instructional document and as a performative tool in itself.
Ultimately, these artistic positions serve as a kind of user’s manual for the historical and academic perspectives. Bringing the two together enables us to underscore the richness and multiplicity of performance today—in all its phases and places.
To read the full issue of Stedelijk Studies: The Place of Performance, please visit the journal’s website here.
