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Ritual, nourishment, and caregiving: the performances of Barbara T. Smith and Linda Montano

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Ritual, nourishment, and caregiving: the performances of Barbara T. Smith and Linda Montano

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RITUAL,
NOURISHMENT,
AND
CAREGIVING:

THE
PERFORMANCES
OF
BARBARA
T.
SMITH
AND
LINDA
MONTANO

by

Kiley
Anna
McCarthy

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

A
Thesis
Presented
to
the

FACULTY
OF
THE
USC
GRADUATE
SCHOOL

UNIVERSITY
OF
SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA

In
Partial
Fulfillment
of
the

Requirements
for
the
Degree

MASTER
OF
ART
AND
CURATORIAL
PRACTICE
IN
THE
PUBLIC
SPHERE

MAY
2013

Copyright
2013

Kiley
Anna
McCarthy

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I
owe
my
deepest
gratitude
to
Karen
Moss
for
her
time
and
commitment
to

my
project.

I
have
greatly
valued
her
encouragement
and
guidance
and
it
has
been
a

pleasure
to
work
with
her.

Additionally,
I
would
like
to
thank
Connie
Butler
and

Suzanne
Hudson
for
their
feedback
and
intellectual
generosity.

I
offer
my
regards

to
all
of
those
who
supported
me
in
any
respect
during
the
completion
of
this

project.

Finally,
I
am
overwhelmingly
appreciative
of
the
time
Barbara
T.
Smith
and

Linda
Montano
have
taken
to
speak
with
me
about
their
work.

iii

TABLE
OF
CONTENTS

Abstract

v

Preface

vi

Chapter
One:
Introduction

1

Chapter
Two:
Barbara
T.
Smith

10

Chapter
Three:
Linda
Mary
Montano

19

Chapter
Four:
A
Comparison
of
Barbara
Smith
and
Linda
Montano

27

and
Their
Relationship
to
Their
Contemporaries

Conclusion

39

Bibliography

46

iv

LIST
OF
FIGURES

1. Barbara
Smith,
Ritual
Meal,
1969,
home
of
Elyse
and
Stanley
Grinstein

2. Barbara
Smith,
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash,
1971,
University
of
California,

Irvine

3. Barbara
Smith,
Feed
Me,
1973,
Museum
of
Conceptual
Art,
San
Francisco

4. Barbara
Smith,
Feed
Me,
1973
Museum
of
Conceptual
Art,
San
Francisco

5. Linda
Montano,
Lying:
Dead
Chicken,
Live
Angel
(Chicken
Bed),
Berkeley
Art

Museum

6. Linda
Montano,
The
Streets
of
San
Francisco,
color
photograph,
1972

7. Linda
Montano,
The
Streets
of
San
Francisco,
Golden
Gate
Bridge,
1972,
black

and
white
photograph

8. Linda
Montano,
The
Streets
of
San
Francisco,
Reese
Palley
Gallery,
1972,
black

and
white
photograph

9. Linda
Montano,
14
Years
of
Living
Art,
1984,
installed
2013,
SITE
Santa
Fe

10. Linda
Montano,
Home
Nursing,
1972

11. Linda
Montano
and
Tom
Marioni,
Handcuffed,
1973

12.
Linda
Montano,
Dad
Art,
1998

13.
Linda
Montano,
Dad
Art,
1998,
performance

14.
Barbara
T.
Smith,
Birthdaze,
1981

15.
Linda
Montano,
Opening
Performance
at
SITE,
January
23,
2013

16.
Linda
Montano,
Art/Life
Counseling,
2013,
meeting

17.
Linda
Montano,
Art/Life
Counseling,
2013

18.
Linda
Montano,
Art/Life
Counseling,
2013,
installation
shot

19.
Linda
Montano,
Art/Life
Counseling,
2013,
interactive
wall
labe

v

ABSTRACT

This
thesis
examines
feminist
performance
artists
Barbara
T.
Smith
and

Linda
Montano,
and
the
artists’
respective
use
of
biography
as
political
statement
in

themes
of
ritual,
nourishment,
and
caregiving.

Through
the
specific
analysis
of

Smith’s
Ritual
Meal,
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash,
and
Feed
Me
and
Montano’s

Chicken
Woman,
14
Years
of
Living
Art,
and
Dad
Art,
one
may
see
how
these
themes

central
to
the
human
experience
and
are
revealed
through
individualized
feminist

approaches
to
personal
narrative.

Smith
and
Montano’s
work
is
framed
in
the

context
of
feminist
artistic
practices
of
the
1970s
that
utilize
biography
and
ritual.

The
stakes
of
Smith
and
Montano’s
continuing
contemporary
practices
are
analyzed

in
terms
of
audience,
space,
and
public.

vi

PREFACE

Barbara
Turner
Smith
and
Linda
Mary
Montano,
leading

women
artists

whose
works
emerged
out
of
the
social
and
political
struggles
of
the
1960s
and

1970s,
formulated
a
new
feminist
identity
through
performances
that
focused
on

ritual,
nourishment
and
care-‐giving.

They
both
challenged
and
embraced

stereotypical
gender
roles,
social
norms
and
traditional
premises
of
organized

religion.
In
particular,
the
respective
practices
of
Smith
and
Montano
highlight
the

fact
that
feminist
art
from
this
period,
while
thematically
focused
on
exploring
and

exploding
the
role
of
women,
proposed
a
consistent
viewpoint:
that
ritual,

nourishment
and
caregiving
remain
central
to
the
female
-‐and
human
-‐
experience.

Yet,
how
these
themes
manifested
is
as
varied
as
the
personalities
of
the
artists
who

explored
them.

Both
Smith
and
Montano
incorporate
their
individual
biographies
in

their
work,
referencing
the
feminist
creedo
that
the
“personal
is
political.”
1
.

By
focusing
on
Smith
and
Montano’s
approaches
to
ritual,
nourishment
and

care-‐giving
−reoccurring
themes
in
their
principal
works−
one
can
begin
to
see
how

the
two
artists
strove
for
self-‐determination,
an
important
goal
of
many
early

feminist
artists,
but
in
strikingly
different
ways.

Smith's
view
was
based
on
pointed

challenges
to
existing
norms
that
shocked
her
audience
into
to
viewing
existing

1

Hanisch,
Carol,
“The
Personal
is
Political,”
Notes
From
the
Second
Year:
Women’s

Liberation:
Major
Writings
of
the
Radical
Feminists
(1970),
76-‐77.

This
will
be

discussed
later.

vii

moral
codes
from
a
new
perspective
and
questioning
the
validity
of
organized

religion
by
mocking
central
rituals.

Montano,
on
the
other
hand,
celebrates
the
role
of
women
in
care
giving,

providing
nourishment,
and
embracing
ritual
and
traditional
forms
of
spirituality
as

a
path
to
higher
personal
awareness
and
satisfaction.

She
does
not
shock
her

audiences
into
challenging
existing
norms
but
instead,
requires
her
audience
to
join

with
her
in
a
deeper,
more
durational
examination
of
important
life
themes.

Montano’s
performances
have
been
open
to
a
wider
public,
often
appearing
in
the

streets
or
public
venues,
while
Smith’s
are
generally
closed
to
an
invited
audience.

In
Smith’s
Ritual
Meal
(1969),
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash
(1971),
Feed
Me,

(1973)
and
Birthdaze
(1981)
and
in
Montano’s
Chicken
Woman
(1972),
Home

Nursing
(1972),
Seven
Years
of
Living
Art
(1984-‐1991),
and
Dad
Art
(1998-‐2000),

the
artists
use
performance
to
direct
awareness
to
feminist
issues
and
concerns

within
the
practice
of
art-‐making,
proposing
the
idea
of
art
as
a
form
of
political

practice.

Working
within
the
strictures
of
a
patriarchal
society,
both
artists
question

traditional
views
of
women’s
social
roles
through
a
process
of
both
affirming
and

disowning
aspects
of
ritual,
nourishment
and
care
giving.

By
examining
each
artist’s
approach
to
common
themes
found
in
these

principal
works,
I
will
demonstrate
how
both
Smith
and
Montano
rejected
existing

female
stereotypes
seeking
a
new
sense
of
self-‐determination.

They
each
created
a

vision
of
liberation:
Smith
through
challenge,
rejection
and
self-‐empowerment
and

Montano
through
an
in-‐depth
examination
and
ritualized
acceptance
of
feminist-‐

viii

focused
themes.

I
will
also
argue
that
each
artist
provides
her
own
unique

approach
to
the
role
of
traditional
religion
and
spirituality
in
her
respective

performance
art
practice
that
is
part
of
the
continuum
of
the
debate
between

secular
humanism
and
faith
that
continues
today.

While
Smith
outwardly

challenges
and,
some
would
say,
mocks
core
beliefs
of
Christian
faith
and
places

emphasis
on
the
individual
and
the
collective
to
create
their
own
sense
of
what
is

true,
Montano
explores
religion,
both
Eastern
and
Western,
in
depth
and
relies
on

faith
and
spirituality
as
the
paths
to
self-‐fulfillment.

Additionally,
I
will
not
only
compare
Smith
and
Montano
to
each
other
but

also
discuss
their
works
in
relation
to
contemporary
feminist
artists
in
California
in

the
late
1960s
and
1970s.

Finally,
I
will
look
at
two
of
their
more
recent
projects
to

see
how
they
have
continued
their
respective
practices.

Before
analyzing
the
work

of
Smith
and
Montano,
I
will
begin
with
a
general
introduction
to
feminism
and

feminist
art,
and
some
historical
precedents
to
performance
art,
and
then
discuss

the
specific
context
of
the
development
of
feminist
performance
in
California.

1

CHAPTER
ONE:
INTRODUCTION

While
not
close
in
age
(Smith
is
eleven
years
older
than
Montano),
both

Smith
and
Montano
began
to
undertake
their
performances
in
the
late
1960s
and

were
strongly
influenced
by
the
social
and
cultural
revolution
emerging
in
the

United
States
at
the
time.

The
Civil
Rights
Movement,
the
Women's
Liberation

Movement,
anti-‐Vietnam
War
demonstrations,
hippies,
the
free
love
movement
and

general
challenges
to
authority,
were
all
taking
place
and
influencing
society
and
art.

For
Montano,
the
opening
up
of
the
Roman
Catholic
Church
as
a
result
of
Vatican
II

in
1963
which
significantly
increased
the
role
of
the
laity
and
women
were

particularly
important
and
impacted
her
work.
2

Feminism
and
Feminist
Art

The
use
of
the
female
body
in
early
feminist
performance,
actions,
sculpture

and
installation
was
central
to
work
that
engaged
with
socially
constructed
roles

and
called
attention
to
ways
in
which
the
body
could
be
culturally
marked
with

difference.

The
idea
that
one
might
accept
or
reject
a
stereotypical
female
role
was

explored
through
a
merging
of
gender
politics
and
conceptual
practice.

In
an
era

when
one
of
the
best
selling
books
was
Our
Bodies,
Ourselves,
3

the
feminist

manifesto
about
women's
health
and
sexuality,
attention
to
the
female
body
was
not

2

Norman
Tanner
ed,
Vatican
II:
The
Essential
Texts
(New
York:
Image
Books,
2012).

3

Our
Bodies,
Ourselves
was
first
published
in
1970
as
Women
and
Their
Bodies.

Written
by
twelve
feminist
activists
in
Boston,
the
book
was
originally
intended
for

use
as
the
central
text
for
a
women’s
health
course
written
for
women
by
women.

2

surprising.
The
emerging
genres
of
live
performance
and
video,
practices
which
had

not
yet
been
decidedly
defined
according
to
a
set
of
aesthetic
standards,
were
ideal

media
for
the
new
identity
many
feminist
artists
were
determined
to
forge.

