Beer is always good, so let’s make that happen.

You bring up some very good points that aim at the more subtle relationships between artwork and the world.

And there is a quality about how Cohen’s work “enters the world” (as you say) that is very captivating.

I didn’t gather that the filmed document was that vital to Cohen, though the purpose of them is definitely to film him. I think he called the film works “ghosts” of the performance.

Photography is fascinating, and does raise tons of ethical issues. I think photography will always have an ethically complicated place in the world, and in the arts.

Again, yes to beer, and more of this discussion.

First, I do agree with you on many points, and felt that Steven’s work raised a number of ethical quandaries, but lets come back to that in a moment.

The night I was present, an audience member asked Steven if he always filmed his “performances.” While I don’t remember his exact response, the jist of it was yes, it somehow doesn’t exist without the document. An important question here is if the film “document” is essential to this modality of performance art? I think it clearly is, and thus does shift some of the more subtle points under discussion. For example, the 2nd film from NY had a number of sections where there were no pedestrians present, where the performance was clearly made for the camera, such as the final scene at Ground Zero, or the scene with the Empire State Building behind the skulls/shoes. While all the films had the illusion that these were simple documents of a live performance, I experienced this as within a tradition of using the document as a type of transparent enclosure. The film was the medium, yet as an audience we felt the film was simply a recording of a live performance event. Might it be that we as a culture are so familiar with visual media and film, that when used as a “document” it somehow passes right through us? Like a stealth airplane invisible to radar?

Check out the photographer and thinker, Jeff Wall’s terrific essay, “Marks of Indifference”, for a more in depth discussion of the use of the transparency of the document in contemporary art.

As to the ethical quandaries this work brought up for me, well I’m not going to go very deep into these questions here, or I’ll be up all night writing this comment. So 1 or 2 quick points:

Watching the film from South Africa, all the questions you brought up went through my mind. For me, Steven’s work very much exists in the sphere that I spoke of in my earlier comment of work “that chooses to enter the world as it happens.” This is complex territory; I for one am more suspicious (to give just 1 example) of Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen’s, Kibera photographs.

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/c.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.StoryDetail_VPage&pid=2K7O3R1WUP2X.

In this case the complex web of how images are constructed are passed over, along with the ethical dilemma of what it means to enter into a slum to make these images. They are for me too pretty, nor do they make me squirm in my seat as I view them, something this subject matter I feel should accomplish. However, Bendiksen’s and Steven Cohen’s work do serve a purpose, they engage with the real world reality of global poverty, the grim fact that a growing percentage of the worlds’ population are living in transient slum communities. So, can a work of art engage with this dilemma of poverty? Can a work of art that operates in the tradition of “entering the world as it happens” engage with the dilemma of suffering? Or are these subjects, because of the ethical traps that are many, the exclusive privilege of art made in the safe confines of the studio or theatre? At least Steven Cohen’s work makes us uncomfortable (it did you and me)! We find ourselves struggling through the ethics of it while exploring our relationship to the subjects he takes up. Bendiksen’s images would make a great National Geographic spread – I’ll have no problem sleeping at night after viewing his work, that I find ethically questionable.

OK – I’m going to stop here – and I’ve barely begun addressing this massive ball of complexities and questions, such as Cohen’s non-intervention as the South African slums are torn down. Clearly a couple of beers are in order so we can argue the night away eye to eye!