Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 1 Tancredi Gusman (Lucerne) Using case studies of documenta 5 (1972) and documenta 6 (1977) in Kassel, this article investigates the role of documentation (photographs, videotapes, films, and relics) in introducing performance art at large international exhibitions during the 1970s. The analysis, conducted by scrutinizing archival sources at the documenta archive, examines the roles of documentation as a medium of performance re-presentation, as a means of distribution and dissemination of this art form, and as a vehicle for marketing and collecting works of performance art. On the basis of this analysis, the article argues that, regardless of the various ways in which artists conceive the relationship between live act and its subsequent re-presentations, documentation has emerged, since the early 1970s, as a constitutive element for the establishment and acknowledgment of performance art as an autonomous genre within the field of visual arts. When visiting an exhibition presenting performance art of the past, such as Carolee Schneemann: Kinetische Malerei (Frankfurt am Main, MMK 2017) 2 or Marina Abramovic ´: The Cleaner (Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi 2018 - 19), visitors are typically confronted with images and artefacts such as photographs, videos, films, and leftovers (or “ relics ” ). In contrast to theatre and dance museums, in the context of visual arts this set of recordings and so-called relics are not conceived of merely as the traces of past events. Instead, they are used and performed as a medium of the performance artwork itself, as a site of its aesthetic representation. Indeed, numerous art performances were - and still are - conceived exclusively for the camera, while others were originally seen only by a small group of passers-by and owe their permanence in the genre ’ s memory to their documentation. In the context of theatre studies, performance studies and art history, such images and artefacts are given the collective title of performance art documentation. Because of its specificity, performance art documentation has, from the early 1990s through to the present day, stimulated a broad theoretical and historiographical interest. For almost two decades, the scholarly debate has been centred around the question of whether such mediations are adequate to convey an art form seemingly defined by its live dimension and ephemeral quality, as well as by the relation between the performer(s) and the audience that participate in the event. This question has been rendered particularly sensitive by certain canonical performance artists such as Marina Abramovic´, Chris Burden, and Terry Fox; they qualify the exchange of energy that occurs in the unique encounter between performers and participants as that which characterizes performance art. In 1979, for example, Terry Fox, speaking about performance art in an interview with Robin White, stated: It ’ s like any confrontation, it ’ s like a street accident, or a meeting, or - anything. I mean, it just happens between people who met. If you meet a friend out on the street - well, you could document that, video-tape it, photograph it, and send it to an art magazine, or Forum Modernes Theater, 32/ 2 (2021), 264 - 277. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ FMTh-2021-0024 put it in a gallery - but it wouldn ’ t mean anything to anybody. 3 The debate around performance documentation eventually polarized scholars into two opposing camps: those who follow the above narrative, thereby denying the possibility of reproducing or documenting the ‘ essence ’ of performance art, such as Peggy Phelan; 4 and those who instead understand documentation as a crucial aspect of the art form, such as Amelia Jones, 5 if not an altogether constitutive part of the performance artwork itself, such as Philip Auslander. 6 At stake in this discussion, which has long dominated performance art research, is the very definition of the nature of performance art - whether it should be considered purely ephemeral, or rather acknowledged as a trans-medial art practice. In recent years, the focus of the debate has shifted to issues regarding strategies and practices of preserving, archiving, and sharing performance-based art, 7 a development catalysed in part by the growing interest of international museums and art institutions in performance art. Furthermore, various scholarly contributions have successfully demonstrated the multiplicity of the possible entanglements between live acts and their subsequent representations, thereby overcoming the idea of ‘ liveness ’ and ‘ mediatedness ’ as antinomian. 8 Recognizing the importance of the history of this debate as well as that of other emergent approaches to the topic, the research project Between Evidence and Representation: History of Performance Art Documentation from 1970 to 1977 - of which this article is one part - offers a new and original perspective on the study of performance art documentation. Here, documentation is neither investigated in its legitimacy as a medium of performance art, nor questioned from the viewpoint of the practices of conservation. Documentation is understood rather as a device whose role and status mutates throughout the history of performance art - one that is determined not only by artistic choices, but also by the strategies and paradigms enacted by agents, such as curators, museums, and galleries, to produce, display, and collect performances. Performance art and its documentation are thus not considered here as fixed terms, determined in their mutual relationship once and for all by some supposedly immutable qualities. On the contrary, different choices regarding how one produces and presents performance art - as a pure live art form or, conversely, through its images and documents - are acknowledged to affect the epistemic and aesthetic status of the art practice in contrasting ways. The history of performance art documentation, namely the history of the negotiation of the various modes and media employed in the conservation and presentation of performance art, can