Many
of

these
performative
works
involved
role-‐playing,
especially
within
domestic
settings,

to
call
attention
to
the
stereotypes
assigned
to
women
in
a
patriarchal
culture.
4

Because
the
1960s
and
1970s
art
world
was
still
dominated
by
the
belief
that

the
purpose
of
art
was
to
transcend
or
provide
alternatives
to
social
and
political

struggle,
the
idea
that
art
could
be
political
itself
was
a
radical
concept.

In
her
1969

essay,
“The
Personal
is
Political,
”
Carol
Hanisch,
a
member
of
the
New
York
Radical

Women,
wrote
a
response
to
the
argument
that
consciousness-‐raising
was
just
a

therapy.
5

Consciousness-‐raising
consisted
of
an
activity
common
during
the
early

women’s
liberation
movement
in
which
women
would
come
together
forming

groups
to
discuss
their
own
oppression.

While
critics
of
consciousness-‐raising

belittled
women
for
bringing
so-‐called
personal
problems
into
the
political
arena,

Hanisch
argued
that
personal
problems
are
political
problems,
the
result
of

systematic
gendered
oppression
and
massive
structural
inequalities.

As
women
began
to
consider
the
implications
of
“the
personal
is
political,”
it

became
clear
that
no
aspect
of
life
was
exempt
from
politics,
including
art.

Art
came

to
be
no
longer
seen
as
a
neutral,
aesthetic
field
untouched
by
politics.

By

4

Constance
M.
Lewallen
and
Karen
Moss,
State
of
Mind:
New
California
Art
Circa

1970
(Berkeley:
University
of
California
Press,
2011),
55.

5

Hanisch,
Carol,
“The
Personal
is
Political,”
Notes
From
the
Second
Year:
Women’s

Liberation:
Major
Writings
of
the
Radical
Feminists
(1970),
76-‐77.

3

uncovering
ideological
systems
that
sought
to
maintain
the
status
quo
in
the
art

world,
feminism
played
an
important
role
in
creating
awareness
of
how
the
political

already
functioned
within
the
field
of
contemporary
art.

Engagement
with
the

everyday
and
the
stereotypical
rituals
that
women
undertake,
proved
a
fruitful
area

of
examination
for
feminist
performance
artists.
6

According
to
feminist
artist,

writer,
and
theorist
Suzanne
Lacy,
“Ritual
not
only
validated
and
reinforced

women’s
current
position
by
calling
up
some
imagined
past,
but
more
importantly

(whether
we
knew
it
at
the
time
or
not),
it
served
to
create
a
bonding,
to
give
that

experience
tangible
forms,
and
then
to
make
those
forms
visible
in
larger
culture.”
7

The
function
of
ritual
within
feminist
performance
art
was
central
to
women’s

investigations
and
political
actions
and
gave
these
ideals
a
significant
form
through

which
they
could
be
presented.

The
demand
for
self-‐determination
was
an
important
motivation
of
the

women’s
movement
that
went
far
beyond
constitutional
rights,
civil
liberties
and

equal
opportunity
employment.

Exploring
what
was
meant
by
the
“self”
was
central

to
the
feminist
movement.

If
traditional
women’s
roles
were
to
be
challenged,

examining
what
those
roles
signified
was
necessary.
During
the
1960s
and
1970s,
a

proliferation
of
art
practices
emerged
that
engaged
with
the
feminist
social

movement.

Feminist
art
emerged
simultaneously
in
various
international
locations

6

Jane
Wark,
Radical
Gestures:
Feminism
and
Performance
Art
in
North
America

(Montreal:
McGill-‐Queen’s
University
Press,
2006),
5.

7

Suzanne
Lacy,
Leaving
Art:
Writings
on
Performance,
Politics,
and
Publics,
1974-‐
2007
(Durham:
Duke
University
Press,
2010),
156.

4

in
the
form
of
work
directly
inspired
by
political
activism.

The
production
of
this

kind
of
work
was
seen
in
relation
to
a
politically
inflected
reading
of
art
history
and

a
desire
to
transform
that
history
by
radically
questioning
its
fundamental

organizational
principles.
8

A
generation
of
women
sought
to
recreate
the
concepts

of
womanhood
by
inventing
roles
according
to
their
own
image.

These

revolutionary
claims
became
evident
in
a
proliferation
of
different
viewpoints

rather
than
the
creation
of
a
certain
new
normal.

The
possibility
for
constructing

new
identities
became
possible
through
women’s
liberation.

Art
Historical
Precedents
of
Performance
Art

Performance
art
was
one
of
the
key
new
forms
of
artistic
expression
of
the

late
1960s
and
1970s.

Originally,
it
emerged
from
Futurism,
Dada,
and
other
early

20
th

century
movements
in
which
artists
created
outrageous
live
events
and

performances
merging
art
and
life
that
were
freed
from
the
conventions
of
artistic

practice
and
normative
social
behavior
9

For
instance,
the
Futurist
Synthetic
Theater

assaulted
the
nerves
of
spectators
through
performance,
causing
them
to
forget
the

monotony
of
everyday
life
through
exposure
to
original
combinations
of
sensations

including
color,
form,
and
sound.
The
Dada
Cabaret
Voltaire
founded
in
Zurich
in

8

Cornelia
Butler,
WACK!
Art
and
the
Feminist
Revolution
(Los
Angeles:
The
Museum

of
Contemporary
Art,
2007),
347.

9

See
RoseLee
Goldberg,
Performance
Art:
From
Futurism
to
the
Present
(New
York:

Thames
&
Hudson,
1988)for
a
full
history
of
early
performances
in
Dada,
Futurism

and
other
avant-‐garde
movements.

5

1915
by
Dada
Hugo
Ball
and
Emmy
Hennings,
included
the

and
futurist
avant-‐garde

street
performances
which
brought
Futurism
to
the
public.

While
these
movements

were
important
for
declaring
that
life
and
art
were
to
be
freed
from
convention,

what
is
more
relevant
to
Smith
and
Montano
are
post-‐war

Happenings

and
other

forms
of
performance
art
which
emerged
in
the
decades
after
World
War
II
and

were
informed
by
the
enormous
social
and
political
changes
of
the

1960s.

Avant-‐garde
artists
in
the
United
States
began
to
make
performances
and

events
beginning
with
experiments
between
theatrical
studies
and
the
visual
arts

that
occurred
at
Black
Mountain
College.

Founded
in
Black
Mountain,
North

Carolina
in
1933,
the
small
community
consisting
of
twenty-‐two
students
and
nine

faculty
members
attracted
artists,
writers,
playwrights,
dancers
and
musicians
to
its

rural
southern
location.

Black
Mountain
College
was
an
experimental
school

founded
on
the
Bauhaus
principles
of
balancing
academics,
arts,
and
manual
labor

within
a
democratic
society
in
the
education
of
complete
people.

The

interdisciplinary
work
that
took
place
at
Black
Mountain
College
created
a
nurturing

environment,
which
allowed
it
to
become
one
of
the
most
important
settings
for

twentieth-‐century
artists
redefining
art.

For
example
the
director
John
Rice
invited

Josef
and
Anni
Albers,
who
had
taught
at
the
Bauhaus
before
its
closure
by
the
Nazis,

to
create
a
focal
point
for
the
curriculum
which
emphasized
performance,
and
its

viability
as

the
content
of
art
(an
extension
of
earlier
Bauhaus
experiments.)
10

10

Ibid,
121-‐122.

6

By
1948,
musician
John
Cage
and
dancer
Merce
Cunningham
were
both

invited
to
join
the
summer
school
at
Black
Mountain
College.

In
1952,
John
Cage

staged
an
evening
of
performance
in
the
dining
hall
that
would
be
termed
the
first

Happening
and
came
to
set
precedent
for
many
events
that
would
follow
in
the
late

1950s
and
60s.

For
that
performance,
Robert
Rauschenberg
created
the
set,
Merce

Cunningham
choreographed
the
movements
and
Cage
wrote
the
music.

Cage

proclaimed
the
“anarchic”
event
a
success,
“purposeless
in
that
we
didn’t
know
what

was
going
to
happen”
but
which
suggested
limitless
possibilities
for
future

collaborations.
11

From
1957
to
1958,
Allen
Kaprow
was
a
student
in
the
experimental
music

composition
class
taught
by
John
Cage
at
the
New
School
for
Social
Research
in
New

York.

Cage
influenced
Kaprow
in
the
incorporation
of
time-‐based
practice,

employment
of
new
modes
of
non-‐narrative
composition
and
emphasis
on
the

audience
participation
in
the
realization
of
a
work.

In
1958
Allen
Kaprow
used
the

term
“Happening”
for
the
first
time
in
his
essay
“The
Legacy
of
Jackson
Pollock,”
in

which
he
accounted
for
Pollock’s
significance
as
a
liberator
who
demonstrated
to

future
generations
the
primacy
of
action
in
the
process
of
artistic
creation.
12

Defined
as
a
choreographed
event
that
facilitates
spontaneous
interactions
among

objects,
performers
and
visitors,
Happenings
began
as
tightly
scripted
events
during

11

Ibid,
126-‐127.

12

Eva
Meyer-‐Hermann,
Andrew
Perchuk
and
Stephanie
Rosenthal
eds.,
Allan

Kaprow-‐
Art
as
Life
(London:
Thames
&
Hudson,
2008),
9.

7

which
the
audience
and
performers
followed
cues,
creating
a
collective
experience

in
time
that
could
not
be
replicated.

For
18
Happenings
in
6
Parts,
Kaprow
created
an
interactive
environment
in

which
the
audience
was
engaged
to
a
degree
unprecedented
in
modern
art.

Kaprow

used
the
audience
members
as
the
participants
and
props
through
which
his
vision

was
executed,
encouraging
them
to
experience
elements
of
the
action
and
to
draw

their
own
connections
between
ideas
and
events
in
the
integration
of
art
and
life.
13

When
Kaprow
moved
from
New
York
to
California
in
1969
to
become
an

Associate
Dean
at
the
California
Institute
of
the
Arts,
he
brought
Happenings
to
the

West
Coast.

While
teaching
at
Cal
Arts,
Kaprow
became
involved
with
the
Feminist

Art
Program,
influencing
young
feminist
artists
and
vice
versa.

Barbara
T.
Smith

knew
Kaprow
through
his
teaching
positions
at
Cal
Arts
and
UCSD.

Fluxus
also
had

a
strong
presence
at
Cal
Arts
as
many
of
the
artists
involved
taught
there.

Kaprow

and
Fluxus’
emphasis
on
the
every
day
and
art
that
used
unremarkable
and
simple

activites,
as
opposed
to
the
theatrical,
was
of
great
importance
to
feminist
artists
in

their
investigation
of
ritual.

Kaprow’s
use
of
"mudane
contemporary
ritual”
seen
in

his
“naming
and
using,
secular
rituals
from
daily
life-‐
brushing
teeth,
sweeping

floors”
was
taken
up
by
women
performance
artists
working
in
contemporary

rituals
from
the
feminist
perspective.
14

13

Ibid,
9-‐18.

14

Ibid,
156.

