As our humanities book describes, total art took the art making process and made it public. The actual work of art is less important than the process used to create the work of art. A well known example of total art can be seen in Yves Klein’s “Anthropometry”. This total art consists of naked women using each other as painting utensils and sliding over a canvas of some sort (kind of like a weird, awkward slip and slide if you ask me). “Anthropometry” reminded me of a modern day, more family oriented type of performance art or total art. I’m sure many of you have even experienced this total art! I’ll give you a hint: There’re blue, mute, and love playing with paint! I’m talking about the Blue Man Group!
For those of you who have never seen this strange depiction of total art, the Blue Man Group is a group of men, usually three to four, who have painted blue bodies and wear all black clothes. They are portrayed as being from another planet, for they are unfamiliar with technology and such from our world. They have childlike fascinations for music and color, and they bang on drums while splattering multicolored paint! The whole performance gets the audience involved. At one point, we had to dance along to the music while huge balloon balls were being tossed in the air!
After reading the humanities section on total art and reminiscing on the Blue Man Group, I realized I really enjoy performance art a lot better than looking at paintings in a museum for example. Total art gets my attention, and I love how some pieces even include the audience in on the art making process! The Blue Man Group actually had some random volunteers from the audience help them make fun pieces of art, such as painting the volunteer’s body blue and slamming them against a canvas! Just watching the art making process filled me with emotion: excitement, concern, confusion, and joy! If I were to look at the finished product, such as a spatter painting made by one of the blue men, I would not have these various emotional responses unless I attended the event while he made the work of art! To me, total art is more valuable than looking at a painting. While most of us cannot afford a million plus dollar painting, we can keep the experience and memory of a performance/total art with us as long as we live for a fraction of the price!
Here's a link to the official blue man group site if you wanna check it out for yourself!
http://www.blueman.com/experience/music-and-video 
Although I'm not entirely sure that seeing a picture of paint-covered naked women dragging each other across a canvas would make me think of Blue Man Group, I'm glad you brought them up. They are definitely original; I have never seen or heard of another group that performs in a comparable way. The paint, the easygoing interaction with the audience, the quirks... it all adds up to something totally bizarre and enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteWith out you saying it first I never would have thought of the Blue Man Group as a form of total art. Although I have never seen them in person it seems to be a very fun event. I agree that I would more than likely enjoy this form of art much more than going to an art museum and walking around. Hopefully I will be able to experience this form of total art one dya to.
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