be therefore considered as an instrument of investigation into the establishment of canons and paradigms of the production and the reception of performance art. A crucial decade for this history is the 1970s, a time when performance-based art began to enter international exhibitions and art institutions, which up until the 1960s had been based almost exclusively on material works of art and their conservation/ collection. Throughout this process of transformation, documentation began to play an essential role because of its ability to translate temporal events into tangible images and objects. This contributed to both the definition of attributes of this new genre and to the forms of its reception. To study the history of documentation during this decade therefore means, on the one hand, studying how such performance art was contained in the field of visual arts and, on the other, how the emergence of new performance-based practices changed the system and means of art presentation and collection. 265 Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 documenta 5 and 6: A Case Study One object of study that holds particular interest for this investigation is two editions of Kassel ’ s documenta: documenta 5 (1972) and 6 (1977). These two editions of the periodic exhibition each respectively hold a very different position in the historiography of contemporary art; the first was considered a pivotal ‘ turning point ’ and the second was relegated to a relatively marginal role. This narrative, one that privileges documenta 5 as a moment of rupture and innovation, has been challenged recently by Maria Bremer, who conversely highlights the relevance of the process of canonical consolidation carried out during documenta 6. 9 One of the reasons for the importance assigned to documenta 5, directed by Harald Szeemann, is the crucial impact it had on the subsequent development of the history of contemporary art curation. Via an exhibition dedicated to examining the relationship between reality and its images, 10 Szeemann and his working group introduced a thematic approach to documenta for the first time, as opposed to both the survey character/ solely qualitative selection process of previous editions and the national model of the Venice Biennale. In this new approach, the director/ curator - a kind of authorial figure supported by a team of co-curators 11 - ordered the display of artworks and events according to an overarching concept and dramaturgy. In this way, documenta became a ‘ curatorial ’ project, thereby establishing a new paradigm that would later come to dominate the international biennials of contemporary art, as pointed out by Gardner and Green. 12 For the study at hand, however, documenta 5 is interesting mainly for another reason: this edition of documenta was pivotal to the introduction of live and timebased forms within visual arts exhibitions. As early as 1969, Szeemann had begun to elaborate strategies for presenting processand concept-based art with the exhibition Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form: Works - Concepts - Processes - Situations - Information, which he curated at the Kunsthalle Bern. He continued along this path of work and research in 1970 with his Happening & Fluxus (Kölnischer Kunstverein), the first historical survey on art actions and events of the 1960s. In following this trajectory, documenta 5 then, according to Szeemann ’ s initial intentions, should have been nothing less than a 100-day event, as indeed he announced in 1970: The slogan of the previous two Documentas was ‘ Museum of 100 Days ’ . This is to be replaced by ‘ the 100-day event ’ . The terms ‘ museum ’ and ‘ art exhibition ’ are associated with the conception of object-viewing, of material possession, of property transportation, property validation, and property insurance. For Documenta 5, on the contrary, it is expected that all events be prepared and staged in Kassel, and that the organisation concentrate on event planning rather than evaluating and transporting objects. 13 Evidently, ‘ performance ’ and ‘ action ’ art were initially envisioned by Szeemann, not just as one particular form to be displayed at documenta among many, but rather as the very form of the event itself. This initial concept, however, was later abandoned and replaced by the aforementioned thematic concept, because of both the high anticipated costs and the unsatisfactory results of the previous exhibition Happening & Fluxus, which he understood as a general trial for the Kassel-documenta event. 14 Included for the most part in the section “ Individual Mythologies ” , under the curatorial responsibility of Szeemann himself, performance-based art nonetheless maintained a central position in the exhibition, albeit reimagined in the vein of a more traditional museum exhibition. 266 Tancredi Gusman Five years later, with documenta 5 already on the path to becoming a foundational motif of contemporary curation, it was no longer considered feasible for the new artistic team to return to an older, non-thematic curatorial method. Manfred Schneckenburger, previously director of the Kunsthalle Cologne, took over the artistic direction of the next edition of documenta after the resignation of Karl Ruhrberg and Wieland Schmied in 1974; thereafter he opted for a sort of self-reflective approach, with his documenta 6 focusing on 1970s art, investigating the topic by means of a “ media concept ” developed together with Lothar Romain. This later edition of documenta dealt primarily with the expansion of the visual arts beyond the traditional media of painting and sculpture - although not with the inter-medial and anti-disciplinary approach that dominated the art of the 1960s. Instead, documenta 6 focused on the specificity of new and old artistic mediums, promoting a self-reflective analysis of their grammar, condition, and possibilities. This approach manifested, what we might consider, a need for order or for a conceptual reorganization of the art field after its radical questioning during the previous decade. The exhibition was divided into individual sections, each devoted to a