8

As
California
artists
began
to
create
work
based
on
events
and
situations,

alternative
art
spaces
for
feminist
work
and
performance
art
emerged
in
the
early

1970s
in
both
Northern
and
Southern
California.
The
Woman’s
Building,
founded
in

Los
Angeles
in
1973,
became
a
critical
venue
for
performance
(where
both
Smith

and
Montano
performed)
and
was
also
the
home
to
the
Feminist
Studio
Worskhop

(FSW).
As
artist
Cheri
Gaukle
observed,
a
new
aesthetic
and
autobiographical

performance
developed
there:

Out
of
the
Feminist
Studio
Workshop,
the
first
independent
feminist
art

education
institution,
a
new
aesthetic
has
emerged
informed
by
the
collective

experience
of
the
feminist
education
process.
This
aesthetic
moved
beyond

simple
theatricality...
With
voices
intensely
personal
as
well
as
broadly

political,
women
performance
artists
are
establishing
women’s
reality
as
a

cultural
fact.
This
work
has
affected
both
women’s
and
men’s
art,
which
can

be
charted
through
mainstream
trends
in
autobiographical,
erotic
and
social

art…
Ritual
performance
has
figured
significantly
in
the
educational

programs
of
the
Women’s
Building.
15

Another
alternative
site
for
performance
in
Southern
California,
the
F-‐Space,

located
in
Santa
Ana,
California,
was
formed
by
a
group
of
graduates
from
the

University
of
California,
Irvine
that
included
Chris
Burden,
Nancy
Buchanan,

Barbara
Smith
and
others.
16

15

Cheri
Gaulke,
“Acting
Like
Women:
Performance
Art
of
the
Woman’s
Building,”

Citizen
Artist:
20
Years
of
Art
in
the
Public
Arena,
Linda
Frye
Burnham
and
Steven

Durland,
eds.
(New
York:
Critical
Press,
1998),15-‐16.

16

F
Space
Gallery
was
an
experimental
gallery
organized
and
run
by
students
in

UCI’s
MFA
program
located
in
an
industrial
building
in
Santa
Ana.

The
space
is
best

known
for
the
infamous
Chris
Burden
performance
Shoot
(1971)
in
which
a

marksman
shot
the
artist
in
his
arm
in
front
of
an
audience.

9

In
Northern
California
Tom
Marioni
founded
the
Museum
of
Conceptual
Art

(MOCA),
in
1970,
which
became
one
of
the
first
alternative
spaces
in
the
country
for

site-‐specific
and
performance
art.

MOCA
became
a
pivotal
center
for
the
avant-‐
garde
in
the
Bay
Area,
attracting
artists
who
were
developing
their
ideas
and

attitudes
in
opposition
to
the
traditional
art
object,
exploring
actions
and
ephemeral

Conceptual
art.

However,
despite
MOCA’s
location
in
a
city
know
for
progressive

politics
and
its
conception
during
a
key
moment
for
feminist
art,
the
majority
of

artists
included
in
exhibitions
at
MOCA,
much
like
other
institutions
at
the
time,

were
male.

Barbara
Smith
and
Linda
Montano
were
exceptions
to
this.

Both
women

performed
some
of
the
most
politically
engaged
performances
of
the
time
at
MOCA.

Smith
performed
Feed
Me
in
the
well-‐known
All
Night
Sculptures
show
in
1973.

In

the
same
year
Montano,
with
Marioni
as
a
collaborator,
performed
Handcuffed
to

Tom
Marioni
for
3
Days.

The
performances
by
both
Smith
and
Montano
at
one
of
the

key
venues
for
performance
art
in
California
served
as
a
recognition
that
feminist

art
practice
had
achieved
an
important
voice
in
the
artistic
community
of
the
time,

and
it
signaled
the
importance
of
Smith
and
Montano
as
artists
exploring
feminist

themes
of
ritual
and
biography?.

I
will
now
examine
key
works
in
which
Smith
takes

up
these
propositions.

10

CHAPTER
TWO:
BARBARA
TURNER
SMITH

Barbara
Turner
Smith
was
born
in
1931
in
Pasadena,
California
and
studied

painting,
art
history
and
religion
as
an
undergraduate
at
Pomona
College.

Instead
of

pursuing
her
own
interests,
Smith,
like
most
women
of
her
generation,
was

encouraged
to
attend
to
the
predominant
social
obligations
for
women
at
the
time

by
getting
married
and
having
children.

Smith
was
raised
as
a
protected,
upper

middle-‐class
woman
with
the
expectation
that
she
would
be
taken
care
of
by
a

husband.

As
an
isolated
Pasadena
housewife,
Smith
began
to
volunteer
at
the

Pasadena
Art
Museum,
where
she
met
Walter
Hopps,
one
of
the
most
well
respected

curators
of
avant-‐garde
art.

Through
this
experience,
Smith
came
into
contact
with

generative
progressive
discussions
and
ideas,
then
began
to
reimagine
herself
as
a

practicing
artist.

After
having
been
married
for
17
years
and
having
raised
three

children,
Smith’s
marriage
ended
in
a
scarring
divorce
and
she
lost
custody
of
her

children.

While
she
was
making
these
enormous
changes
in
her
personal
life,
Smith

participated
in
an
influential
performance
workshop
with
Alex
Hay,
a
member
of

the
New
York-‐based
Judson
Dance
Theater
in
19688.

Shortly
thereafter,
she
began

her
experimental
performances
and
in
1969
decided
to
return
to
graduate
school
at

UC
Irvine
at
the
age
of
38,
where
she
was
a
generation
older
than
most
of
her
peers,

receiving
her
MFA
in
1971.

Alongside
contemporaries
that
included
Nancy

Buchanan,
Chris
Burden,
Suzanne
Lacy
and
Paul
McCarthy,
Smith
redefined
art

making
by
durational
performances
using
her
body
as
artistic
medium
and
became

11

a
pioneer
of
feminist,
body
and
performance
art
in
Southern
California.

In

particular,
Paul
McCarthy’s
ritualistic
body
art
and
graphic
videos
were
important

influences.

McCarthy’s
work
was
informed
by
the
work
of
the
Vienna
Aktionists,

especially
Hermann
Nitsch’s
Orgien
Mysterien
Theater
that
appropriated
and

mocked
the
ritual
of
Mass.

This
was
significant
to
Smith,
but
as
a
feminist
she
was

also
concerned
with
issues
of
authority,
power,
and
patriarchy
in
the
Church.

While
intensely
persona,
autobiographical,
and
intimate,
Smith’s
work
is
in

line
with
the
work
of
other
artists
of
the
1970s
in
its
relation
to
the
construction
of

bodily
space
as
a
challenge
to
masculine
narratives
in
society
and
particularly

within
the
art
world.

Questions
and
issues
addressed
by
Smith’s
work
include
the

body,
food,
nurturing,
care,
ritual
and
spiritual
transformation.
17

Through
the

investigation
and
relation
of
her
own
corporeal
and
gendered
experience,
Smith’s

work
transforms
psychological
and
spiritual
consciousness
as
she
explores
her

identity
and
intention
in
herself
and
others.

Her
use
of
role-‐playing
as
it
references

issues
of
gender,
sexuality,
the
body
and
female
stereotypes
related
to
domesticity,

food,
nurturing,
conviviality
and
hospitality
plays
into
ascribed
women’s
roles
and

at
the
same
time
creates
a
tension
within
them.

Smith
examines
the
underlying
structures
of
ritual,
exposing
its
origins

through
the
use
of
shock.

By
confronting
the
audience
with
the
unexpected,
Smith’s

work
lead
to
the
questioning
of
normative
social
practices.
Smith’s
first
major

17

Jennie
Klein
and
Rebecca
McGrew,
eds.,
The
21
st

Century
Odyssey
Part
II:
The

Performances
of
Barbara
T.
Smith
(Pomona:
Pomona
College
Museum
of
Art,
2005),

7.

12

performance,
Ritual
Meal
(1969),
took
the
form
of
a
six-‐course
dinner
for
sixteen

people
served
at
the
home
of
Stanley
and
Elyse
Grinstein,
collectors
of

contemporary
art
and
part
of
the
nascent
art
scene
in
Los
Angeles.
18

(Fig
1)

In
this
early
performance,
Smith
takes
on
the
role
of
shaman
or
director

rather
than
participant.

As
author,
she
provided
the
audience
with
a
transformative

experience
through
food
that,
through
ritual,
would
alleviate
desire
both
physically

and
psychically.

Before
the
performance,
guests
were
greeted
outside
the
house
by

a
recording
asking
them
to
“please
wait.”

After
waiting
an
hour
and
a
half
for
all
of

the
participants
to
arrive,
the
doors
were
opened
and
the
recording
changed
from
a

voice
to
a
loud
beating
heart.

Films
of
open-‐heart
surgery
and
naked
bodies
were

projected
onto
the
walls
and
ceilings,
as
well
as
images
of
the
cosmos
and

anatomical
charts
of
the
circulatory
and
digestive
systems.

The
participants
were

required
to
don
surgical
scrubs.
They
were
served
food
that
resembled
flesh
and

fluids
resembling
blood
and
urine
served
in
test
tubes
and
were
required
to
eating

using
surgical
instruments
Smith
viewed
the
performance
as
being
about

redemption
and
resurrection
through
the
act
of
surrender.
19

As
director,
Smith
challenged
the
usual
function
of
host
at
a
conventional

dinner
party.

Smith’s
Ritual
Meal
was
not
an
ordinary
social
gathering
marked
with

the
usual
warmth
and
conviviality
of
hospitality,
but
a
challenging
and
aggressive

experience.
This
aspect
of
Smith’s
work
is
reminiscent
of
the
chaotic
nature
of

18

Ibid,
56.

19

Ibid,
10-‐11.

13

Futurist
and
Dada
events.

The
food
being
served
and
its
resemblance
to
the
inedible

also
evokes
comparisons
to
recipes
found
in
the
Futurist
cookbook.
20

Participants

were
asked
to
set
aside
their
a
priori
assumptions
and
understanding
as
they

entered
into
Smith’s
ritual
test.

Surrounded
by
the
anxiety-‐provoking
soundtrack
of

a
beating
heart
and
scientific
images
projected
throughout
the
meal
guests
were

exposed
to
an
intricate
ritual
based
on
the
consumption
of
the
human
body.

This

consumption
of
food
disguised
as
flesh
made
a
mockery
of
the
traditional
Christian

rite
of
the
Eucharist,
a
central
ritual
in
Christianity
in
which
consecrated
bread
and

wine
are
offered
as
the
body
and
blood
of
Jesus
Christ.

In
Ritual
Meal,
Smith
also
questioned
the
traditional
beliefs
on
which
aspects

of
society
are
grounded
through
an
unappetizing
and
strenuous
presentation
of

food.

Smith
created
a
new
conviviality,
which
is
born
of
struggle
and
the
willingness

to
examine
and
perhaps
disprove
age-‐old
social
myths.

She
ultimately

acknowledged
this
testing
by
placing
by
flower
wreaths
on
each
guests’
head
at
the

end
of
the
meal,
much
like
the
laurels
the
victors
received
in
ancient
Rome.

Smith
also
negotiated
aspects
of
caregiving
in
Ritual
Meal
as
she
embraced

and
confronted
traditional
female
roles,
assuming
the
stereotypical
roles
of
the
wife

and
mother
to
create
a
space
for
people
to
come
together
and
interact.

Such
a

gesture
initially
suggests
that
her
audience/guests
would
be
provided
with

nourishment
in
the
form
of
a
meal.
By
serving
food
that
is
unappetizing
and
putting

her
“guests”
through
a
trial,
Smith
corrupted
her
audience’s
expectations.
Smith

20

F.
T.
Marinetti,
Futurist
Cookbook
(San
Francisco:
Chronicle
Books,
1991).

14

thus
subverted
the
stereotypical
female
roles
as
host,
entertainer,
and
provider
of

sustenance
as
well
as
the
conventions
of
the
artist/viewer
relationship.

Smith
continued
exploring
ritualized
themes
of
Christianity
in
her

performance
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash
(1971)
at
University
of
California,

Irvine,
(Fig
2),
a
performance
that
parodied
the
development
of
Christianity
and
its

beliefs
and
institutions
by
constructing
a
new
religion
around
a
vegetable.
Here

Smith
took
on
the
central
notion
of
Christian
ritual:
transubstantiation.

