你要理解，船子和尚的作品，就是這種，沒有他者 （除了那個倒霉落水，嗆了幾口江水的夾山善會），沒有証據 （擺渡ㄧ世，江水無痕，何來証據）的作品，
而且，你要理解，所作已辦，為而不是，為而不在，為而不有，所謂，莫道吾有去來也，
意思是說，禪宗，就是行動藝術，禪宗和尚，就是行動藝術家，
Your assertion elegantly highlights the paradox at the core of performance art: the tension between visibility (audience and documentation) and authenticity (the pure, unmediated act). If we follow your line of reasoning, performance art without an audience or evidence of its existence might indeed represent the most radical and “pure” form of the medium. Let’s delve into this idea:
1. The Audience as Hell
Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous phrase, “Hell is other people,” applies strikingly to performance art, where the audience’s gaze can distort the artist’s intention and experience.
• The Audience as Appropriators: In witnessing a performance, the audience interprets, judges, or reacts, imposing their own meanings and expectations onto the event. This can transform the performance into a spectacle, reducing its essence to what the audience perceives rather than what the artist intends.
• Example: In Marina Abramović’s Rhythm 0, the audience’s actions (some violent) appropriated the event, challenging the artist’s control over the meaning of her work.
• Performance as Subject to the Other’s Gaze: The audience’s presence inherently shapes the performance. The artist is no longer engaging solely with the act itself but also with the relational dynamic created by being observed, echoing Sartre’s existential critique of the “look.”
2. Documentation as Hell
Documentation introduces another “hell” for performance artists because it transforms the ephemeral into a static artifact, potentially undermining the essence of the work.
• The Problem of Mediation: Photographs, videos, or written accounts can only partially capture the performance, reducing its complexity to fragments that often fail to convey its lived immediacy.
• Example: Tehching Hsieh’s Time Clock Piece relies heavily on documentation to survive, but what remains is only a shadow of the full temporal and existential intensity of the year-long act.
• Risk of Commodification: Documentation risks turning performance art into a product, something to be consumed, archived, or commodified, counter to its ephemeral and experiential nature.
3. The Greatest Performance Art: Without Audience and Evidence
Performance art without an audience or documentation might indeed be considered the “purest” expression of the form, as it eliminates external appropriation and mediation. In this scenario:
• The artist is both the creator and the sole witness of the event.
• The performance becomes an act of radical authenticity, existing entirely for itself, untethered from external validation or interpretation.
This aligns with certain existentialist and mystical ideas:
• Existentialist Freedom: The artist is free from the “hell” of the Other’s gaze, performing solely for the act itself.
• Mystical Ephemerality: The performance aligns with a Zen-like embrace of impermanence, akin to the sand mandalas of Tibetan Buddhism, which are deliberately destroyed upon completion.
4. Challenges to the “Greatest” Performance Art
However, this ideal of performance art without an audience or documentation raises significant questions:
• Is Art Defined by its Relation to Others? Art is often seen as inherently relational, meant to communicate, provoke, or engage. Without an audience, does it cease to be art and become a private ritual or act of self-expression?
• The Ontology of the Event: If there is no witness and no trace, can the event truly be said to have occurred? This paradox echoes the philosophical problem of the tree falling in a forest without anyone to hear it. （意思是說，岩中花樹，自開自落，就是最偉大的行動藝術，意思是說，先生和他的友人，如果只是觀眾，就辜負了這個作品，反之，如果先生和他的友人，為岩中花樹所見，則岩中花樹，成為觀眾，或更好的是，先生和他的友人和岩中花樹，都是作品的一部分，意思是說，那個鳥不下蛋的荒山，其實沒有觀眾）
5. Historical and Conceptual Precedents
Some artists and movements have embraced this concept:
• Bas Jan Ader: Known for disappearing during his performance In Search of the Miraculous, his final work remains an ultimate mystery, with no audience or documentation of its conclusion.
• Chris Burden’s Private Acts: Burden once performed a private piece, deliberately refusing an audience or documentation, leaving only rumors of its existence.
• Taoist and Zen Practices: The idea of an unperformed or unseen act of creation echoes Eastern philosophies, where the act itself holds meaning beyond external validation.
6. Performance Art as a Pure Ereignis
In Heideggerian terms, the greatest performance art may indeed be one that exists solely as an Ereignis—an event that is both appropriated by and appropriates the artist, unfolding in its own time without external mediation. Its purity lies in its ontological essence, not its relational existence.
• Key Implication: Such a performance exists as a “wound,” a fleeting and transformative moment that disappears as soon as it is enacted, leaving no trace but the artist’s internal appropriation of the event.
Conclusion
Yes, we can argue that the greatest performance art might be those without an audience and without evidence of its existence. These performances would transcend the “hells” of audience and documentation, becoming acts of radical authenticity, existential freedom, and pure Ereignis. However, this radical purity also challenges the very definition of art as relational and communicative, situating such performances closer to existential acts, rituals, or philosophical gestures. They embody art’s ultimate paradox: to exist fully, they must disappear entirely.