specific medium, among which we find Performance, curated by Joachim Diederichs and consisting of a live programme, and Video, curated by Wulf Herzogenrath. Because of the role of these events in the introduction of performance art within international periodical exhibitions, the history of documenta during the seventies constitutes a fruitful case study to better understand the processes related to the containment of performance art within the field of visual arts. Moreover, because of its transnational character, documenta is also a meeting place where various ‘ actors ’ - such as artists, galleries, and museums - from a range of cultural-geographical and political-economical contexts must negotiate common practices and procedures for the exhibition, sale, and insurance of artworks and their documents. Consequently, an analysis of these two editions of documenta in unison may prove particularly useful for our purposes. At the crux of such an analysis lies a number of intriguing questions: How was performance art presented, documented, and archived in documenta 5 and 6? What was the nature of the relationship between the live event and its mediation through documents? What can the documentation practices tell us about the framework in which performance art was produced and exhibited? The documenta archive: General Remarks As it happens, the fundamental sources for answering such questions are not the images and objects themselves - those which we call performance art documentation - but rather the elements that allow us to reconstruct how such documentation has been conceptualized and used. One crucial element is the correspondence between curators, photographers, artists, and galleries; another being administrative sources (e. g. contracts and loan forms) in which the material value of artworks, as well as the question of their loan and copyright, are defined and outlined. Such sources have largely been conserved in the documenta archive in Kassel, on which collection this article is based. Examining documents of this kind means also dealing with the apparatus of procedures that determines how they have been organized and systematized; namely, the underlying logic that has guided their archiving which determines what can be known by future audiences and which aspects have the potential to be enriched by historical research. 267 Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 Founded in 1961, the documenta archive has long been a municipal institution separate from the non-profit organization running the documenta exhibition. In fact, it was not until 2015 that the city of Kassel and the Hessen region signed a cooperation agreement officially rendering the archive part of the documenta and Museum Fridericianum GmbH. Because of this prior separation, the archiving processes were not directed by the work of an internal archive and there was no explicit legal obligation for documenta to hand over files and records to the archive. 15 Nevertheless, over time, a collaborative relationship has developed. The archive provides advice to the documenta team on how to produce and organize their records, and, for several years now, coordination between the two institutions has become better integrated. When we turn our analytic attention to earlier editions of documenta, such as those in the 1970s that we are considering here, we must keep in mind that the collection and classification of documents was the result of cooperation between the archive and the teams that organized each specific documenta. 16 Once an edition was finished, the documentation was handed over to the archive. The documenta archive tries to maintain order and logic according to which documents have been originally collected in folders and given to the archive; this is the result of a choice by the archive and of the agreements between the two distinct bodies. Then, through the process of indexing, the archive carries out meticulous work to clarify the structures and working methods of the individual teams, catalogues the materials, and produces search tools that help to locate them. The documenta archive, therefore, should not be considered as one which organizes single documents solely according to its own archival criteria. Rather it should be understood instead as an institution committed to preserving and making visible the processes of administration originally put in place by the exhibition teams. This condition can represent an obstacle if the research objective is to study how archival practices have conceived and classified performance art; however, it also represents a potential resource of insight, as it can provide us with a picture of the logic according to which the artistic team was operating at the time. Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 documenta 5 and 6 were events that presented performance art live, with a programme that gathered together international performance artists, 17 and also through the mediation of documents - film, videos, photographs, and relics on display in the exhibitions. In documenta 5, for example, photographs and ‘ relics ’ of actions and performances produced by Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler were presented, as were the films and videos of Vito Acconci and Dennis Oppenheim. Thus, it is apparent that by 1972, documentation already played a significant role in presenting performance art - albeit certainly not a primary one. This is also evident from the invitation Szeemann sent out to Acconci in August 1971: “ We intend to make a special section for artists whose works consist mainly in performances with or without documentation ” . 18 It seems that by the time documenta 6 took place just a few years later, performance documentation had definitively attained a high level of importance in the eyes of the artists and curators, as Joachim Diederichs clearly notes in his introduction to the performance section of the catalogue: Increasingly, the artists also remember the much-vilified institutions; Kunsthalle are 268 Tancredi Gusman accepted as useful places of intermediation. The documentation of performances also takes on a new significance. The artists, no longer seeing their spontaneity as well as the unrepeatability of the action threatened by [the risk of] being frozen in documents - as was often the case in the 1960s - now assign more importance to them. In some cases, the document becomes more important than the performance, notably in videotape. 