I’m seeing a lot of discussion about the lady wearing face masks everywhere except the place that would actually impact public health. The questions a lot of people are answering: “is this art?”, “is this performance art?”

My answer: “Yes, but...”

Academic Arts theory has begun shifting away from the question “is this art”, thanks to the work of performance, feminist, indigenous, Black, & disabled artists.

“Is this art?” is just not a very interesting question because you’re asking how to file something

Instead I see theorists asking “how can we view this from a performance perspective, an indigenous perspective, etc?”

This is more interesting (to me) because it bypasses the filing process and instead says “let’s talk about this”

So, is this art? Sure, I guess. It’s not important to me. Instead from my Catawba-queer-performance perspective my thoughts are:
“This is someone who doesn’t come from a community with a memory of tragic pandemic (like my tribe and many others have).”...

Other thought: Self-Portrait-As-Liberation has a long history, particularly for Feminist & Queer artists. These pieces are usually read as being about reclaiming representation, power to self-represent, and all the complexities therein.

So what does it say to use a visual, a media that is all about self-empowerment as a response to public health, which requires social-solidarity? Isn’t the message: “my self-empowerment is more important than the health of those around me?”

I mean I get the cleverness of responding to “you must wear a mask” by wearing a mask every way except how it was intended.

But it’s clever in the same way that “I’m not touching you!!!” was clever when I was a kid. Essentially it is: “LMAO LANGUAGE IS AMBIGUOUS”

And the crux of the matter: the intention behind this performance is NOT RELEVANT! This person decided to go into public without a mask, which we know is a public health risk AKA sickness risk AKA death risk to people she is around. No intention can make that “actually good”

So, “is this art?” IDK IDC!

It’s dangerous regardless. “Art” doesn’t get a moral exemption. COVID doesn’t care about a folder humans created called “ART”

P.S. I was a bit flip about the category of “ART”. Questions about how ART is constructed as a category, how capital interplays with ART, and how we privilege ART vs non-art are all interesting questions.