‘Milking’ art on campus

By CHRIS WITKOWSKY
Collegian Staff Writer

Tonight a student will be strapped helplessly to a chair while a man in a suit and tie thrusts a funnel down his throat, pouring milk violently down his neck and bare chest -- all in rhythm with the happy song from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."

While James Kesterke (senior-graphic design) is tortured with dairy products, a crowd will gather to drink up the significance of these bizarre events.

From 7 to 10 p.m. today in the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, an evening of performance art titled "Milking Metaphors" will be presented, sponsored by the School of Visual Arts.

Students in Art 497C (Performance Art), taught by Charles Garoian, associate professor of art education, will display personal interpretations of their cultural and educational backgrounds.

"Basically, the idea here is to get people interested in a lot of different topics, to look at culture and the particular performances people are doing and rethink political views and different aesthetics," said Danielle Tarris (senior-English).

Garoian, who received his master's degree in art from California State University at Fresno and his doctorate in education from Stanford University, has been teaching and performing in this genre since 1970.

"The body and the self are inscribed by the culture. Everything we have learned from our schooling, our neighborhood, our religion and our families is all written upon our bodies, metaphorically speaking," Garoian said.

"We are cultural objects. The performance artist reclaims the body and represents the body based on the memory of personal cultural history."

Translation: All humans are taught from birth how to live and what to believe, based on other people's ideas about what is right. Performance artists take those ideas and try to express them in their own ways, without interference.

Performance art is not just another trip to the theater, Garoian said. The performers take dissimilar concepts and string them together in abstract, personal ways, sometimes confusing or offending audiences.

The performances are strange. While some performers use torture or violence as a means to get their points across, others use humor or create absurd situations.

A past performance consisted of one student pushing another student back and forth in a wheelbarrow between a pile of stones. Eventually, they threw the stones at each other. Another student glued broken glass to her body.

However, some question the validity of performance art. One case that attracted national attention involved performance artist Karen Finley. She fueled controversy in 1990 when she sued the National Endowment for the Arts for refusing to fund her work, which included pouring chocolate over her naked body. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court and Finley lost.

To Garoian and his host of student performers, though, this art form serves a much higher purpose -- fighting societal inequalities and injustices.

"Performance art provides a site within which to experiment with ideas, with meanings and interpretations," Garoian said. "I'm trying to get students to represent dead metaphors in new ways."