DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | I.C. Notebooks 1 | 1971-10-23 ""The Penguin as a Domestic""

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1971-10-23 ""The Penguin as a Domestic""

MIDWAY, October 23, 1971, University of Iowa Museum of Art 

"The Penguin: as a Domestic" was a performance piece, presented after dark outside the main entrance to the museum on a large, raised patio. 

A brief physical description of the piece:
Four individuals held potted plants at the corners of a square about the size of a large living room. In the center was s small persian rug; on the rug, a small cherry side table, beside the table, a floor lamp lighting the surface of it; on the table, small (miniature) table in the center, surrounded by other pieces of livingroom furniture (antique doll furniture, including chairs, a sideboard with dishes, a sofa, end table, floor and table lamps)
I stood beside the table, dressed in a tuxedo (with tails) , barefoot. I wound a mechanical toy, a tin penguin painted to resemble a butler (with tails), which I then set on the table amidst the furnishings. As it waddled around t he table, the penguin knocked over furniture and occasionally pushed things over the edge of the side-table onto the carpet. When the penguin wound down, I rewound it and returned it to the table, continuing until no furniture was left on the table. 
Dan Deprenger also participated in the piece, standing behind each plant-person, doing remarkably good imitations of bird calls. 

Some of the impetus for the piece:
As well as a regional nod to animal husbandry, the use of domesticated animals their voluntary "service" scale this up to the artist not confined inside the walls of the museum, rearranging the museum "furniture", and providing the expected courtesies -- but unrestrained, outside the museum walls. 
The "uniform" was a reference to Duchamp, "I live the life of a waiter," Levi Strauss the artist as magician, and the musicians of the C.N.P.A.
I recently found this quote about Duchamp's boite-en-valise that makes a relevant connection:
Duchamp had similarly begun just before WWII to reflect on the extent to which art itself was becoming an industry, mediated through institutions like museums, He allegorized this situation when he reproduced his work in miniature or through photographs in the salesman's sample case that became the Boite-en-Valise (Box in a Valise, 1941)
George Baker on Marcel Broodthaers, ARTFORUM, May 1966

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MIDWAY, October 23, 1971, University of Iowa Museum of Art "The Penguin: as a Domestic" was a performance piece, presented after dark outside the main entrance to the museum on a large, raised patio. A brief physical description of the piece: Four individuals held potted plants at the corners of a square about the size of a large living room. In the center was s small persian rug; on the rug, a small cherry side table, beside the table, a floor lamp lighting the surface of it; on the table, small (miniature) table in the center, surrounded by other pieces of livingroom furniture (antique doll furniture, including chairs, a sideboard with dishes, a sofa, end table, floor and table lamps) I stood beside the table, dressed in a tuxedo (with tails) , barefoot. I wound a mechanical toy, a tin penguin painted to resemble a butler (with tails), which I then set on the table amidst the furnishings. As it waddled around t he table, the penguin knocked over furniture and occasionally pushed things over the edge of the side-table onto the carpet. When the penguin wound down, I rewound it and returned it to the table, continuing until no furniture was left on the table. Dan Deprenger also participated in the piece, standing behind each plant-person, doing remarkably good imitations of bird calls. Some of the impetus for the piece: As well as a regional nod to animal husbandry, the use of domesticated animals their voluntary "service" scale this up to the artist not confined inside the walls of the museum, rearranging the museum "furniture", and providing the expected courtesies -- but unrestrained, outside the museum walls. The "uniform" was a reference to Duchamp, "I live the life of a waiter," Levi Strauss the artist as magician, and the musicians of the C.N.P.A. I recently found this quote about Duchamp's boite-en-valise that makes a relevant connection: Duchamp had similarly begun just before WWII to reflect on the extent to which art itself was becoming an industry, mediated through institutions like museums, He allegorized this situation when he reproduced his work in miniature or through photographs in the salesman's sample case that became the Boite-en-Valise (Box in a Valise, 1941) George Baker on Marcel Broodthaers, ARTFORUM, May 1966