Centered

again
on
the
ritual
of
a
meal,
Smith's
substitution
of
an
ordinary
vegetable
for
the

bread
symbol
of
Christianity
highlights
the
absurdity
of
transubstantiation,
at
least

to
the
rational
mind.

The
Holy
Squash
makes
the
audience
question
the
origins
and

truth
of
this
tenet
of
faith
for
many.

The
fact
that
the
performance
went
on
for
ten

days
and
involved
elaborate
acts
of
veneration
of
a
vegetable,
all
consistent
with

existing
rituals
strikes
at
the
heart
of
the
debate
between
reason
and
faith
and,
like

Smith's
other
works,
challenges
the
accepted
and
centers
the
action
on
her
as
high

priestess.

This
performance
was
undertaken
while
Smith
was
completing
her
MFA
at

the
University
of
California,
Irvine
and
was
initiated
with
a
feast
Smith
cooked
for

new
and
old
friends
who
met
at
her
mother’s
house,
meditated,
and
then
feasted
on

the
Squash.
As
in
Ritual
Meal,
Smith's
performance
again
is
by
invitation
to
a
select

group.
After
the
feast,
Smith
concocted
a
series
of
elaborate
rituals
to
cast
the

squash
rind
in
resin
and
thereby
transform
it
into
a
holy
relic
of
the
event.

The

15

casting
of
the
rind
was
conducted
over
ten
days
of
ritualized
actions
carried
out
by

Smith
and
her
disciples.

Ceremonies
included
the
building
of
the
mold,
an
all-‐night

casting,
adorning
the
reliquary,
a
squash
baptism
and
a
squash
Mass.
21

Again,
Smith
challenged
traditional
beliefs
through
the
medium
of
food.

However,
in
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash,
she
also
goes
beyond
an
examination
of

the
role
of
women
and
societal
norms
and
strikes
more
directly
at
matters
of

religion
and
faith.

She
seems
to
reject
the
faith
held
by
Christians
in
one
of
the

religion’s
central
tenets
and
suggests
its
absurdity.
Like
her
other
works,
she
does
so

in
a
manner
that
shocks
her
audience
into
a
reexamination
of
commonly
held

“truths.”

At
the
same
time,
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash
suggests
a
worldview
by

Smith
that
the
group
can
create
its
own
truth.
It
is
not
without
significance
that
she

as
a
woman
is
at
the
center
of
this
alternative
truth,
since
self-‐determination
and

fulfillment
were
key
themes
in
feminist
art
and
within
her
own
practice.

Food
again
ostensibly
takes
center
stage
in
Feed
Me,
perhaps
Smith’s
most

well
know
work,
performed
on
April
20,
1973
at
the
Museum
of
Conceptual
Art
as

part
of
a
performance
event
titled
All
Night
Sculptures.
(Fig
3)

In
the
performance,

which
took
place
in
the
women’s
restroom
of
the
building,
Smith
sat
alone
and

naked
in
a
simulated
boudoir
with
a
mattress,
rug
and
pillows
for
the
evening.

Surrounded
by
things
that
could
be
used
to
“feed”
her
including
body
oils,
perfume,

wine,
flowers,
music,
tea,
books,
beads
and
marijuana,
Smith
invited
visitors
to
enter

the
small
space
one
by
one
and
to
interact
with
her
in
the
manner
of
their
choosing.

21

Ibid,
11.

16

(Fig
4)
A
tape
loop
in
the
corner
played
Smith’s
voice
repeating
the
words
“feed
me”

over
and
over.

In
total,
sixteen
men
and
three
women
entered
the
exchange.
22

Feed
Me
can
be
difficult
to
situate
in
the
context
of
feminist
body
art.

It
has

been
argued
that
the
performance
placed
Smith
in
a
passive
position
by
allowing

others
to
interact
with
her
however
they
chose,
including
in
an
exploitative
manner.

However,
by
placing
herself
in
this
position
intentionally
in
order
to
investigate
and

comment
on
the
dynamics
of
unprovoked
interaction,
Smith
understood
the

performance
as
an
argument
against
male
dominance.

She
commented
on
the
work

in
an
interview
on
June
28,
1998
saying,
“My
back
was
against
a
wall.

I
was
saying

that
I
was
a
conscious
person
that
has
some
say
in
it
(the
sexual
relations
between

men
and
women).”
23

In
2011-‐2012
when
Feed
Me
was
exhibited
in
the
exhibition,
State
of
Mind:

New
California
Circa
1970,
Smith
revisited
the
reception
of
the
initial
performance

and
wrote
the
following
text
about
how
it
was
misunderstood:

A
rumor
erupted
that
I
intended
to
make
love
with
every
man
who
entered.

My
intention,
in
fact,
was
to
turn
the
situation
around.
The
men
that
entered

the
room
would
have
to
discover
by
asking
or
offering
what
I
wanted,
what

would
please
or
nurture
me,
rather
than
simply
taking
with
the
audacity
of

male
assumption.
I
was
not
there
as
an
available
odalisque.
It
was
a
request

for
subtlety,
sensuousness,
and
caring
rather
than
mere
lust.

I
was
given

every
nuance
of
the
room’s
potential
in
a
sequence
of
super-‐intensified

encounters,
due
to
the
heightened
awareness
and
focused
intensity
of
the

piece
and
the
context
of
the
times.

22

Ibid,
60.

23

Ibid,
9.

17

The
piece
has
had
a
long
history
of
misunderstanding.

Many
have
felt
I

played
right
into
misogyny
and
patriarchy.

However
this
was
not
my

experience.
Of
all
the
women
who
did
pieces
of
this
sort,
making
themselves

available
for
the
actions
upon
them
by
an
audience,
mine
was
the
only
one

during
which
I
had
agency
and
controlled
the
room.

I
made
all
the
decisions.

It
was
not
a
place
of
fear
but
one
of
transcending
expectations
for
all
who

entered.
24

Smith
explores
caregiving
in
relation
to
the
body
and
the
construction
of

bodily
space
in
Feed
Me.

Smith
uses
the
exchange
of
care
in
Feed
Me
as
a
means
to

self-‐determination,
empowerment,
and
personal
liberation.

She
establishes
the

space,
invites
the
audience
to
become
caregivers
and
provides
them
with
the

instruments
of
care,
and
she
herself
is
the
recipient
of
their
care.

The
caregivers
are

the
members
of
the
audience.

She
places
herself
in
a
self-‐centered
position
of
power

in
which
she
is
able
to
control
the
kind
of
care
she
is
receiving.

Her
nudity
indicates

not
vulnerability,
but
confidence
in
her
own
existence.

Exchange
here
exists
outside

of
the
capitalist
system.

Positions
of
apparent
dominance
and
submission
are

reversed.

Feed
Me
addresses
a
number
of
issues
that
are
of
continuing
relevance
to

contemporary
feminist
art
critics.

Jennie
Klein
and
Rebecca
McGrew
analyze

Smith’s
work
in
the
context
of
use
and
meaning
of
the
female
body,
the
way
in
which

it
is
gendered
through
its
relationship
to
time
and
space,
the
position
of
women

artists
relative
to
male
institutions
and
male
artists
and
the
role
that
feminist
body

art
played
in
the
1970s
in
Southern
California.

According
to
Klein
and
McGrew,
Feed

24

Barbara
Smith,
wall
text
written
for
State
of
Mind
New
California
Art
Circa
1970,

Orange
County
Museum
of
Art,
October
2012.

18

Me
represented
a
challenge
to
the
patriarchal
narrative
of
desire
in
which
Smith

transformed
herself
into
an
active
priestess.
Smith’s
decision
to
make
herself
into
a

living
sculpture
in
a
museum
-‐
even
a
museum
showcasing
avant-‐garde

performance
-‐
had
significant
implications
for
the
traditional
relationship
between

women
and
the
museum
as
an
institution.

Smith
inserted
herself
into
the
context
of

a
contemporary
art
space,
challenging
masculinist
norms
from
within
its
walls.

Klein
and
McGrew
assert,
“in
becoming
a
‘statue’
that
blatantly
articulated
her

desire,
Smith
transformed
the
passive
female
models
associated
with
Marcel

Duchamp
and
Yves
Klein
into
an
active
agent.”
25

25

Klein
and
McGrew,
12-‐13.

19

CHAPTER
THREE:
LINDA
MARY
MONTANO

Linda
Montano
was
born
in
1942
in
Saugerties,
New
York
where
she
was

raised
as
a
devout
Catholic.

In
fact,
her
religious
upbringing
was
so
strong
that
at

one
point
she
seriously
considered
becoming
a
nun;
Montano
attended
the
College

of
New
Rochelle
for
one
year
after
which
she
left
to
join
a
convent.

After
two
years

in
the
convent,
she
decided
not
to
continue
in
a
religious
order,
returned
to
the

College
of
New
Rochelle
and
graduated
in
1965
with
a
degree
in
sculpture.

She
then

attended
the
University
of
Wisconsin
where
she
received
her
Masters
of
Fine
Arts.

For
her
thesis
show,
Montano
exhibited
twelve
live
chickens
in
cages
that

resembled
minimal
sculptures.

Like
many
of
the
questions
and
themes
Montano

deals
with
in
her
work,
the
concept
of

subjugation
evolved
and
was
revisited
by
the

artist
over
an
extended
period
of
time.

Montano
was
initially
inspired
by
the

chickens
at
the
University
of
Wisconsin
Agriculture
Department
in
their
relation
to

childhood
stories
Montano’s
father,
Hen,
would
tell
of
his
mother
placing
chickens

on
the
kitchen
table.
26

Montano
would
revisit
the
chicken
again
in
her
later
work
as

she
became
interested
in
the
boundaries
between
art
and
life
and
began

experimenting
with
different
personas,
the
first
being
Chicken
Woman
(1972).

(Fig

5)

Chicken
Woman
allowed
Montano
to
explore
a
range
of
identities,
which
included

26

Linda
Montano,
“The
Story
of
Chicken
Linda
1969-‐Present,”

http://lindamarymontano.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-‐story-‐of-‐chicken-‐linda-‐
1969-‐present.html.

20

“nun,
saint,
martyr,
plaster
statue,
angel,
and
absurd
snow
white
dream
character.”
27

In
the
late
1960s,
Montano
began
performing
in
her
own
words
“spontaneous
acts

of
exuberance,
ecstasy,
endurance,
research,
healing
and
release”
in
the
streets

because
they
were
“inviting,
free,
empty
and
outside
the
impediments
of
culture,

critique,
gallery,
finance
and
technology.”

Unlike
the
invitation-‐only
performances

of
Barbara
Smith
with
a
limited
audience
and
space,
these
street
performances

allowed
Montano
to
simply
feel
and
do
without
a
need
for
“rehearsal,
preparation,

costuming,
documentation,
technology
or
invitation.”
28

They
also
allowed
her
to

access
the
every-‐day
public
rather
than
limiting
her
audience
to
art
event
attendees.

(Fig
6)

For
Chicken
Dance:
The
Streets
of
San
Francisco
(1972),
Montano
performed

in
nine
public
spaces
throughout
the
city
including
museums,
galleries,
and
around

landmarks
such
as
the
Golden
Gate
Bridge
and
the
Conservatory
of
Flowers
in

Golden
Gate
Park.
(Fig
7)

At
the
time,
the
San
Francisco
streets
belonged
to
the

people
and
reverberated
with
issues
and
trends
of
the
time
including
feminism,
the

free
love
movement
of
Haight
Ashbury,
political
radicals
and
Martin
Luther
King

marchers.

The
San
Francisco
streets
provided
a
space
free
of
cost
and

administrative
rules
for
performance.
29

Montano
wore
a
blue
prom
dress,
tap
shoes

and
a
chicken-‐feather
headdress,
pulling
a
wagon
with
a
cassette
player
as
she

27

Linda
Montano,
http://www.lindamontano.com.

