\u00a0Thanks to the arts patron, John Kaldor of Kaldor Public Art Projects, everyone in Sydney could get the chance to see the fiesta of visual art performances by visiting 13 rooms for 13 artists’ works this year.<\/p>\n

Through the panel discussion, ’13 rooms and the time of performance’, the relationship between performers and performances is discussed.\u00a0In 13 Rooms<\/em>,\u00a0all\u00a0works\u00a0except Coexisting<\/em> by the Australian artists team, Clark Beaumont,\u00a0<\/span>were performed by volunteers of arts students and Sydney dance company not by the creator of performances. And some works were re-enacted\u00a0in a form of a record of the history\u00a0not as a new work such as Joan Jonas’s\u00a0Mirror Check, <\/em>which was first performed\u00a0by the artist in 1970.\u00a0Even artists themselves – through other performing volunteers – re-enact other performance artists’ works or their own works: John Baldessarie’s Thirteen Colourful Inside Jobs,\u00a02013\u00a0<\/em>is the re-creation of his 1977 video performance, Six Colourful Inside Jobs<\/em>, 1977<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Marina Abramovic is recognised as a prominent artist\u00a0in the performance history and she did not perform the piece herself, her work was discussed in the matter of the authenticity. As an artist who incorporate the element of performance in the photographic medium, I consider the performance as a medium\u00a0chosen by the artist in the same manner, artists choose other mediums such as painting, sculpture and video. The exact same landscape at the same vantage point with the same lighting condition and composition taken by the same camera by different photographers, makes different images. Because the artwork is not a mechanical product through the same methology but the visualised concept with each artist’s intention, emotion and interpretation. So the performance work is presnted by others not by the\u00a0creator changes its meaning whether\u00a0it is performed through the given script and training.\u00a0It is impossible to have an exact same result by different performers even though they try to.\u00a0 The Sydney theatre company director, Andrew Upton commented regarding this discourse of authenticity in performance arts: “The performance is blood and the theatre is a tomato sauce.” The project,\u00a013 Rooms\u00a0<\/em>offers the complex reflection on performance arts.<\/p>\n

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