Responding to Site

'With this long overdue publication, editors Jennie Klein and Natalie Loveless have successfully curated a volume that claims critical space for Arsem’s body and magnifies its distinct odor. [...] Beyond the critical essays, handfuls of performance photographs appear at the end of each section in the volume. Quite pleasurably, these visual vignettes bring the tactile environments of Arsem’s work into delicate focus. [...] Responding to Site validates the work of performance artists who most often operate outside the bounds of traditional time structures and codified performance spaces. The book is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in performance art and an integral monograph about one of the field’s most prolific makers.'

-- Raegan Truax, TDR: The Drama Review

'What this book does admirably well is to provide as much of an experience of Arsem’s work as possible considering the limitations of the medium of text. It also avoids falling into the trap of attempting to only represent her artistic output: the broad scope of the twelve essays in this collection ensures that Arsem’s work is situated in global social and political contexts, making this book a valuable resource for those not only interested in performance art, but in art theory and practice more generally. [...] Intrinsically ephemeral, transient and temporary Arsem’s work may be, but Responding to Site: The Performance Art of Marilyn Arsem nevertheless allows access to at least some aspects of this art, and the ethos of the artist. As such it is a significant resource, a valuable collection of artistic traces, an impactful archival document and a moving and engaging read.'

-- Mareli Stolp, Journal for Artistic Research

'Austere, demanding, rigorous, pedagogical while also rich, generous, kind, and companionable, the work of Marilyn Arsem has long been respected within a branch of performance art that has resisted commodification. This book extends knowledge of her work to those who have not been able to see it first hand. Extensive illustrations complement essays by academics, curators and fellow artists. Contextualising and analysing her practices from distinct viewpoints, each essay focuses upon particular works or bodies of work, building into a comprehensive offering. This is essential reading for an understanding of Arsem’s oeuvre.'

-- Hilary Robinson, Loughborough University

'I have had the privilege of knowing Marilyn for over 30 years. Her work has given me so many epiphanies about live art, time-based art practice and durational performance practice. How and why do you choose a single action and enact it over an extended period of time? How do you respond to site and create a sacred meditational zone; a reflexive space about the human condition? And most importantly, how do you teach future generations about the importance of living while making art as a spiritual and philosophical practice? This book is yet another example of Arsem’s legacy. Fundamental, I’d say.'

-- Guillermo Gómez-Peña

'Watching Marilyn Arsem perform can be a slow, careful, vulnerable and heart-stoppingly profound experience. To see her is to know better the complex, intermingling particularities of body, space, time, being and action. Reading this comprehensive, lucidly written and deeply insightful book – the first significant publication on Arsem’s practice as a performance artist – will enable new perspectives on a major artist’s work. It also sheds vivid light upon enduring themes for the critical encounter with art: duration and doing, materiality and nothingness, truth and representation, commitment and experiment, togetherness and solitude, experience and endurance.'

-- Dominic Johnson, Queen Mary University of London

'The performance work of Marilyn Arsem is always generous, stubborn, anxious, smarty-pants and beautiful as hell. Finally we have a book that equals this amazing and affective career that even now continues to grow, influence and surprise!'

-- Pope.L

'I am one of the lucky people to have participated in a workshop led by Marilyn Arsem. It changed my perspectives on seeing, thinking, making and teaching. This long-overdue encounter with Arsem's remarkable site responsive performance work opens with a Manifesto for Performance Art. We are told that performance art cannot be held, saved, reproduced; it is experienced. I believe that is true. But this carefully curated publication of photographs, accounts and essays, like Arsem's work, holds open the space for renewed attentiveness, allowing for a different but no less profound experience. This is a book that calls for your time.'

-- Dee Heddon, University of Gla