Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

Man has resisted one way or the other and artist is no exception. From the Botticelli’s first non-religious nude and David’s Death of Marat to Courbet’s realistic stone breakers and Allan Kaprow’s happenings and Chris Burden’s shoot to Banksy’s wall art and Turkish Standing man’s protest, artists have resisted one way or the other through their art. But what about the acts those were never created in the name of art but are as radical and sublime as any work of art and sometimes even more. As Boris Groys states that no matter how political, anything created for the art institution loses its status as political. This paper will investigate the political acts of resilience looking at the case studies of Sabeen Mehmood’s assassination and the protests after that, Farkhunda’s Burial, and Qandeel Baloch’s page. This paper will look at these acts as performances and dissect in detail their aesthetics from choreography to agency and the resonance as well as compare them to the performances of the postmodern artists such as Marina Abramovich’s Rhythm 0, Allan Kaprow’s happenings and Yoko Ono’s cut piece.