19 From the limited information that can be drawn from the catalogues and the lists of the exhibited works, one can infer that the relevance of performance art documentation increased throughout the 1970s in correlation with an increased professionalization and institutionalization of the art form. At the same time, such information is not adequate to explain the exact functions and values, both artistic and economical, of these performance documents; nor can it definitively tell us the different strategies that were used throughout their production and presentation. Questions such as these remain hitherto largely unexplored by performance art research. In order to comprehensively investigate this issue via the chosen case study, two areas of analysis should be taken into consideration: First, the activity of producing the documentation of the live performances presented at both documenta 5 and 6; and, second, the exchanges that occurred between the professionals involved in organizing the loan, sale, and insurance of the performance art documentation on display in the exhibitions. Live Performance and Its Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 The image and press database of the documenta archive ’ s media collection contains numerous photographs of live performances enacted during documenta 5 and 6. Evidently, the photographs were taken by various photographers, most of them active in Germany. In the documentation conserved in the archive, surprisingly few exchanges between these photographers, the curatorial team, and the artists can be found. Indeed, during my own visits to the archive, I was not able to locate any trace of guidelines provided by artists or curators on how to document the performances at either documenta 5 or 6. Only in the case of Franz Erhard Walther ’ s performance demonstration I. Werksatz in documenta 5 could I find evidence of a photographic documentation of a performance work that was explicitly commissioned to a professional photographer, Timm Rautert. 20 However, in the folders of documenta 5 one can find several requests for photographic permissions from independent photographers, students, and freelance reporters. There is also no trace whatsoever of any performances being made exclusively accessible to specific photographers selected by documenta staff. This information confirms the preliminary indications I received from Alexander Zeisberg, former head of the Media Archive. Only occasionally, Zeisberg informed me, was the documentation of the art on display at documenta carried out by photographers officially appointed by documenta, or photographers who worked following guidelines provided by documenta. 21 The documentation of the live performances at documenta 5 and 6 therefore seems to have been considered, both by the curatorial team and by the artists, as a supplementary element - one that merely served informative-documentary purposes. In short, the documentation of live performance does not seem to have been properly understood as being fundamentally different to the documentation of the other types of artwork exhibited at documenta (such as paintings, sculptures, installations). This conjecture is substantiated by the fact that the rights of the images remained, in most 269 Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 cases, with the photographers themselves - the photographs were considered to be the work of the photographers and not the original artists. There are a number of letters between members of the curatorial team and the artists participating at documenta 5 and 6 that provide us with further insight into how the documentation of live performances was conceived and produced. In September 1972, shortly after leaving Kassel, two American artists - Terry Fox and Howard Fried - contacted documenta requesting the documentation recorded during their performances; this consisted of photographic material, in the case of Fox, and of video material, in the case of Fried. In both cases, there does not seem to have been any previous agreements made regarding this issue, nor does it appear that the artists considered such pictures and recordings to be in some way a component of their work. 22 That said, both artists did inform their interlocutors of another type of documentation that was carried out under their supervision: in Fried ’ s case, photographs taken during the performance in Kassel - which he promised to subsequently send to Szeemann - and in Fox ’ s case, a videotape, probably shot later in Paris. In his letter to Just, Fox wrote: Some photos were taken from my action, at least on the first day, though no photos were taken at the last day which was the strongest and involved the most action - would you please have some of these photos sent to me [. . .] Also when I finished my action I have made a sculpture - when the stone bowl is dry could you have a photo made and send it to me? The videotaping went extremely well here - I have made a 25 min. tape of real be[a] utiful color, like [illegible] animated color slides. 23 The distinction between documents produced under the artist ’ s supervision and documents produced by independent photographers and filmmakers can also be found in the case of Gina Pane ’ s performance piece A Hot Afternoon. As research has amply demonstrated, photography in fact plays a fundamental role in Gina Pane ’ s performance and body art. 24 The French artist worked from 1970 to 1980 with a specific photographer, Françoise Masson, whose images were intended to be a medial component of the performance art itself. The pictures were generally produced as colour photographic prints and arranged by Pane in compositions she called “ Constats ” . 