28

Interview
with
Linda
Montano.

29

Linda
Montano,
“Art
on
the
Streets,”

http://lindamarymontano.blogspot.com/2012/03/art-‐on-‐streets.html

21

danced
spontaneously
while
she
walked
around
the
city.

Montano
performed
her

Chicken
Dance
on
the
Golden
Gate
Bridge
as
a
ritual
of
healing
for
the
past
suicides

on
the
bridge.

Here,
Chicken
Woman
acted
as
“combo-‐platter
of
a
bird
and
a
Catholic

angel…
re-‐interpreting
sainthood
as
art.”
30

Montano’s
persona
acted
as
a
mother

hen
caring
for
and
consoling
the
dead
through
the
incarnation
of
a
Catholic
saint.

In
a
response
to
Catholicism’s
male
priests,
who
act
as
the
central
figures
in

the
daily
life
of
the
Church,
ministering
to
congregants
and
acting
as
the
interpreters

of
truth,
Montano
converts
these
roles
from
men
to
women
in
her
works
and
has

women
as
the
primary
spiritual
caregivers.

One
of
the
most
notable
works
in
this

series
is
the
performance
in
which
Montano
laid
down
on
the
sidewalk
outside
of

the
Reese
Palley
Gallery
in
protest
of
their
exclusion
of
women
artists.
(Fig
8)

In
14
Years
of
Living
Art
(begun
in
1984)
(Fig
9)

Montano
continued
to

celebrate
the
notion
of
ritual,
but
elaborated
on
earlier
performances
by
living

according
to
her
own
constructed
vows.

During
two
sets
of
seven
years
each,

Montano
became
dedicated
to
an
in
depth
examination
and
experience
of
the

Chakras
as
taught
to
her
by
her
guru,
Shri
Brahmananda
Saraswati,
M.D.

Montano

created
a
highly
ritual-‐based
formula
for
incorporating
the
Chakra
system
into
her

art
and
life.
31

This
involved
immersion
into
one
Chakra
color
each
year.

Montano

wore
one
color
of
clothes
representing
each
Chakra
she
was
studying
for
a
year.

30

Linda
Montano
and
Susan
Silas,
“A
Conversation
with
Linda
Montano,”

http://www.mommybysilasandstathacos.com/2012/07/19/a-‐conversation-‐with-‐
linda-‐montano/.

31

The
Seven
Chakras
in
some
Hinduist
and
Buddhist
traditions
are
energy
centers

in
the
body
through
which
energy
flows.

22

Concurrently,
she
spent
time
in
a
room
of
corresponding
color,
listened
to
one
tone

seven
hours
a
day,
and
spoke
in
a
corresponding
accent
for
one-‐year
periods.

For
Montano
this
extreme
sense
of
ritualized
living
was
not
only
accepted

but
also
celebrated
as
a
way
of
life
throughout
her
life
and
specifically
during
this

14-‐year
period:
her
adherence
to
ritual
was
a
pathway
to
salvation.

She
sought

healing
and
a
compassionate
mind
through
the
living
of
the
seven
Chakras

throughout
this
durational
performance.

For
Montano,
repeatedly
performing
a

certain
set
of
actions
for
symbolic
and
experiential
value
offers
comfort
and

guidance
in
the
search
for
artistic
and
personal
growth.

Ritual
in
Montano’s
work

became
a
kind
of
nourishment
through
which
the
artist
grounded
participants
and

herself
in
the
experience
of
the
performance.

Here
the
ritual
acted
as
a
satisfaction

of
personal
spiritual
and
emotional
needs
as
well
as
a
strengthening
of
social
bonds.

Today
we
would
call
this
incorporation
of
the
subjective
through
a
kind
of
group

experience
of
pleasure
through
ritual
social
practice.

Another
theme
that
Montano

began
to
explore
early
in
her
career
and
continues
into
the
present
day
is
the
role
of

care
giving
and
receiving.

In
Home
Nursing
(1972),
Montano
attempted
to
achieve
a

greater
consciousness
by
performing
art-‐as-‐work.
(Fig
10)
In
a
statement
that

accompanied
the
performance,
Montano
wrote,
“I
will
nurse
you
back
to
health
with

massage,
chicken
soup,
bedside
visits,
temperature
taking,
hand
and
forehead

23

holding,
etc.”
32

Montano
touches
on
living
and
being
through
caregiving
and
healing

processes.

In
1973,
Montano
spent
three
days
handcuffed
to
Tom
Marioni
for
Handcuff.

(Fig
11)

For
Montano,
this
work
engaged
her
interest
in
immobility
and
meditative

states.

In
another,
similar
work
entitle
Rope
Piece…
Montano
spent
one
full
year,

from
July
4,
1983
until
July
3,
1984
tied
to
Tehching
Hsieh
by
an
eight
foot
rope
but

not
allowed
to
touch.

For
Rope
Piece,
a
typical
day
became
a
ritualistic
pattern
of

going
to
sleep
at
midnight,
Montano
waking
up
and
meditating
while
Hsieh
slept
in

the
morning,
walking
the
dog,
using
a
camera
to
record
one
photograph
everyday,

and
the
like.

Each
decision
required
consensus
and
careful
contemplation.

The
concepts
explored
by
Montano
in
Home
Nursing
were
acted
out
in
the

artist’s
life
years
later
when
illness
in
her
family
caused
her
to
explore
caregiving

and
healing
on
a
very
personal
and
intense
basis.

In
Dad
Art,
Montano
performed

the
role
of
caretaker
for
her
ailing
father
between
the
years
of
1998
and
2004.
(Fig

12)

At
the
time,
Montano
was
on
the
tenure
track
at
University
of
Texas,
Austin
but

was
drawn
to
care
for
her
father,
then
in
his
mid-‐eighties.
She
attributes

consequently
not
getting
tenure
to
this.

Montano
thus
returned
to
the
place
where

she
was
born
and
began
making
a
video
in
collaboration
with
her
father.

After
her

father
had
a
stroke,
Montano
continued
making
the
video
throughout
the
three

years
of
his
illness
during
her
round
the
clock
care
giving.

According
to
Montano,

32

Constance
M.
Lewallen
and
Karen
Moss,
State
of
Mind:
New
California
Art
circa

1970
(Berkeley:
University
of
California
Press,
2012),
205-‐206.

24

Dad
Art
is
the
story
of
the
last
seven
years
with
her
father,
and
it
is
also
a

performance
of
truth
telling
about
impermanence,
old
age,
sickness
and
death.

Montano’s
expectations
going
into
the
process
of
caring
for
her
father
were
to
get
to

know
him,
as
he
had
been
a
very
busy
business
man
in
her
youth,
a
man
she

describes
as
“handsome,
wonderful,
funny,
and
charming”
and
very
devoted
to

feeding,
clothing,
and
taking
care
of
his
immediate
and
extended
family.

Montano’s
role
in
taking
care
of
her
father
was,
in
her
words,
that
of
an

“artist
and
lifeist.”

She
explains
that
“artists
put
up
the
veil
of
beauty
between
life

and
their
heart.”

For
Dad
Art,
Montano’s
role
as
an
artist
was
to
put
up
this
veil
of

beauty/art
between
her
and
her
father
so
that
she
could
bear
the
pain
of
being
in

the
same
room
with
him
during
his
ailing
health.
Montano
moved
between
these

two
roles
of
daughter
and
artist
for
three
years.

The
camera
played
the
role
of
a

shield
in
Montano’s
relationship
with
her
father,
allowing
her
to
hide
from
the
direct

pain
of
seeing
him
deteriorate.

Montano
calls
Dad
Art
the
culmination
of
her
entire

practice
as
an
artist
because
it
was
so
demanding.

While
much
of
Montano’s
work

was
demanding,
intense
and
difficult,
Dad
Art
for
her
was
the
most
powerful
of
all

her
works
because
“when
you
watch
someone
die,
someone
that
you
love,
a
parent,

and
you’re
participating
in
their
last
days,
it
is
so
intense
that
nothing
I
did
before

that
ever
matched
the
intensity.”
33

From
the
many
hours
of
recorded
film,
Montano
worked
with
another

documentary
filmmaker
artist
to
edit
the
material.

One
aspect
of
the
final
film
that

33

Interview
with
Linda
Montano.

25

was
influenced
by
these
editorial
suggestions
was
the
development
of
Montano’s

father’s
painting.

After
an
aide
brought
some
acrylic
paint,
Montano’s
father
became

a
very
focused
abstract
expressionist
in
his
last
years
and
would
sit
at
the
table
for

an
hour
with
a
brush
in
his
hand
making
marks.

Montano
does
not
screen
Dad
Art

footage
separately
from
her
performance
because
without
the
performance

component,
the
viewer
would
be
missing
her,
the
artist.

The
performance
has
a
duration
of
two
hours
and
Montano
is
continually

looking
for
a
place
to
perform
Dad
Art,
a
beautiful
healing
ritual,
with
other
artists.

(Fig
13)
During
the
performance,
Montano
sings
seven
songs
from
the
1930s
and

1940s
that
her
father
played
as
member
of
a
band.

For
the
performance,
there
is
a

master
of
ceremonies,
grief
counselors,
and
a
person
with
a
mask
who
imitates

death.
The
film
footage
that
Montano
collected
and
edited
runs
on
a
large
screen

above
the
performance
space
(Montano
sees
this
footage
as
integral
to
the

performance
and
does
not
screen
it
separately)
During
the
multifaceted

performance
people
from
the
audience
come
forward
to
participate
by
coming
for

grief
counseling,
writing
a
letter
to
death
or
coming
over
to
one
of
the
stations
for
a

glass
of
water.

Montano
considers
the
Dad
Art
performance
a
workshop
for
people

who
want
to
experience
the
laws
of
impermanence
in
aesthetic
terms.

The
audience

here
acts
as
co-‐creator
with
the
artist.

At
the
end
of
the
performance,
the
letters
to

death
are
burned.

Montano
embraced
the
ritual
of
care
giving
for
six
years.

For
others,
this

would
be
a
matter
of
serious
endurance;
for
Montano,
daily
rituals
seem
to
take
on

26

more
meaning
when
they
are
for
extended
periods-‐-‐not
days
or
months,
but
years.

In
a
sense,
she
is
a
durational
artist
whose
work
becomes
complicated
by

incorporation
of
the
daily
and
ordinary
into
something
that
is
extraordinary.
There

is
a
sense
of
acceptance
and
dedication
in
her
approach
to
rituals.
Though
Dad
Art

deals
with
death
as
its
primary
subject,
it
is
ultimately
a
celebration
of
life
through

selfless
acts.

For
Montano,
meaning
comes
from
the
comfort
of
caring
for
others

and
providing
them
sustenance.

It
is
through
acceptance
in
the
role
that
she

achieves
her
highest
level
of
agency.

27

CHAPTER
FOUR:
A
COMPARISON
OF
BARBARA
SMITH
AND
LINDA
MONTANO

AND
THEIR
RELATIONSHIP
TO
THEIR
CONTEMPORARIES

Smith’s
and
Montano’s
performances
in
the
1970s
both
engage
the
motifs
of

food,
caregiving
and
ritual
but
treat
these
topics
in
profoundly
different
ways.

Smith

uses
the
format
of
ritual
to
question
the
underlying
societal
acceptance
of
existing

norms
and
beliefs.

Her
work
is
reactive,
no
doubt
informed
by
her
previous
role
as

a
wife
and
mother
who
followed
middle
class
social
norms
of
the
1960s.

