UNLIMITED ACTION
Tate Britain, 2019
I invited the pioneering tuba player, Oren Marshall, to take part in a work with Martin v. Haselberg and myself and 100 balloons for an evening of Kipper Kids and the launch of Dominic Johnson’s new book, Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (Manchester University Press, 2019).
The invitation:
UNLIMITED ACTION: The Kipper Kids, Tate Britain, 2019
From the 1970s, the Kipper Kids (Harry Kipper and Harry Kipper, aka Martin Von Haselberg and the late Brian Routh) became legendary. Their transgressive aesthetic influenced peers such as Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley. Routh died in August 2018.
At Tate Britain, Dominic Johnson is joined by Martin Von Haselberg and frequent Kipper collaborator Anne Bean to celebrate The Kipper Kids. The event will include rare screenings, including Up Yer Bum With a Bengal Lancer (1976), and a recording of The Kipper Kids’ final performance at the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow in 2003, as well as conversation and action.
This event will also launch Johnson’s new book, Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (Manchester University Press, 2019). The book explores the limits imposed upon art and life, and the means by which artists have exposed or refused this by way of performance. It examines the ‘performance of extremity’ as practices at the limits of the histories of performance and art, in its most prescient decade, the 1970s. Dominic Johnson recounts and analyses game-changing performance events by six artists: Kerry Trengove, Ulay, Genesis P-Orridge and COUM Transmissions, Anne Bean, the Kipper Kids and Stephen Cripps.
UNLIMITED ACTION
Tate Britain, 2019
I invited the pioneering tuba player, Oren Marshall, to take part in a work with Martin v. Haselberg and myself and 100 balloons for an evening of Kipper Kids and the launch of Dominic Johnson’s new book, Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (Manchester University Press, 2019).
The invitation:
UNLIMITED ACTION: The Kipper Kids, Tate Britain, 2019
From the 1970s, the Kipper Kids (Harry Kipper and Harry Kipper, aka Martin Von Haselberg and the late Brian Routh) became legendary. Their transgressive aesthetic influenced peers such as Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley. Routh died in August 2018.
At Tate Britain, Dominic Johnson is joined by Martin Von Haselberg and frequent Kipper collaborator Anne Bean to celebrate The Kipper Kids. The event will include rare screenings, including Up Yer Bum With a Bengal Lancer (1976), and a recording of The Kipper Kids’ final performance at the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow in 2003, as well as conversation and action.
This event will also launch Johnson’s new book, Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (Manchester University Press, 2019). The book explores the limits imposed upon art and life, and the means by which artists have exposed or refused this by way of performance. It examines the ‘performance of extremity’ as practices at the limits of the histories of performance and art, in its most prescient decade, the 1970s. Dominic Johnson recounts and analyses game-changing performance events by six artists: Kerry Trengove, Ulay, Genesis P-Orridge and COUM Transmissions, Anne Bean, the Kipper Kids and Stephen Cripps.