Performance art: 100 Years, Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf

Dusseldorf had an exhibition on 100 years of performance art. I did not make it (again: what am I doing with my life, when I am so interested? Such is life, procrastination rules.) It has history start at Marcel Duchamps' Tonsure, where usually there is a consensus performance art started in the 60s. Again, art is not what it is. It is context and definition.

This time I reflect on the work of Andrea Fraser. During 2003, she made a performance 'Untitled'. What she did is sleep with a collector in a hotelroom - for reputedly $ 20.000 dollar. Her NYC gallery owner was the pimp. The candidate had to be straight and unmarried. (Fraser cunningly covering herself against litigation?) A video of 1 hour would be made as a record of the performance. 1 Copy for the collector and a few more (4, I believe) for sales.

The video apparently looks like amateurporn. Fraser alone in red dress, pacing, receiving the man, sharing a glass of wine, ending naked in bed doing the business.

Yes, the work is about the human condition, but this is too thin for me. It is principally about art & business: what is art, what does a collector want, the artist selling a little, intimate part of herself.

To me, this is at best a film and acting, not art. Less so than me eternal reference: Emin's unmade bed. It is business too.