Through

shock-‐filled
and
unanticipated
outcomes,
she
turns
accepted
societal
rituals
into

spectacles:
inviting
guests
to
a
bizarre
dinner
party,
encouraging
a
too-‐close
and

too-‐intimate
encounter
to
"feed
her"
and
participating
in
an
elaborate

transformative
worship
ceremony
of
a
vegetable.

Smith
challenges
her
audience
to

question
and
see
the
already
accepted
in
a
new
and
disquieting
manner.

Self-‐
determination
is
achieved
through
challenging
the
accepted
and
accepting
the

rational.

Montano,
on
the
other
hand,
incorporates
long-‐lasting
rituals
into
her

everyday
life
and
art
activities
in
order
to
celebrate
her
faith
and
cultivate
personal

and
artistic
growth.

Hers
is
a
proactive
art;
she
defines
the
terms
on
which
she

works.

While
Smith’s
feminist
worldview
is
one
that
is
more
centered
on
self-‐
determination
through
provocation,
for
Montano
self-‐determination
and
fulfillment

are
achieved
by
placing
an
emphasis
on
spirituality
and
religion.

An
in-‐depth

comparison
of
their
work
can
allow
one
to
see
how
they
employ
similar

subjects/themes
in
different
ways.

28

Food
and
meals

The
works
of
both
Smith
and
Montano
use
food
as
a
central
theme.

Both

literal
food
and
metaphors
of
food
are
used
in
the
artists’
works
to
reflect
their

individual
relationships
to
and
experiences
around
food.

The
relationship
between

the
self
and
food
was
a
mainstay
for
many
women
artists
at
the
start
of
the
1970s.

The
association
of
food
with
the
domestic
sphere
was
a
conventional
pairing
that

many
artists
were
looking
to
disrupt,
as
they
explored
fracturing
this
relationship.

For
Smith,
food
themes
appear
throughout
her
body
of
work
as
a
shared

experience
that
is
used
to
challenge
accepted
rituals
from
the
mundane
event
of
a

dinner
party
to
the
sacred
feast
of
Christians.
Food
plays
a
central
role
in
Smith’s

examination
and
recalibration
of
historic
societal
norms.

Even
the
titles
of
the

examined
works
integrate
the
focus
on
food.

In
Ritual
Meal,
an
invitation
to
what
is

expected
to
be
a
traditional
dinner
party
with
the
warmth
of
the
historic
woman’s

touch
turns
into
a
grotesque
and
stressful
gauntlet
filled
with
bloody
body
parts.

Although
shocking,
Smith
causes
the
observer
to
take
a
step
back
and
recognize
the

similarities
with
this
event
and
the
eating
of
the
transfigured
body
and
blood
of

Jesus
Christ
by
many
Christians.

What
seems
an
article
of
faith,is
held
up
by
Smith

for
close
examination.

Her
attempt
to
shock
results
in
a
reexamination
of
what,
for

many,
is
an
existing
truth.

29

The
result
of
Smith’s
disturbing
meal
demonstrates
the
difference
between

Ritual
Meal
and
other
feminist
meals
and
banquets
that
were
more
celebratory.

Judy
Chicago’s
The
Dinner
Party
exhibition
premiered
at
the
San
Francisco
Museum

of
Modern
Art
(SFMOMA)
in
1979
creating
the
context
for
a
new
visual
language
to

express
women’s
experience
of
accomplishments
and
struggles,
and
to
promote

social
change.

The
monumental
installation
functioned
as
a
symbolic
history
of

women
in
Western
civilization
in
the
form
of
thirty-‐nine
elaborate
place
settings

arranged
along
a
triangular
table.

Suzanne
Lacy,
a
student
of
Chicago’s,
and
Linda

Preuss
organized
a
simultaneous
International
Dinner
Party
(1979)
in
conjunction

with
the
exhibition
to
which
over
2,000
women
responded,
hosting
dinners
on
the

same
evening
honoring
different
women.

Each
dinner
drafted
a
statement
and
sent

it
to
SFMOMA
via
telegram,
where
Lacy
marked
locations
of
the
dinners
on
a
large

black
and
white
map.
34

This
worldwide
dinner
party
is
very
much
in
contrast
to

Smith’s
privately
organized
Ritual
Meal.

Both
The
Dinner
Party
and
International

Dinner
Party
address
the
celebration
of
women
in
sincere
efforts
that
can
be
seen
as

being
much
different
in
tone
than
Smith’s
outrageous
Ritual
Meal.

While

International
Dinner
Party
is
an
honorific
and
didactic
tableaux,
celebrating

women’s
roles
in
history,
Ritual
Meal
is
a
performance
aimed
to
shock
participants

with
unexpected
behavior
that
is
in
contrast
to
usual
female
roles.
35

34

Suzanne
Lacy,
“International
Dinner
Party,”

http://suzannelacy.com/1980sdinner_international.htm.

35

Also,
Lynn
Hershman
Leeson
organized
Performance
Dinners,
1970-‐1983,
as
site

specific
consumable
dinner
portraits
each
lasting
approximately
five
hours.

30

Similarly,
in
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash,
food
again
appears
in
the
title
and

is
a
point
of
central
focus.

Again,
Smith
undertakes
a
ritualized
transformation
of
an

ordinary
food
item
into
the
extraordinary.

This
causes
the
observer
to
draw

parallels
with
the
transformation
of
ordinary
food
and
drink,
bread
and
wine,
into

the
body
and
blood
of
Jesus
Christ
in
Christian
worship.

The
long
duration
of
her

ritual
and
the
centrality
of
the
role
of
a
woman
in
it
causes
a
reexamination
of
the

faith
of
many
and
brings
into
focus
the
question
of
whether
the
Christian
faith-‐based

ritual
is
any
more
rational
than
the
glorification
of
the
Squash.

For
Smith,
food
is
the

profane
by
which
she
pokes
fun
at
the
sacred.

Finally,
in
Feed
Me,
again
food
and
nourishment
are
in
the
title
of
the
work

and
the
central
focus
of
the
performance.

But
unexpectedly,
Smith
goes
beyond
just

food
items
in
her
demand
to
be
fed.

A
pre-‐feminist
interpretation
of
the
title
would

suggest
that
it
is
a
plea,
a
weakened
request
for
food.

But
for
Smith,
the
exaltation
to

“Feed
Me”
becomes
a
demand
in
which
she
is
in
control,
setting
the
stage
and

providing
the
implements
of
feeding.

She
is
not
just
requiring
food,
but
includes
a

wide
range
of
items
and
substances-‐
body
oils,
perfume,
wine,
flowers,
music,
tea,

books,
beads,
and
marijuana-‐
to
provide
sustenance
and
nourishment
to
all

elements
of
her
body
and
mind
in
order
to
achieve
self-‐realization.

And
from

Smith’s
feminist
point
of
view,
this
nourishment
is
all
provided
on
her
terms
and
not

on
the
terms
of
the
giver
of
the
“food.”

In
the
development
of
Chicken
Woman,
Montano
chose
the
chicken
as
her

personal
totem
not
only
because
of
the
earlier
associations
with
her
father
but
also

31

because
of
the
animal’s
display
of
extreme
concentration
in
gathering
food.

Chickens
are
domesticated
animals
that
not
only
act
as
a
source
of
food
for
humans

but
also
spend
the
majority
of
their
lives
searching
for
food.

This
focused,
ritualistic

focus
on
finding
food
is
shared
by
Montano
throughout
her
life
in
her
search
for

personal
transformation
and
the
chicken
totem.

For
Montano,
her
seminal
persona

of
the
Chicken
Woman
is
both
a
source
of
metaphorical
food
(sustenance)
and
on
an

endless
search
for
metaphoric
food
(fulfillment).
At
times,
the
Chicken
Woman
is
a

source
of
healing,
such
as
when
she
performed
her
rituals
on
San
Francisco's
Golden

Gate
Bridge
to
soothe
the
souls
of
those
who,
in
personal
despair,
had
committed

suicide
by
jumping
from
the
bridge.
Again
in
Dad
Art,
food
returns
as
part
of
the

work
Montano
performs
in
caring
for
her
sick
father.
In
providing
food,
Montano

seeks
self-‐fulfillment
through
both
a
loss
of
self
and
directed
long-‐term
attention
to

another
person.

To
Montano,
it
is
a
path
to,
and
an
embracing
of,
the
spiritual.

For
Montano,
struggles
with
food
have
been
an
issue
throughout
her
life,
so
it

is
no
surprise
that
they
constitute
a
principle
component
in
her
work.

She
calls

herself
a
“walking
anorexic,”
having
had
an
eating
disorder
during
her
time
at
the

convent
and
consequently
uses
food
as
a
metaphor
in
much
of
her
body
of
work.

This
is
of
little
surprise
as
in
Montano
believes
that
“the
themes
artists
employ
are

born
in
childhood”
saying
“our
first
performative
actions
as
infants
are
(often)

suckling
at
our
mothers’
breast…
and
a
little
later
we
use
the
kitchen
table
as
a

32

proscenium
stage
where
we
practice
narrative
skills
and
strategies
for
the
delight
or

disapproval
of
our
first
audience,
our
families.”
36

For
Montano,
the
metaphor
of
food
has
great
personal
significance
in
her

relationships
with
people.

She
describes
herself
as
socially
inept,
saying
she

communicates
best
spiritually
and
through
her
heart.

For
Montano,
spiritual
food
is

best
described
as
a
connection
between
people.

It
is
“what
happens
when
a
group
of

people
can
move
vibrationally
to
the
frequency
of
ecstasy
without
eating
anything

but
by
feeling
something
energetically.”

Memories
of
artistic
exchange
occurred
in

“that
earlier
art/life
performance
blending
of
food,
ritual,
and
activism.”

Montano

recalls
ceremonious
dinners
she
herself
hosted
saying,
“For
me,
so
many
of
the
acts

of
creating
community
in
the
seventies
took
place
around
food.

I
recall

conversations
with
friends,
including
artists
and
critics-‐
conversations
about
ideas

and
politics,
exchanges
of
confidences,
and
evenings
of
plotting
and
strategizing,
all

leading
to
the
creation
of
precious,
fragile
communities,
and
so
often
occurring
in

the
context
of
cooking
and
eating.”
37

Many
feminist
contemporaries
of
Smith
and
Montano
consider
food,
meals,

and
the
body
in
their
work.

In
Eleanor
Antin’s
Carving:
A
Traditional
Sculpture

(1972)
the
artist
documented
her
weight
loss
of
ten
pounds
over
thirty-‐seven
days

in
a
series
of
148
black
and
white
photographs.
Antin
referenced
the
traditional

process
of
ancient
Greek
sculptors
while
carving
her
own
body.

The
focus
on
issues

36

Linda
Montano,
Performance
Artists
Talking
in
the
Eighties
(Berkeley:
University

of
California
Press,
2000),
147.

37

Ibid,
146.

33

relating
to
strict
dieting
regimens
and
anorexia
as
well
as
critique
of
social

pressures
and
the
feminine,
culturally
constructed
ideal
prefigures
Montano’s
own

dealings
with
food
and
the
body.
38

In
her
1977
video
Losing:
A
Conversation
With
the
Parents,
Martha
Rosler

interviewed
the
parents
of
a
victim
of
anorexia
nervosa.
Though
the
narrative,

which
follows
the
form
of
a
soap
opera
or
TV
interview,
Rosler
exposes
underlying

social
realities.

Unlike
Montano’s
use
of
food
and
anorexia
in
relation
to
her

personal
biography,
Rosler
calls
attention
to
the
connection
between
food
and

political
oppression,
politicizing
questions
of
power
and
powerlessness.
39

Care
Giving
and
Role
Playing

The
role
of
the
caregiver
associated
with
women
in
the
form
of
mother,

nurse,
teacher
and
babysitter
among
others,
is
employed
by
Smith
and
Montano
in

their
investigations
into
self-‐determination.

