Chew, Drink, and Spit: A Book Review
Abstract: The performance entitled Chew, Drink and Spit: A Book Review took place in a studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, as a response to the 2012 publication of The Last Art College (MIT Press) by Canadian conceptual artist Garry Neil Kennedy. An urgent need was felt to address the typical ahistorical and nostalgic fashion with which Mr. Kennedy presented “his” period of conceptual art and pedagogy at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) as the height of Canadian conceptualism and arts-based education. The action combined performance and book review. Sitting at a table, each page where Garry Neill Kennedy’s name appeared in his book was partially chewed and spitted back into a peanut butter container labelled “Last Art College.” This article explores whether the protesting body, as it consumed and regurgitated the “Last Art College,” can be read and interpreted as an embodied epistemology. Can flesh and embodied critique offer a new and different dynamic perspective on the “Last Art Col...