25 The image and press database of the documenta archive contains several photographs of A Hot Afternoon. They were taken, however, by two different photographers: Ingrid Fingerling and Dieter Schwerdtle. The two series are clearly distinguished by their respective styles; it is apparent in Fingerling ’ s choice of colour pictures (diapositives) (Fig. 1), whereas Schwerdtle chose black and white pictures (Fig. 2). To date, there are no photographs in the archive by Masson. As indicated by the exchange of letters between Gina Pane and Diederichs however, it is clear the French artist brought her own photographer along with her to Kassel to document her performance. 26 Precisely four pictures of the performance taken by Masson appeared a few months later in the ‘ Artist ’ s Chronicle ’ section of the American magazine High Performance. 27 Evidently, when it came to providing a precise representation of her work, the artist chose the pictures taken by Masson. Masson ’ s photographs - probably the result of meticulous planning with Gina Pane - now form the “ Constat ” , the documentary composition and visual artwork originating from the action (Fig. 3). 28 Despite the limited information and sources available, it is possible to assert that we are faced here with two contrasting 270 Tancredi Gusman types of documentation of performance art: a documentation carried out under the direct or indirect control of the artist, to which she/ he assigns a representative character of her/ his artwork; or a documentation produced by independent professionals, considered merely as informative material intended to supplement the respective performance event. The Role of Documentation in the Circulation of Performance Art The aforementioned arguments do not, however, necessarily mean that documentation prepared under the control of the artists always had an explicitly aesthetic function, nor that the artists themselves necessarily considered such documentation as an integral part of their work. It should also not be forgotten that we are dealing with a range of artists - each very different from one another, and each distinguished by their own approach to the documentation of their performances. However, it seems one general fact can be gleaned from an analysis of the exchanges between curators, gallery owners, and artists: visual and audiovisual documentation, it appears, was indeed already a central device for performance art by the time of documenta 5 - not only regarding the exhibition of the performance, but also from an organizational-professional perspective. Among the various correspondences relating to the organization of documenta 5 and 6, one can find numerous requests for visual materials from curators to artists or their representatives. These visual materials - mostly photographs or frames of videos and films - have at least two fundamental functions: they serve as an element in the selection process of the artists who participate in the exhibitions, and they provide a representation of the works within the exhibition catalogue. It is therefore clear how crucial it was for artists to have an adequate dossier of images and documents in a transnational and highly professional artistic field. The temporal and ephemeral nature of these actions made the function of these documents even more integral to this process, since in some cases they became the only access to a particular performance artist ’ s body of work. If we return briefly to Terry Fox and Howard Fried, to the letters exchanged between their gallery Reese Palley (San Francisco) and Harald Szeemann, we discover that not only did Fox produce a video specifically for documenta (Clutch), but also that Howard Fried took photographs of the performance Indian War Dance before its first public presentation scheduled in Kassel. 29 More than merely a document of the performance, then, the documentation here clearly also functions as a preliminary representation and photographic narration of the performances to come. The photos included in the catalogues of documenta 5 and 6 were in fact produced or chosen by the artists, for whom it was obviously a central means of dissemination of their work. Joan Jonas, in her exchange with Szeemann and in the face of conditions which were not ideal, specifically underlined how important it was for her to be included in the catalogue. 30 Moreover, in the lead up to documenta 6, Scott Burton sent out the negatives and photographic copies in colour for the catalogue, providing precise directions on how they should look in print by drawing out narrowed margins and requesting that the pictures be printed in black and white: These will be ok in black and white. Please crop them as I have shown (to represent equally both halves of the performing area). The standing pose should be above, the lying one below. They represent the two halves of the performance. 31 271 Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 Although these may seem like minor details, they certainly should not be considered as such. The anti-documentary position which has dominated the collective narrative of artists and scholars who have dedicated themselves to performance art does not take into account the fact that, within the field of visual arts at least, performance art presents itself as one of the forms most closely related to technical reproducibility. Thus, regardless of the role that individual artists may assign to documentation, the possibility of producing and disseminating recordings and images of such performances is a fundamental requirement for the professionalization of the genre in an increasingly international and de-territorialized artistic context. We can therefore assume that the ability to produce and manage a complex spectrum of media has been a central element in the affirmation of artists such as Chris Burden, Vito Acconci, and Marina Abramovic´, who more so than others have been successful in circulating within the international imagination swiftly and incisively. The development of this centrality of documentation and recording of performances also leads to an increasingly central role for galleries - the intermediaries who are in fact able to provide infrastructure for