Sister Insider

Carr, C. On Edge: Perfromance at the End of the Twentieth Century. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.

On Edge is a collection of C. Car's essays for the Village Voice, mostly covering performance art. Ironically, her introduction claims that underground performance peaked in 1985, but all of her articles come from the late '80s. The articles are incredibly valuable as documents of the work of Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, Annie Sprinkle, Chris Burden, etc. And a few of the articles are quite brilliant and really well-written (I particularly enjoyed "Splendour in the Crass" and her pieces on Mapplethorpe and censorship). Overall, I very much recommend this book for those who are interested in '80s performance artists.

I did, however, have a problem with a lot of Carr's writing. While I appreciate the immense value of these essays as a cultural record, I didn't quite enjoy her tone. She seemed to be trading mostly on her freindship with these artists. Her attitude verged on the superior and condescending, invested more in demonstrating how hip and in with these artists she is rather than thoroughly examining the work. There's a strange way in which these articles are not reviews and aren't really analysis, they're just a strange, not always complete description. Carr seems to be trading on her insider status and the cache of the 'bohemia' about which she writes, but doesn't quite capture or even seem to understand the energy and the politics that animated these performances.