What we can learn from Shia LaBeouf's performance at the Berlin Film Festival in 2014

What we can learn from Shia LaBeouf's performance at the Berlin Film Festival in 2014

art initiative that should be taught beyond art history textbooks -

Shia LaBeouf today is the main enfant terrible of the art world. This is confirmed by numerous escapades at press conferences, art performances offline and in social networks, scandals with the police and, in general, what we have especially appreciated lately, the courage to be yourself. LaBeouf was born into a family of artists - his father worked as a circus clown, and his mother was a dancer (and then an artist and designer). Servants of art differ from the rest precisely in free-thinking and love of freedom, and Shia was lucky to inherit these rare qualities.

He changed his faith for the sake of the role - during the filming of the film "Rage", LaBeouf converted to Christianity. He abandoned makeup in favor of real cuts that he inflicted on himself - for the same "Fury". He did not hesitate to say that Spielberg's film "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", in which he himself played, failed (thus ruining relations with the director). All the above actions speak of one thing: love for the truth and for the present. He was detained by the police many times, he disrupted press conferences, and all this was actively savored in the tabloids for many years. But in 2014, all LaBeouf's petty hooliganism on the street was forgotten - thanks to a long performance that began on Twitter and ended in galleries around the world.

In 2014, throughout January, LaBeouf tweeted the same phrase daily: "I'm not famous anymore." In February, during the Berlin Film Festival, the premiere of "Nymphomaniac" took place, where LaBeouf played the main male role. The tape attracted a lot of attention from the press and the public to him, and, as he himself later explained, such publicity became too heavy a burden for him. LaBeouf, accustomed to hiding in a paper bag from the ubiquitous paparazzi, decided to repeat his everyday trick on the red carpet. I Am Not Famous Anymore ("I'm not famous anymore") - read the actor's homemade shield from prying eyes, who was experiencing an existential crisis at that time. That evening, no one was interested in what Stacey Martin and Uma Thurman were wearing - the main wardrobe item was an ordinary paper bag from a supermarket, which turned into a statement accessory.

However, LaBeouf's public life did not end there - soon, in the same Berlin, he arranged a performance in the genre of the art of endurance, which Marina Abramović would definitely love. The main condition was that the actor must be silent. After some time, he admitted that he was sexually abused by a visitor. Similarly, granting freedom to the public in 1974 by performing her famous Rhythm 0 performance, Abramović suffered a number of physical injuries.

What can the experience of LaBeouf and Abramović tell the viewer watching from the side? In these performances, the visitor was endowed with absolute power, while the author was only supposed to be silent and inactive. This interaction ended in cruelty and violence, thereby showing the law of social behavior: passivity is always equal to submission. The same rule works in patriarchal families, where a woman, by definition, does not have the right to vote, and with it no freedom of action. The art of endurance, like no other genre, clearly shows patterns of behavior and their consequences.