the production of documents as well as their international distribution and who, just as importantly, possess the expertise to define the contractual and economic aspects necessary for the subsistence of artists in a commercial system and market economy. Documentation and the Economy of Performance Art In the transition from the utopian and radical 1960s to the relatively stable and professionalized ’ 70s, one of the most pressing issues of performance-based art concerned the economy of this new art form. The entry of a form of live art into a commercial system organized around permanent and transportable art objects forced visual art actors to develop strategies that guaranteed the sustainability of this new artistic genre. As the critic John Howell states in a 1977 text, in German translation, contained in the folder of Georg Jappe (who was responsible for selecting the press reviews for documenta 6): Despite this recognition, some serious, vital problems remain unsolved: Money is at the top of the list. Art galleries are faced with the problem of how to earn money from a work that is ephemeral or at best only secondarily an object. How one could turn interest into active support is also the question for the performers who attempt to achieve from a temporal medium the elusive goal of all artists: a living. 32 The idea of an art form that is not based on the possession of objects, expressed in the first concept of documenta 5 by Szeemann, in some ways remains a dream that is difficult to achieve in reality, especially within the context of visual arts and a market economy. The general fees, travel expenses, and daily allowances paid to the artists participating in these international events was, generally speaking, just sufficient for artists to survive on. In this context, documentation undoubtedly played an important role. For instance, action photographs taken by Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler and performance photos by Gilbert and George were on sale at documenta 5. From the letters exchanged between Anatol Herzfeld and documenta following documenta 5, we learn that some of the objects produced during Herzfeld ’ s performance in Kassel were later to be exhibited and offered for sale. 33 However, the media which seem to hold the greatest potential as vehicles for creating an economy of perfor- 272 Tancredi Gusman mance and ephemeral art forms are in fact audiovisual media. At documenta 5, Gerry Schum, a pioneer of video and television art, clearly defines the status of the videotapes - sent to documenta 5 for exhibition by his Videogalerie Schum - as art objects: “ As with traditional art objects, commercial use of the tapes and lending to other institutes is not permitted ” . 34 The videos and films presented by artists at documenta 5 were indeed on sale, as were the other works exhibited during the event. Because of their ephemeral and reproducible character, however, their cost was still significantly lower than that of traditional media, such as painting. In any case, if we compare documenta 5 to documenta 6, different data indicates that the field of audiovisual media was undergoing an important development during this time. Video was clearly becoming an increasingly autonomous art-medium (i. e. video art) and not just a means of recording artists ’ actions; a remarkable professionalization also took place regarding its production and distribution. Organisations such as Castelli-Sonnabend Tapes & Films and Electronic Arts Intermix (New York) emerged, specializing in the production and circulation of videotapes and managing large catalogues of artists. From the letters exchanged between these organisations and the curatorial team of documenta, it is apparent how this development was accompanied by a professionalization of the field at large; a kind of institutionalization of the definition of procedures and standards that had begun to function as overarching paradigms. In various letters and on various occasions, for example, Howard Wise (EAI) and Joyce Nereaux (Castelli-Sonnabend) refer to the same custom regarding the loan of videotapes: “ Many museums that are not able to pay regular rental and sale fees pay an honorarium of $100.00 plus the cost of the tape for each artist participating in an exhibition ” . 35 Thus, it seems the economy of video remained minimal and residual compared to the traditional genres of visual arts; nevertheless, video remained the vehicle which seemed to guarantee the greatest potential for commercial response to performance-based art. The use of video also provided art galleries, whose contribution in terms of production and distribution infrastructure was essential, with a greater level of influence. Television was another potential vehicle for the transmission of performance art experimented with during documenta 6 and should not be left unmentioned. Indeed, parts of the artists ’ videos presented at documenta 6 were broadcast in an evening programme each Wednesday for a few weeks on the German television channel WDR. The opening of the same artistic event was represented by three performances, by Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, and Douglas Davis respectively, and broadcast live on national and international channels. For many artists and organizers - including the aforementioned Gerry Schum - television was a source of great fascination and interest, seemingly holding the potential to democratize art by ensuring its mass distribution independent of the circuit of museums and galleries. However, the difficulty of attracting the interest of an extensive and diverse range of the public, and of combining the timing and the dramaturgy of television with those of artistic practices soon highlighted a series of obstacles difficult to overcome - thereby defusing this somewhat utopian impulse. Unique through Reproductions: Performance Art and Its Documentation The above exploration of documenta 5 and 6 can provide a more general insight into 1970s ’ performance art and documentation, 273 Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 namely that the relationship between