Abel Azcona at Art League Houston

Abel AZCONA at Art League Houston, photo courtesy of Alex Barber

“I appreciate that its danger was its power. I appreciate that Azcona was using this technique to force his audience into his piece, confronting each of us with an unwitnessable act, compelling us to intervene, or leave.”

Click here to read this article from GLASSTIRE.com “Lone Star Performance Explosion: Some of Night 2” by Bill Davenport.

Also, This reply from Jim Pirtle is worth repeating.
Jim Pirtle
February 26, 2014 at 16:36 Reply

Utero- I talked to the artist about his piece. He gave be some background. When he was born the umbilical cord had wrapped around his neck and literally and figuratively his life began in strangulation . His mother was a heroine addict and prostitute in Madrid which informed all three of his pieces during the festival. I asked if it bothered him that the audience stopped his third attempt in which seemed like a suicide attempt. He said he uses a special kind of material for the rope and a type of knot that minimizes the risk and had no thought of dying. He said his worse injury was when someone cut the rope and he broke his nose running into a wall. And no he expects to be stopped (9 tries is the most the audience has ever allowed.
I thought about Stanley Milgram’s psychological experiments about power and control and how far would we go or allow him to go before we said no more this is wrong and we won’t be a part. I was looking for a knife and angry at his putting my humanity to some sort of test for art-how the night would have gone if he had died. I left after his performance- rather unsettled and upset.