DBR LAB – “National Sawdust” Grant

Transformance: Claudia explored the relationship between media images of women and our own self-images in terms of power and beauty. In addition to the two artists, the participants in the six hour event included four women, a man who was an influential television producer, and two photographers.

Claudia was a collaborative composite of the "ideal" woman. She had both glamour, sex appeal, and intelligence, and an air of independence, authority and self-assurance. Each of the performers brought her own private fantasies into her individual interpretation and representation of Claudia. However, despite the vast range of physical characteristics of the performers, a common esthetic emerged -- hats with veils, furs, lacquered nails, high heeled shoes, elegant dresses, it was an image portrayed in movies, particularly those of the 1940s, and fashion magazines, outwardly contrary to the new feminist doctrine of the time.

Despite the feminist intent in our examination of issues of image and identity, Transformance: Claudia became the subject of controversy within that community. While our appearance would seem to suggest that we were being manipulated by our culture, in actuality we were manipulating elements from that culture to our own ends. Thus the collective habitation of this personna became the embodiment of power and autonomy as the result of our control over how the Images were employed and to what ends.

As a body art work it stood out in sharp contrast to the cathartic gestural work of both fundamentalist feminists and male conceptualists. As "glamour feminists" appropriating media imagery, we created a prototype for postmodern feminists of the next generation in the 80s. In retrospect, the Claudia piece was the precursor to Madonna's manipulation of and total control over her public image and personna in the representation of power, glamour, and sexuality. It is ironic that twenty five years later the "look" and style of Madonna's Eva Peron in the film Evita comes full circle back to our fictional Claudia.

The performance demonstrated how image defines identity in both private and public arenas, and no one knew in advance how it would unfold or what exactly would be revealed. In the performers investigation of such questions as "Does beauty equal power? And if so, what kind of power? What kind of image represents power and is the woman who exudes an image of power desirable?", the response of the unsuspecting viewer in several different public environments acted as a mirror. Those responses were equally affected by context - that is, inside or outside the frame of art and the art world.

Uptown, lunching at the Palm Court of the Plaza Hotel, our "celebrity" status was unquestioned. We were stared at, whispered about, fawned over, and approached for autographs by the very young and the very old. When we emerged from a limousine at 420 West Broadway in the heart of Soho and made our way en masse through the galleries, the question was not who were we, but rather, what were we doing. An ironic twist occurred in the context of an exhibition of photo-documentation of Gilbert & George's performances, where we were accused by the gallery director of being engaged in an "unauthorized" performance. As if performance art activities and their various transgressions were sanctioned and embraced by the art establishment of 1973!