That '70s Ho: The Cultural Worker Series

Description:

As a part of the That ’70s Ho: A Celebration of Women and Performance Circa 1970 performance series, Cindy Baker paid tribute to Bonnie Sherk with The Cultural Worker Series, which consisted of performances of The Gallery Director, The University Professor, and Dinner with the Artist.

Sherk was one of the first artists to take the notion of the readymade and translate it into the field of performance—she posited that any action, if undertaken with a critical mind and suitable contextualization, could be art. Baker presented an update of Sherk’s work vis-à-vis changing vocabularies, ideals, politics, and times.

In The Waitress (1973), Sherk highlighted the predicament of the artist needing to work minimum wage service jobs to survive. While evoking memories of The Waitress, Baker's tribute titled The Gallery Director questioned whether the contemporary art world has forced artists to be involved in more aspects other than a producer in order to survive. Baker’s performance took place in the Western Front offices where she stepped in for Victoria Singh for a day. 

The University Professor raised many of the same concerns. Referencing The Farm (1974) in which Sherk acquired land from the city of San Francisco underneath a major freeway interchange and ran it as a farm, amongst other things, The University Professor questioned the loss of political and environmental ideals to institutions that provide a simpler and more comfortable career path.

Dinner with the Artist framed Sherk’s interventions to assert more natural space for public enjoyment in Portable Parks (1970), against the art world cult of personality. Instead of facilitating publicly accessible picnics, Baker dined in private with a selected few.

Video documentation is available upon request.