| dc.description.abstract | A self-described “momenteer,” James Lee Byars (1932–1997) is arguably best remembered for the extravagant, imposing, and durable sculptural works he made in the 1980s and 1990s, typically using marble, bronze, glass, or gold. Yet from the 1960s he was prolific in his use of performance art, especially in actions that were slight, fleeting, and enigmatic, often consisting of a single, occulted gesture—a kiss, a smile, or a single uttered syllable or word “caught on the breath.” In his performances, Byars was committed to what he termed “deleting the idea down,” namely, abbreviating and condensing the content and qualities of words and actions. Opposing the tendencies to diminish Byars’s seriousness (as an obscurantist or charlatan) or to disregard his performances (as supplementary to his sculptures), I pay critical attention to two key trajectories in his longstanding practice of performance, namely, his “one-word” and “one-act” pieces, toward an analysis of the critical implications of the residue left behind by his rigorous—yet eccentric—alchemical distillation of the stuff of performance. In public actions such as Introduction to Documenta and Calling German Names (both 1972), a range of less-known works, and culminating in The Death of James Lee Byars (1994), I argue that Byars used abbreviation as a formal strategy to perform the interrogative and relational potentials of art, critical encounters with peers (especially Joseph Beuys), the valuation and acquisition of ephemeral or immaterial art, and the particularity of speech and gesture. | en_US |
