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Shake, Sniff and Shrug:
Performance Art The Lindsay Lohan Way
by HELEN CARTER
Celebrities have really been embarrassing lately. I don’t need to know when they can’t keep their pants on, or when they didn’t have any on to begin with. Remember earlier this year when Party Girl Lindsay Lohan actually appeared in public wearing the same clothes she'd worn the night before? The fashion and entertainment industries freaked out. You might ask yourself, "How could this happen? She's certainly got handlers who could have prevented such a Hollywood faux pas. I thought they all did. This is tragic. How can we go on?" I know that's what I was thinking. That was before I realized what was actually happening here. What she did, by appearing before Matt Lauer in the same clothes she’d worn the night before, was just good performance art.The cool thing about art is the way it works on many levels. Your clothes and how you wear them are artistic political statements. Party Girl Lindsay Lohan’s actions may have grossed out those who are paid to watch her, but her actions had historical precedence.
Artist Andrea Zittel (www.zittel.org) began Uniform Project in 1991, which consisted of her wearing the same handmade outfit every day for an entire season. New season, new outfit, and yes she wore it to work. She washed it often.
More recently artist Alex Martin wore a brown dress every day for a year, laundering it every few days, repairing it when necessary. She says: "I made this dress and I wore it every day for a year. I made one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days. In this performance, I challenged myself to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting. Clothes are a big part of this image, and the expectation in time, effort, and financial investment is immense." (www.littlebrowndress.com)
Sometimes the artist’s intention is more of a call to arms. Consider The Grey Sweatshirt Revolution, which "is a voluntary experiment in personal and social expression via the limitation of one's superficial identity to a grey sweatsuit for a pre-determined and extended period of time, such as a season, or for the rest of your life ..." (www.thegreysweatshirtrevolution.com) There you go - a simple and effective way to join an artistic cultural movement. Just buy yourself a grey sweatshirt, and wear it for a while. When I was in college I became so depressed when I realized that everyone there was a different version of the same assholes I went to high school with that I moped around campus in the same sweatpants and sweatshirt for two years. Only now do I realize I was ahead of my time - or I could have been, had I accepted myself as a performance artist. And I really could have used three more credits. Damn. Is it still a bold artistic statement if you don't know you're making it? Sure it is.
Some guy in my high school wore the same gym clothes for over 3 years without washing them. It involved a bet of some sort, I don't remember the details, but he was a handsome athlete and everyone laughed about it. Another kid wore the same clothes all the time, probably because he was poor. In Winter he smelled like stale wood stove smoke. And that's right, it wasn't funny then and it's still not very funny. But was it art? In either case? In both cases? Of course it was. Both were forcing everyone to confront society's ideas about beauty and social standing. Both were creating learning opportunities for everyone they encountered. Just like Lindsay. That's what performance art's supposed to do, isn't it?
Thank you, Party Girl Lindsay Lohan, for helping me to find the courage to speak the truth.
For I too have picked a piece of clothing up off the floor and checked for wrinkles, stains and embarrassing smells before putting it on again. And then, yes, I left the house. There, I said it. Is there anyone out there who can honestly say they've never done the shake, sniff, and shrug? Come on, you know you've done it. And you'll do it again.
You might think you can get away with it, because unlike Lindsay, you are not followed around by paparazzi. But you're wrong. We are all on camera now. At intersections, at airports, in the grocery store, in parking lots and in our schools. The camera is always rolling. (Where do you think news stations get slow motion stock footage of people’s butts to use for stories on obesity?) And someday, somebody somewhere will see you in an unlaundered reworn outfit as surely as we all saw Lindsay. And that somebody will judge you unless we get this whole thing out in the open and lose the stigma attached to it. Shake, sniff, shrug, and stand up proud while you do it. You’re an artist now. Just like Party Girl Lindsay Lohan.
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