La Mamelle: Bay Area Conceptual Performance Art and The Alternative Art Archive
La Mamelle / Art Contemporary / Artcom Magazines
Dissertation submitted to the Department of Theater and Performance Studies of Stanford University
La Mamelle: Bay Area Conceptual Performance Art and The Alternative Art Archive examines the La Mamelle/Art Com archive. This project frames the relation between conceptual performance art and the alternative art space movement of the 1970s as deeply co-productive in terms of aesthetic development, engagement with new media, and the advancement of collaborative and participatory art practices. I historicize La Mamelle’s production of various sites for the exhibition of performance art. These sites include alternative print publications, video and televisual productions, social networks, and the archive. While tracing this relation between conceptual performance and its spaces of emergence, I redress the dominant focus on New York and European neo-avant gardes in performance art history through an inclusion of West Coast conceptualists. Ultimately, I argue for creative models of archival research through what I describe as ‘performative archiving.’