User:Peterdobey/Nate Conrad

Nate Conrad (b.1974) is a controversial American performance artist, whose notorious works have garnered both high accolades and bitter scorn. Alternately celebrated for his pioneering achievements in the field of Conceptual Art and derided for his non-conformist methodologies, Conrad's performances frequently incite critical debate amongst contemporary art scholars, especially in intellectual circles associated with the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI).

Biography
Conrad was reared in a small town in Colorado, where he was the third of five children. Born to an alcoholic father and groupie mother, he spent his early childhood shining shoes in the back of a local tavern for tips, which he used to play his favorite songs on the jukebox. Conrad first received attention in 2006 as an undergraduate at SFAI, where he was a student in Tony Labat's "New Genres 1" class. It was during this period that he established the framework and overriding themes for his most important works. On September 6th, 2006, Conrad performed the now infamous and seminal work "Introduction," in which he sat on a metal chair and drank a beer while bobbing his head to the music of Ike and Tina Turner's "Betcha' cant kiss me." According to a contemporary who witnessed the piece, he stood up after finishing his beer and stated: "That’s pretty much me," marking the cessation of his performance. This piece is widely regarded as one of Conrad’s most important because it established his abrasive and brutally honest aesthetic, and set a precedent for future works in which he appropriates himself. Playing on the old adage that an artist must "live his art," Conrad presents an extension of his own personal life, and of society’s perception of him, as his work.

Once described as a: "humdrum bro' who just likes drinking beer," habitually analyzed as insane, rash, insouciant, or feebleminded, Conrad is also regularly championed as one of the great minds of our time, and endowed with such venerable descriptions as: “man of brilliance,” “savior,” and “messiah.”

From his early career to the present, Conrad continues to make works that challenge the viewer’s conception of art’s role in society by fusing facets of violence, exclusion, madness, and fixation with his signature formula of drinking beer and being himself. Emphasizing his personal entitlement to vitality, freedom, and choice as fundamental aspects of human existence, his performances exude a sense of existential rationale. Eschewing the influence of fellow contemporary performance artists such as Karen Finley, Vito Acconci, and Chris Burden, Conrad chooses to focus on his own personal indulgences and does not over-emphasize the theory behind his work. He has repeatedly been quoted as saying: "I don’t give a fuck."

Disruption Art
An article in the Spring 2007 edition of HOARD magazine discusses Conrad’s recent “exclusion pieces” and how they have spawned a resurgence in gallery based performance art in San Francisco. HOARD characterizes these works as defining a new psychology of "disruption art” : art that criticizes, or disrupts, established standards of art institutions. Conrad's stylistic choice to remain unperturbed and debonair while engaging in destructive acts such as defacing pristine gallery walls with splattered paint (as in "Red Paint") or violently stabbing photographs with a knife (as in "It’s Up to You!" II) illustrates his conceptually aggressive dissent from the bureaucratic gallery system that maintains a stronghold on the contemporary art scene.

Criticism
Conrad chooses not to discuss the inspiration or theory behind his art and encourages observers to form their own interpretations. Immediately following several of his performances, he has informed the audience that the motivation for and value of his work is: "up for you to decide." Conrad has been stridently criticized for this position by critics and artists alike who adhere to the institutional convention that the work of art must be legitimized via the artist statement. Others though, see Conrad's unsparingly honest work as the embodiment of true art by being utterly autonomous, and thus, so emotionally provoking as to need no statement or declaration to validate it.

The Peters
Since the inception of Conrad’s body of “disruption art” performances, two San Francisco scholars: Peter Merritt Jr. and Peter Max Lawrence, have become obsessed with Conrad’s work, and more strangely his personal life, writing and lecturing extensively on both his conceptual prowess and the "fanciful and magnificent life Nate leads."[9] International art critics as well as the faculty and students of SFAI are baffled as to why the acclaimed intellectual duo frequently dubbed "the Peters" have focused so exclusively on Conrad in the course of his short career. "The Peters" have reportedly responded, saying: "We see Mr. Conrad as the 21st century Marcel Duchamp."

Timeline of Selected Works

 * 08.30.06 - "Introduction" - With Ike and Tina Turner's "Betcha' cant kiss me" playing in the background, he just sat in his chair drinking a beer.


 * 09.13.06 - "the space between your knees" Nate nonchalantly placed a nickel between his knees (referencing the old school yard phrase) whilst reminiscing about ex-girlfriends. He then slowly spread his knees and let the nickel drop to the floor.


 * 09.20.06 - "loaded" and "1 minute" - He combined two class assignments given to him by professor Tony Labat. Loaded involved making a piece that played on the word Loaded and 1 minute asked the artist to make a piece exactly one minute long. Nate slammed a 22oz beer in a minute.


 * 10.04.06 - Appropriated youtube footage of previous piece and showed it during class, if for no other reason than to keep within the instructor's rule about using alcohol in the room only when it is part of the artwork. He also made some bold statements to the class after fellow students and Tony Labat questioned his motives and the quality of the work. He gave a lengthy defense of the work, without addressing the actual intent of the piece, and has been quoted as saying "are you making fun of my work?...I mean you are all full of bullshit..."


 * 10.11.06- "exclusion" - During one of Labat's classes, Nate kicked every student out of the room, and then invited Professor Labat back into the room, then another student, and then one more. Once all four of them were in the room, they partook in an activity which to this day has not been confirmed as to its exact details, but the students standing outside of the door remember hearing loud music, unintelligible chatter, and screaming. After several minutes the remainder of the class was allowed back in only to find spilled booze and knife stabs in the studio wall.


 * 11.01.06 - "peter & peter exclusion" - he kicked "the Peters" out of the room, who were visiting one of the classes, lit a cigarette and discussed the weird fascination that these two people had for him.


 * 11.08.06- Displayed large-scale photographs, and encouraged other students to use a hunting knife and razor blades to cut and draw onto the large images.


 * 11.15.06 - He threw paint on the wall and broke a bottle while listening to the music of Primus . Upon performing this, professor Labat slapped him and told him to never come back again. After being scorn, Nate walked out of the door and away from the campus head banging as he left.


 * 11.22.06 - Wrote "BULLSHIT" on the wall of the San Francisco Art Institute's studio 10 during a class, while Tony Labat scrolled through websites discussing the Vienna Actionists movement.


 * 11.29.06 - Asked instructor Tony Labat for his lighter, then proceeded to rip out essay written by Labat from SFAI library and then proceeded to burn pages in the central area near his chair.