performance and documentation appears to be fundamental to the institutionalization and professionalization of performance art. Indeed, it was documentation that guaranteed the art form the possibility of participating in a set of exchanges which characterizes the visual arts apparatus: from the process of selecting artists for exhibitions, to the international circulation and promotion of their works, to their eventual entry into museum collections. This fact brings into question the typical dichotomy between unicity and reproducibility, which for a long time guided the narrative of performance art. Quite the contrary, the reproducibility of performance art, the very possibility of its uniqueness being iterated in multiple media - through photographs, videos, or in the form of relics - reveals itself as a constitutive trait in the acknowledgment of this new genre within the field of visual arts. Unlike traditional artworks, which exist in the single space and time of their materiality, performance art instead exists and endures via its continuous displacement through subsequent reproductions. Thus, it is in and through this unique intertwining that performance art in the 1970s set a model for the development of an economy of the ephemeral, which later came to acquire a relevant position in contemporary art and its global events. Fig. 1: Performance “ A hot afternoon ” / “ Ein heißer Nachmittag ” (Detail) by Gina Pane. documenta 6 (1977). © Gina Pane / VG Bild-Kunst © documenta archiv / Photographer: Ingrid Fingerling. Fig. 2: Performance “ A hot afternoon ” / “ Ein heißer Nachmittag ” (Detail) by Gina Pane. documenta 6 (1977). © Gina Pane / VG Bild-Kunst © documenta archiv / Photographer: Dieter Schwerdtle. Fig. 3: Gina Pane, Action “ A Hot Afternoon ” (Detail), July 1, 1977. “ Constat ” [report/ record] of the action carried out at documenta 6, Kassel. 6 elements: 18 colour photographs, 1 black-and-white photograph, drawings in felt-tip pen and coloured pencil, Canson black 51.5 x 335.5 cm. Photographer: Françoise Masson. © Adagp Gina Pane, courtesy of Anne Marchand. 274 Tancredi Gusman Notes 1 This article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union ’ s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk ł odowska-Curie grant agreement No. 747881. The information and views set out here reflect only those of the author and the Research Executive Agency (REA) and the European Commission (EC) are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. 2 The exhibition was the result of a cooperation between the Museum der Moderne Salzburg (2015 - 2016) and the MMK Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt am Main and was later brought to MoMA PS1 in New York (2017 - 2018). 3 Robin White, “ An Interview with Terry Fox ” , in: Gregory Battcock and Robert Nickas (eds.), The Art of Performance: A Critical Anthology, New York 1984, pp. 199 - 221, here p. 205. 4 See Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, London/ New York 1993. 5 See Amelia Jones, “‘ Presence ’ in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation ” , in: Art Journal 56/ 4 (1997), pp. 11 - 18. 6 See Philip Auslander, “ The Performativity of Performance Documentation ” , in: PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 28/ 3 (2006), pp. 1 - 10. 7 See, for example, the anthologies by Barbara Büscher and Franz Anton Cramer (eds.), Fluid Access: Archiving Performance-Based Arts, Hildesheim, Zürich/ New York 2017; and Gabriella Giannachi and Jonah Westerman (eds.), Histories of Performance Documentation: Museum, Artistic, and Scholarly Practices, New York 2018. 8 See, for example, Nick Kaye, “ Liveness and the Entanglement with Things ” , in: Paul Clarke et al. (eds.), Artists in the Archive: Creative and Curatorial Engagements with Documents of Art and Performance, London 2018, pp. 25 - 51; and Mechtild Widrich, “ Can Photographs Make It So? Repeated Outbreaks of VALIE EXPORT ’ s Genital Panic since 1969 ” , in: Amelia Jones and Adrian Heathfield (eds.), Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History, Bristol 2012, pp. 89 - 104. 9 See Maria Bremer, “ Modes of Making Art History: Looking Back at documenta 5 and documenta 6 ” , in: Stedelijk Studies, 2 (2015), https: / / stedelijkstudies.com/ journal/ modesof-making-art-history/ [accessed 25 June 2021]. 10 The title of the exhibition was Befragung der Realität: Bildwelten heute [Questioning Reality: Image Worlds Today]. The final concept was co-authored by Harald Szeemann, Jean- Christoph Ammann and Bazon Brock. 11 For the list of members of the working group as well as that of the freelance collaborators who were responsible for single sections of the exhibition, see the exhibition catalogue of documenta 5: Befragung der Realität, Bildwelten heute: Kassel, 30. Juni bis 8. Oktober 1972, exh. cat., Kassel 1972. 12 See Anthony Gardner and Charles Green, Biennials, Triennials and Documenta: The Exhibitions that Created Contemporary Art, Chichester/ West Sussex 2016, p. 20. 13 Harald Szeemann, “ documenta V: 100 Tage Ereignis ” , in: Informationen 1/ 9 (1970), p. 1. The text published in Informationen was compiled and approved on April 28 by Harald Szeemann, Karl Oskar Blase, Arnold Bode, Bazon Brock, Werner Hofmann, and Peter Iden (German: “ Der Slogan der letzten beiden Documenten lautete ‚ Museum der 100 Tage ‘ . An dessen Stelle soll ‚ Das 100- Tage-Ereignis ‘ treten. Mit den Begriffen Museum und Kunstausstellung verbindet sich die Vorstellung von Objektsichtung, von materiellem Besitz, Besitztransport, Besitzbestätigung, Versicherung von Besitz. Für Documenta 5 ist dagegen zu erwarten, dass alle Ereignisse in Kassel vorbereitet und inszeniert werden und dass die Organisation sich konzentriert auf die Ereignisprogrammierung und nicht auf die Jurierung und den Transport von Objekten ” ). 14 See Friedhelm Scharf, “ Zur Geschichte der documenta 5: Eine quellenkundliche Revue ” , in: Roland Nachtigäller, Friedhelm Scharf and Karin Stengel (eds.), Wiedervor- 275 Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6 lage d5: Eine Befragung des Archivs zur documenta 1972, Ostfildern-Ruit 2001, pp. 24 - 26. 