Find a Chicken...
an art action
Here is one of the pieces I spoke about in Friday’s post, the ones that don’t fit into the normal conception of what art is, the one’s in which my art had been collapsed into my life…or vice versa.
sketchbook entry, May, 1977
Find a chicken that has previously heard only Dutch and talk to it for at least five minutes in English, observing responses and activity.
Chicken walks by scratching for worms and bugs. I start a conversation. I talk in low tones fairly continuously. Chicken ignores me, keeps walking. I keep talking encouraging chicken not to hurry off. She stops two meters away and begins to stretch and clean herself. I insist that is not necessary, hinting that she busies herself so as not to have to engage in conversation – still does not look at me – but does not walk away. I sit in grass one meter away and begin talking again. This time, instead of “chicken” I call her “kip” the Dutch word. Her head perks up upon my first use of this word and she stands still, blinking and staring at me as I talk. I ask her if she thinks I am crazy to talk to a chicken and she ducks her head. After a few more seconds I remain silent and she resumes cleaning herself. Sixty seconds later I sit back on my stool announcing the conversation terminated. I begin to write these notes and the chicken remains in her place seeming to scratch for worms. She is now a half-meter closer to me and not scratching except rarely. When I look down at her, she cocks her head to one side and looks back. I sit back and observe for a few minutes–she moves slightly closer–I encourage her to come closer still. She slowly makes her way to right beneath me. I bend over, she starts. I reach out my hand while talking gently and she moves away. Now one and a half meters away she looks at me and then resumes cleaning herself.
A few months after I made this piece, I hand-wrote these words on a piece of drawing paper and submitted it to the Appalachian National Drawing Competition being judged that year by Vito Acconci, one of my heroes and the quintessential artist’s artist, who began life as a poet and rose to fame with provocative and absurd performance art pieces. Find a Chicken was selected by Acconci to be in the show and also selected to be purchased by Appalachian State University. Thank you, Vito. My first affirmation that someone besides me might also consider me an artist, and from you, the ideal, radical, artist’s artist.
“ …I have to face it: the act of choice results in not so much a presentation of drawings as a presentation of (my)self — judging doesn’t pick a winner, it picks at me (and it picks a ‘me’ for me to analyze, if only I can take the time to see where it shows I am). So the drawings of others function as raw material for an image of me …" -Vito Acconci catalog essay, Appalachian National Drawing Competition, February 1978
Many thanks to Bill Arning for the photos. Like Vito Acconci, mentioned above, Bill was one of the first and most important curatorial affirmations of my young career in New York. He was the Curator/Director of White Columns at that time. Now, after a storied career that included stints at the List Center at MIT, the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, and more, he runs an edgy art establishment in Kinderhook, NY. Check it out: https://www.billarning.com/
On point of chickens, you need to connect with Joyce White Vance on Substack!!