Smith
uses
different
personae
as
a
way

to
examine
the
role
of
women.

She
is
the
director
and
master
of
ceremonies
in

Ritual
Meal,
the
priestess
or
shaman
in
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash,
and
the

central
point
of
attention
in
Feed
Me.
Her
roles
highlight
the
centrality
and
self-‐

38

Lewallen
and
Moss,
56.

39

In
her
well-‐known
video,
Semiotics
of
the
Kitchen
(1975),
Rosler
recites
the

alphabet
in
a
parody
of
a
cooking
show.

Inhabiting
the
space
of
the
kitchen,
Rosler

gives
the
viewer
a
lesson
on
feminist
resistance
through
her
increasingly
violent
use

of
kitchen
implements
and
gestures.

This
critique
of
the
domestic
sphere
and

domestic
labor
resonates
with
Smith’s
rebellion
regarding
expectations
and
roles
of

the
housewife.

34

determination
of
women.
Even
in
Feed
Me,
in
which
she
appears
to
be
passive
and

the
object
of
intimate
encounters
with
her
one
on
one
audience,
Smith
is
in
charge,

having
supplied
the
means
of
her
own
nourishment
and
directed
the
audience
as

instruments
of
satisfying
her
desires.
While
the
audience
is
ostensibly
caregiver
to

her,
Smith
has
created
the
space
and
defined
the
terms
for
such
attention.

They
are

providing
what
she
has
provided
to
them
to
fulfill
her
needs.

As
a
woman,
she
is

given
care,
a
reversal
of
the
historic
role.

In
Dad
Art,
Montano’s
life
duties
become
the
condition
for
an
art
about
the

preparation
for
death.

Montano
believes
that
through
the
intense
and
long
term

care
of
her
dying
father,
she
gained
her
highest
degree
of
spirituality.
40

Considering

that
she
dedicated
nearly
seven
years
to
a
close
examination
of
the
Chakras
as
a

path
to
spiritual
fulfillment
and
fully
immersed
herself
into
a
manner
of
living
to

maximize
her
spiritual
quest,
the
fact
that
Montano
found
her
highest
achievement

of
spiritual
growth
in
the
day
in
and
day
out
act
of
service
to
another
is
both

startling
and
a
revelation.

In
playing
the
role
of
the
nurse
and
comforter,
she

traveled
the
most
distance
in
her
spiritual
quest
without,
in
fact,
ever
leaving
home.

Earlier,
she
continuously
explored
role-‐playing
in
the
form
of
her
different
versions

of
the
Chicken
Woman
over
the
years.

In
those
performances,
she
was
the
central

figure.

She
was
both
the
explorer
protagonist
determining
her
life
path
and
the

disguised
artist
who
can
act
and
react
to
the
setting
around
her
as
she
played
her

role.

40

Interview
with
Linda
Montano,
January
2013.

35

Role
playing
was
nothing
new
for
feminist
artists
working
in
the
1970s.
41

Eleanor
Antin
created
a
series
of
performance
photos
posing
as
a
Florence

Nightingale-‐like
nurse
in
The
Nightingale
Family
Album
and
My
Tour
of
the
Crimea,

1977,
which
continued
her
investigation
of
a
“nurse
self”
begun
in
her
filmic
works

The
Adventures
of
a
Nurse,
1976.

Choosing
the
figure
of
the
nurse
because
of
its

narrowly
defined
cultural
expectations
and
relegation
of
the
field
to
women,
Antin’s

video
features
herself
as
narrator
with
a
cast
of
eight
characters
and
extras
in
the

form
of
paper
dolls.
42

Antin’s
treatment
of
herself
as
nurse
uses
role-‐playing
and

artifice
in
the
context
of
playful
irony
and
parody.

Like
Smith’s
rebellious

exploration
of
female
stereotypes,
Antin
comments
on
female
norms
through
the

nurse’s
series
of
cliché
romantic
relationships.

41

Others
include
Bonnie
Sherk,
who
also
explores
roles
played
by
women
when
she

reframes
the
service
job
of
waitress
into
a
performance
piece
in
The
Waitress,
1974.

In
this
piece
Sherk
dressed
in
a
black
nylon
uniform
with
a
white
apron
and
a
black

bouffant
wig
in
an
exploration
of
cultural
costumes
and
the
participation
in
the

theatricalization
of
society.

Lynn
Hershman
also
experimented
in
role-‐playing
with

the
creation
of
her
alter
ego
Roberta
Breitmore
in
performances
that
she
considered

time-‐based
sculptural
work
and
a
virtual
or
simulated
persona.

Breitmore
had
her

own
fully
developed
persona
including
her
own
mannerisms,
handwriting,
credit

cards,
acquaintances
and
adventures
which
served
her
in
her
rebellion
against
her

conventional
role
as
the
wife
of
high
level
UC
Berkeley
administrator.

The
creation

of
such
a
figure
was
similar
to
Montano’s
interest
in
the
development
of
different

personas;
however,
Montano’s
alter-‐egos
are
about
public
spirit
and
selflessness,

while
Breitmore
more
closely
resembles
Smith’s
rebellious
nature.

42

Howard
N.
Fox,
Eleanor
Antin
(Los
Angeles:
Los
Angeles
County
Museum
of
Art,

1999),
88-‐89.

36

Ritual
and
Spirituality

Both
Smith
and
Montano
explore
ritual
in
their
everyday
lives
as
a
way
to

reexamine
the
roles
of
women
and
as
a
path
to
self-‐fulfillment.

While
these
artists

challenge
and
embrace
other
aspects
of
society
in
their
works,
their
approach
to

rituals
and
in
particular
religious
and
spiritual
based
rituals
seems
to
provide
the

sharpest
measure
of
contrast
in
their
world
view.

While
Smith
closely
examines

accepted
rituals
–
the
dinner
party,
the
preparation
of
food,
the
Christian
concept
of

transubstantiation
–
and
exposes
their
often
illogical
methods,
Montano
relishes

ritual,
and
in
particular
faith-‐based
ritual,
as
the
key
to
happiness
and
self-‐
fulfillment.

Smith
challenges
existing
rituals
and
causes
us
to
question
the

underpinning
of
societal
beliefs-‐and
the
role
of
women
in
rituals.

She
places
women

at
the
center
of
the
questioning
as
the
shaman
or
director
in
Ritual
Meal,
as
the

director
or
master
of
ceremonies
in
Feed
Me
and
the
priestess
in
Celebration
of
the

Squash.
In
doing
so,
she
sharply
advances
feminist
themes
of
self-‐reliance
and
self-‐
determination
and
control.

Hers
is
a
rational
view
of
the
world,
stripped
of
its

historical
vestiges.

Key
to
the
relevance
of
Smith’s
work
is
the
self-‐centeredness

that
pervades
all
aspects
of
her
performances.

Smith
positions
herself
at
the
helm,

dictating
her
own
ideas
through
the
use
of
her
own
sexualized
body.

This

narcissism
informs
the
viewer’s
interpretation
of
the
work
as
well
as
Smith’s

definition
of
autonomy.

In
contrast,
Montano’s
independence
stems
from
her

unselfish
concern
for
others
and
the
work’s
consideration
of
an
aspect
of

37

malevolence.

Montano
believes
it
is
her
Art/Life
practice
that
enables
her
to
best

communicate
and
commune
with
others.

Ablutions
(1972)
with
Judy
Chicago,
Sandra
Orgel,
and
Aviva
Rahmani,

sponsored
by
the
Feminist
Art
Program
at
California
Institute
of
the
Arts,
was
a

collaborative,
ritualistic
healing
performance
about
rape
and
women’s
perspectives

on
sexual
assaults.

Before
the
performance,
several
women
were
recorded
as
they

accounted
for
their
rapes.

During
the
performance,
these
accounts
played
while

naked
women
entered
the
studio
that
contained
three
tubs
filled
with
eggs,
cow’s

blood,
and
gray
clay.

The
women
moved
in
an
out
of
the
tubs
bathing
themselves

and
were
then
wrapped
ritualistically
in
white
sheets
and
laid
down.
43

In
Ablutions,

the
use
of
ritual
is
motivated
by
a
desire
to
cleanse
and
heal
in
a
“revelation
of

women’s
hidden
experience”
pairing
“an
avant-‐garde
form
with
feminist
political

vision,
contributing
to
the
beginning
of
the
anti-‐violence
movement.”
44

As
a
piece

giving
voice
to
women
survivors,
Ablutions
is
interesting
in
comparison
to
the

exploration
of
male/female
sexual
relations
Smith
investigates
in
Birthdaze,

especially
regarding
that
piece’s
efforts
to
transcend
this
dialectic
through
a
tantric

sex
ritual.

Here,
Smith
initiates
the
sexual
proposition,
the
ritual
which
produces
a

spiritual
transcendence
comes
not
from
the
withdrawal
from
the
world
but
from
the

43

Rebecca
Peabody,
Andrew
Perchuk,
Glenn
Phillips,
and
Rani
Singh,
eds.,
Pacific

Standard
Time
Los
Angeles
Art
1945-‐1980
(Los
Angeles:
Getty
Research
Institute,

2011),
235-‐236.

44

Cheri
Gaulke,
“Acting
Like
Women:
Performance
Art
of
the
Woman’s
Building,”

Citizen
Artist:
20
Years
of
Art
in
the
Public
Arena,
Linda
Frye
Burnham
and
Steven

Durland,
eds.
(New
York:
Critical
Press,
1998),
14.

38

unification
of
polar
opposites
within
it
and
the
transcendence
of
the
very

opposition.
45

45

Juli
Carson,
Free
Radical
Aesthetics:
Barbara
T.
Smith’s
Birthdaze,

http://studioart.arts.uci.edu/gallery/bts.html.

39

CONCLUSION

The
performances
of
Barbara
Smith
and
Linda
Montano
provided
important

contributions
to
the
feminist
art
movement
of
the
1960s
and
1970s
and
they
are

both
still
producing
new
work
today.
Although
they
both
have
explored
themes
of

care-‐giving,
nourishment
and
ritual
to
challenge
historic
societal
views
and
the
role

of
women
in
it,
their
individual
approaches
to
these
motifs
highlight
a
critical

difference
in
their
outlook
as
artists.

Smith
and
Montano
take
up
one
of
the
primary
legacies
of
feminist

performance
by
incorporating
a
subjectivity
and
biography
into
ritual
performance.

In
addressing
the
critical
challenges
of
biography
Sean
Burke
has
commented:

It
would
be
facile
to
say
that
we
have
just
emerged
from
a
century
in
which

the
cultural
appeal
of
biography
has
been
matched
only
by
the
critical

disrepute
into
which
the
genre
has
fallen.
Psychobiography
itself
is
a

twentieth-‐century
innovation
and
achieved
a
fragile,
albeit
lurid,

respectability
up
until
the
1950s,
and
scholarly
biographies
have
continued

to
command
the
attention
of
literary
academics.
Furthermore,
to
judge
from

recent
publications
and
conference
papers,
"biography"
is
once
again
a
word

and
concept
that
can
be
freely
owned
by
scholars
and
theorists
concerned
to

reinvestigate
the
always
vertiginous
relationship
between
a
life
and
a
work.
46

Burke
explores
the
ethical
stakes
in
a
renewed
interest
in
biographical
criticism,

highlighting
the
inherent
possibilities
in
the
return
of
the
author.

This
relevance
of

the
authorial
life
is
central
to
the
importance
of
Smith
and
Montano’s
work
in
their

recapitulation
of
the
personal
as
political.

46

Sean
Burke,
The
Web
of
Circumstance:
Challenges
Posed
by
the
Biographical

Question
to
Contemporary
Theory
(Denmark:
Syddansk
Universitet
Istitut
for

Litteratur,
Kultur
&
Medier,
2001).