15 See Karin Stengel interviewed by Mark- Christian von Busse: “ documenta-Archiv braucht einen Quantensprung ” , in: Hessische/ Niedersächsische Allgemeine, 15 April 2013, https: / / www.hna.de/ kultur/ leiterinkarin-stengel-documenta-archiv-braucht-einen-quantensprung-2853364.html [accessed 25 June 2021]. 16 From 1969 to 1973, after the death of Lucy von Weiher, the documenta archive remained without scholarly direction, a situation that caused remarkable lacunas [see Karin Stengel, “ Archiv am Wendepunkt: Bilanz und Aufbruch ” , in: Nachtigäller et al., Wiedervorlage d5, p. 15]. 17 The programme of documenta 5 comprised performances/ actions by Vito Acconci, Anatol Herzfeld, Bertram Weigel, James Lee Byars, Joseph Beuys, Gino de Dominicis, Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Gilbert & George, Rebecca Horn, Joan Jonas, Vettor Pisani, Klaus Rinke, Fritz Schwegler, Keith Sonnier, Transparent Teachers ’ Ink., Ben Vautier, Franz Erhard Walther. The “ performance ” section of documenta 6 presented live performances by Laurie Anderson, Ben D ’ Armagnac, Jared Bark, Stuart Brisley, Chris Burden, Scott Burton, Ralston Farina, Tina Girouard, Jürgen Klauke, Bruce McLean, Antoni Miralda, Gina Pane, Reindeer Werk, Helmut Schober and HA Schult. 18 Harald Szeemann, letter to Vito Acconci, 09 August 1971, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 58. 19 Joachim Diederichs, “ Zum Begriff ‘ Performance ’” , in: Documenta and Manfred Schneckenburger (eds.), Documenta 6, exh. cat., Kassel 1977, vol. I, pp. 281 - 283, here p. 281 (German: “ In zunehmenden Maßen erinnern sich die Künstler auch wieder der vielgeschmähten Institutionen; Kunsthallen werden als doch brauchbare Orte der Vermittlung akzeptiert. Auch die Dokumentation der Performances erhält einen neuen Stellenwert. Die Künstler, die nicht mehr - wie vielfach in den 60er Jahren - sich in ihrer Spontanität und der Unwiederholbarkeit der Aktion durch Festgeschriebensein in Dokumenten gefährdet sehen, weisen ihr mehr Bedeutung zu. In manchen Fällen wird dabei das Dokument wichtiger als die Performance, namentlich beim Videotape ” ). 20 See Timm Rautert ’ s cost estimation [received by documenta on 24 April 1972] and Gerald Just ’ s confirmation of the assignment to Timm Rautert, 25 April 1972, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 57. 21 At least up until documenta 14 (2017), in which he prepared a set of documentation guidelines for photographers. 22 See Howard Fried, letter to Gerald Just, 12 September 1972, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 59; and Terry Fox, Letter to Gerald Just, [received by documenta on 06 September 1972], documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 61. 23 Terry Fox, letter to Gerald Just, received by documenta on 06 September 1972, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 61. 24 See Alice Maude-Roxby, “ The Delicate Art of Documenting Performance ” , in: Adrian George (ed.), Art, Lies and Videotape: Exposing Performance, Liverpool/ London 2003, pp. 66 - 77. 25 See Alice Maude-Roxby and Dinu Li, “ The Performance Document: Assimilations of Gesture and Genre ” , in: Photography and Culture 11/ 2 (2018), pp. 197 - 209, p. 198. 26 See, in particular, the handwritten notes sent by Gina Pane to documenta containing organizational details, undated, documenta archiv, AA, d6, Mappe 74. 27 Gina Pane, “ A Hot Afternoon ” , in: High Performance, 1/ 2 (1978), pp. 18 - 19. Unlike the photographs that constitute the “ Constat ” of the work, Masson ’ s photographs printed in High Performance are in black and white. The house style of the magazine required all artists to send black and white, glossy photos. 28 Except for one picture, the images by Masson used in the “ Constat ” are not identical to those printed in High Performance. 29 See Carol Lindsley, letter to Harald Szeemann, 17 January1972, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 61. 276 Tancredi Gusman 30 See Joan Jonas, letter to Harald Szeemann, 04 March 1972, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 60. 31 Scott Burton, notes and photographs sent to documenta, undated, documenta archiv, AA, d6, Mappe 78. 32 It was not possible to identify the publication origin or destination of this text. The text is not related to documenta 6 but in all probability, was written for, or as a comment/ review on, “ Concept in Performance ” , a performance programme curated by Elisabeth Jappe at the International Kunstmarkt of Cologne in the same year, i. e. 1977. See John Howell, translation in typescript, 1977 [uncertain date], documenta archiv, AA, d6, Mappe 52 b, pp. 6 - 7. The last sentence in this passage contains illegible portions toward the end, which have nonetheless been interpreted here by comparison with a piece from the same year by John Howell in English, addressing the same issue in words closely mirroring the German typescript [John Howell, “ Art Performance: New York ” , in: PAJ: Performing Arts Journal, 1/ 3 (1977), pp. 28 - 39]; (German.: Trotz dieser Anerkennung bleiben einige gravierende, lebenswichtige Probleme ungelöst. Geld steht dabei an erster Stelle. Die Kunstgallerien [sic] sehen sich vor dem Problem, wie sie an einem Werk verdienen sollen, das vergänglich oder bestenfalls nur sekundär ein Objekt ist. Wie man Interesse in tatkräftige Unterstützung umwandeln könnte, ist auch die Frage für die Darsteller, die den Versuch unternehmen wollen, aus einem temporären Medium das vielerstrebte Ziel aller Künstler zu machen: einen Lebensunterhalt. “ ). 33 See Anatol Herzfeld, letter to Harald Szeemann, 01 November 1972, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 54. 34 Gerry Schum, letter to Harald Szeemann, 10 April 1972, documenta archiv, AA, d5, Mappe 106 (German: “ Kommerzielle Ausnutzung der Tapes sowie Verleih an andere Institute ist wie bei traditionellen Kunstobjekten nicht ohne weiteres möglich ” ). 35 Joyce Nereaux, letter to Wulf Herzogenrath and Manfred Schneckenburger, 17 November 1976, documenta archiv, AA, d6, Mappe 102. 277 Exhibited, Recorded, Collected: Performance Art and Documentation in documenta 5 and 6