Anti-war performance art ranged from ambiguous ritual to explicit allegory

Evidence

Performed a month earlier at Carnegie Hall, Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece—in which she sat motionless as members of the audience snipped off pieces of her clothing—has been retrospectively interpreted as a comment on American aggression in Southeast Asia. No such ambiguity exists regarding Peter Schumann’s Bread and Puppet Theater. Pulling a rope affixed to a captive Jesus Christ, labelled Vietnam, their giant puppet, the snarling Uncle Fatso, was the star of the October 16 march, praised by the Voice as well as the old left National Guardian. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 792

Categorization

• XREF: Cut Piece connects to the reader’s shelf interest in how avant-garde forms became political speech, and to Hoberman’s broader two-part structure of scene becoming market.