40

Both
Smith
and
Montano
have
continued
their
practices
in
recent
years,
as

they
continue
to
reference
their
own
art
and
life
in
their
performances
and

exhibitions.

Smith
revisited
her
seminal
1981
performance
Birthdaze
for
the
2011

exhibition
The
Radicalization
of
a
‘50s
Housewife
at
UC
Irvine’s
University
Art
Gallery

in
conjunction
with
the
Getty’s
Pacific
Standard
Time
Initiative
aimed
to
explore
the

art
history
of
Southern
California
from
1945-‐1985.
47

This
exhibition
consisted
of

two
separate
sections:

the
first
included
autobiographical
materials,
photographs
of

Smith
as
a
young
woman
and
artifacts
and
documentation
her
early
works.

In
a

second,
larger
gallery,
she
installed
a
white
translucent
veil
from
the
ceiling
to

create
a
tent-‐like
environment
including
various
props
inside
for
her
tantric
ritual

Birthdaze.
(FIG
14)

Smith
placed
herself
under
this
veil
at
the
literal
and
figurative

middle
of
the
space,
inviting
visitors
in
to
join
her,
thus
continuing
the
legacy
of
her

earlier
works
in
which
her
subjectivity
is
central
to
the
audience’s
understanding.

In
her
article
Los
Angeles
Times
article
about
Smith’s
Radicalization
of
a
‘50s

Housewife,
Holly
Meyers
commented
how:
“The
title
of
the
Irvine
show
is

unequivocally
autobiographical.

Indeed,
it
would
be
difficult
to
speak
of
Smith's

work
at
all
without
referring
to
her
life
to
some
degree.”

Like
many
women
who

came
to
consciousness
in
the
1960s,
she
takes
the
feminist
mantra
"the
personal
is

47

Rebecca
Peabody,
Andrew
Perchuk,
Glenn
Phillips,
and
Rani
Singh,
eds.,
Pacific

Standard
Time
Los
Angeles
Art
1945-‐1980
(Los
Angeles:
Getty
Research
Institute,

2011).

41

political"
as
a
fundamental
principle.”
48

Montano
continues
her
practice
in
her
studio
in
Kingston
in
New
York,

appropriately
named
the
“Art/Life
Institute”
and
has
produced
new
work
for
her

one-‐person
exhibition
Linda
Montano:
Always
Creative
at
SITE
Santa
Fe
49

This

concentrated
retrospective
of
fifteen
works
focusing
on
interview
as
a
strategy
in

Montano’s
work
and
on
her
endurance
performances
focuses
on
interview
and

participation
as
a
strategy
in
Montano’s
work.

The
exhibition
began
with
Montano’s

Singing
My
Heart
Out
Opening
Performance,
a
durational
performance
in
which
she

and
the
members
of
the
audience
sang
songs
by
Linda
Ronstadt
for
seven
hours

straight.
(Fig
15)

This
references
earlier
performances
where
she
sang,
such
as

Sleeping
in
Berkeley
(1973)
when
she
slept
in
the
Berkeley
Art
Museum
and
was

hypnotized
to
sing
her
own
dreams
and
also
in
her
more
recent
Dad
Art.

A
newly

commissioned
installation
for
the
exhibition,
Art/Life
Counseling
(Fig
16)
is
a
room

where
Montano
meets
with
visitors

when
she
is
on
site

and
when
she
is
not

present,
there
is
a
video
that
“speaks”
to
the
viewer.
(Fig
17)

The
room
is
painted

black
so
that
visitors
may
contribute
their
own
thoughts
and
writing
on
a

chalkboard-‐like
community
space
(Fig
18)
and
there
are
also
exercises/suggestions

for
interactivity
on
all
of
the
labels
for
the
artworks.
(Fig
19)

Smith
and
Montano

are
not
only
both
still
active,
but
similar
in
their
consciousness
of
their
own
place
in

48

Holly
Meyers,
“PST:
Barbara
T.
Smith’s
life
in
the
avant-‐garde
shadows,”
Los

Angeles
Times
(September
18,
2011).

49

Linda
Montano:
Always
Creative,
curated
by
Janet
Dees
at
SITE
Santa
Fe,
February

23
through
May
19,
2013.

Exhibition
publication
is
forthcoming.

42

contemporary
art
history
as
they
re-‐present
their
own
work
in
the
context
of
their

recent
exhibitions,
installations,
and
performances.

Audience/Public
and
Space

Smith
and
Montano’s
engagement
with
audience
and
space
as
well
as
with

art
institutions
as
a
whole
are
also
markedly
different.

Throughout
her
career,

Smith
places
herself
firmly
within
the
art
world,
using
existing
structures
to
insert

herself
into
historical
dialogue.

This
begins
in
her
involvement
with
UC
Irvine
and

the
environment
or
space
for
performance
art
that
emerged
there
at
the
time.

Smith’s
development
as
an
artist
happens
within
the
context
of
other
key
figures
in

performance
art,
such
as
the
other
founding
members
of
F-‐Space.

Another
example
of
Smith’s
utilization
of
the
surrounding
structure
through

a
group
of
performance
artists
active
at
the
time
occurred
in
the
performance

Birthdaze,
for
which
she
invited
her
friends
artists
Kim
Jones,
Paul
McCarthy,
Allan

Kaprow,
and
Vic
Henderson
to
participate
in
the
actual
work.

Here
she
asks
notable

male
artists
to
literally
insert
themselves
into
her
dialogue
about
feminist
self-‐
determination
incorporating
the
larger
structure
of
the
art
world
into
her
work

while
addressing
the
breach
between
men
and
women
and
questioning
the

legitimacy
of
such
structure.

In
her
choice
of
audience,
Smith
is
self-‐selective
in
early
works
such
as
Ritual

Meal
and
Celebration
of
the
Holy
Squash
where
she
is
completely
in
control
of
the

43

size
and
make-‐up
of
her
audience.

Her
work
becomes
more
open
to
larger
and
more

diverse
audiences
in
Feed
Me
as
she
moves
into
the
public
space
of
the
museum.

Alternatively,
Montano
does
not
perform
at
private
homes
selecting
a
close-‐
knit
group
of
art-‐world
audience
members,
but
presents
her
pieces
wherever
she

believes
it
makes
sense
for
the
context
of
the
work.

For
example
Chicken
Woman
is

performed
on
the
streets
of
San
Francisco,
for
example
on
the
Golden
Gate
Bridge,

regardless
of
whether
the
audience
will
number
one
or
one
hundred.

She
is
less

concerned
about
interjecting
herself
into
the
dominant
institutional
narrative,
but

places
emphasis
on
the
overall
importance
of
the
audience’s
presence
in
her
work.

While
the
Dad
Art
footage
is
collected
privately,
it
is
also
not
to
be
shown
without

the
performance
and
audience
component.

Even
the
fact
that
most
information
on

Montano
is
available
to
the
public
through
her
self-‐authored
blog
and
website

suggest
Montano’s
independence
from
institutionalization
other
than
with
her
own

Art
Life
Institute.

Montano’s
emphasis
on
interactivity
and
engagement
with
the
audience
is
in

line
with
her
practice,
which
encourages
viewers
that
they
too
can
be
performance

artists
and
develop
their
own
life
art
practices.

She
offers
the
careful
reminder
that

every
individual
should
edit
her
own
suggestions
to
fit
their
own
needs.

In
an

interview
with
the
curator,
Montano
talks
about
responsibility
and
accountability
in

44

performance
art
and
being
aware
that
as
a
performance
artist
your
work
will
affect

other
people.
50

Smith
and
Montano
also
develop
very
different
conceptions
of
self.

Smith’s

feminist
self-‐determination
is
focused
on
a
more
narcissistic
exploration
of
her

identity.
This
can
be
seen
in
The
Radicalization
of
a
50s
Housewife
that
is
all
about

her
own
life
and
art:
both
her
personal,
private
history,
her
public
display
of
her

body
and
her
position
contemporary
art
history.

In
contrast,
in
the
SITE
exhibition,

Montano
offers
a
community
space
that
is
more
selfless
and
concerned
with
the

altruism
of
using
her
own
experience
to
help
viewers
develop
their
own
art
life

meanings.

The
space
is
activated
in
a
different
way
than
in
Smith’s
retrospective,

where
she
is
primarily
concerned
with
her
own
responsibility
to
others
rather
than

the
sharing
of
an
experience
of
one’s
own
perspective
and
desires.

The
use
of
the
body
by
Montano
and
Smith
was
and
continues
to
be
strikingly

different.

Smith
emphasizes
the
body’s
sensuality
and
sexuality.

She
uses
nudity

and
tantric
sex
rituals
in
her
work
as
a
tool
to
define
her
own
free
will
and

independence.

Her
own
body’s
sexuality
is
put
on
display
as
Smith
acts
without

external
compulsion,
determining
her
own
political
status
on
her
provocative
terms.

Montano’s
use
of
the
body
is
much
more
chaste
and
non-‐sexual.

For
her,
the
body
is

the
vehicle
with
which
to
achieve
a
level
of
spiritual
engagement
with
the
world
and

to
affect
the
welfare
of
others
through
one’s
own
course
of
action.

Her

50

Phone
conversation
with
Janet
Dees,
February
2013

45

performances
showcase
the
body
as
the
physical
entity
through
which
duty
to

others
and
sacrifice
of
one’s
own
desires
can
be
embodied.

Smith
and
Montano
recast
and
redefine
their
own
personal
roles
through
the

use
of
the
body
in
performance
while
subverting
and
critiquing
the
assumed
roles
of

women.
While
they
each
recast
women
to
be
the
central
actors
in
the
development

of
ritual,
nourishment,
and
caregiving,
they
attain
these
goals
through
notably

divergent
approaches.

Smith
takes
a
stand
for
rationality
and
reason
and
the

rejection
of
the
accepted
past,
particularly
as
it
relates
to
traditional
Christian

dogma
in
her
quest
for
self-‐realization
and
determination.
Montano,
on
the
other

hand,
also
revisits
the
traditional
role
of
women
as
nurturer
and
caregiver
but
her

work
is
centered
on
the
acceptance
of
ritual
and
belief
versus
rationality
as
the
path

to
personal
fulfillment
and
the
positioning
of
the
feminine
as
central
to
her

worldview.

While
they
both
explored
very
similar
themes
and
made
important

strides
in
advancing
a
feminist
viewpoint
through
performance,
this
nuanced
look
at

Smith
and
Montano’s
practices
has
revealed
important
differences.

They
reached

their
goals
through
very
different
intellectual
approaches
in
their
examination
of

thematic
subject
matter,
the
use
of
the
body
and
self-‐explorations,
echoing
the

diversity
within
the
larger
context
of
feminist
art
of
the
1970s.

46

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49

FIG
1

50

FIG
2

51

FIG
3

52

FIG
4

53

FIG
5

54

FIG
6

55

FIG
7

56

FIG
8

57

FIG
9

58

59

FIG
10

FIG
11

60

FIG
12

61

FIG
13

62

FIG
14

63

FIG
15

64

FIG
16

65

FIG
17

66

FIG
18

67

FIG
19

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This thesis examines feminist performance artists Barbara T. Smith and Linda Montano, and the artists’ respective use of biography as political statement in themes of ritual, nourishment, and caregiving. Through the specific analysis of Smith’s Ritual Meal, Celebration of the Holy Squash, and Feed Me and Montano’s Chicken Woman, 14 Years of Living Art, and Dad Art, one may see how these themes central to the human experience and are revealed through individualized feminist approaches to personal narrative. Smith and Montano’s work is framed in the context of feminist artistic practices of the 1970s that utilize biography and ritual. The stakes of Smith and Montano’s continuing contemporary practices are analyzed in terms of audience, space, and public.

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