Fresno Sleezo

    

   Who is that man? What's in the wheel barrel? Where did she come from? All these questions were flowing in my head only 5 minutes into Vicki Hall's reenactment of her 1970's presentation of Fresno Sleezo. On Thursday March 7, my Art 112 class gathered in the University Library Gallery at Sacramento State to watch what will go down in history as my first ever performance art show. After reading the pamphlet it was of my understanding that this show had only been performed once before. Vicki Hall stated in the Q&A portion of the show, that she did performances for specific audiences and that is one of the reasons she did not want to perform it again. Although we may have not been her intended audience, I think we all appreciated and gained something from this one-of-a-kind performance piece. 

    Before the performance began there were two older women in blonde wigs dressed up like flight attendants who silently ushered me into a specific seat. I sat around for a while thinking of the different possibilities of what will be shown. Alas the wait was over, and everyone was in their seats ready to go. From the back left of my seat came a large, tattooed man in white overalls with a wheel barrel escorted by one of the ushers from before. He walked to the center stage of the room and emptied the barrel and walked out. As someone who has never been to any type of performance art, I did not have any insight on what as normal and what was not but throughout the show I felt as though I was the only one confused and humored. A woman came out next in the same white uniform as he wore and started to look around. At first glance I thought the man and woman were possibly a form of painters or construction workers, but I was wrong. She began rummaging through the junk the man dumped out and started putting parts together. She put together a tray necklace, curtains on the wall, a chair, a dining tray and then laid out some water, toy guns and rubber bullets. She then left and the man entered again. 

    At this point in the performance, I was still quite confused on the message. It was a silent performance so far and, in my opinion, silence connotes to seriousness, yet I couldn't understand one serious element to this show yet. After the man had come in to inspect how well everything was set up, the woman came in smiling and in a different outfit. She now looked like a circus performer. The woman gave the man a look that said " hey do you like what I've done with the place" or so I translate. And he nodded yes. 

     This is where I get very confused. With the man's help, the woman starts pinning herself to the wall and puts on the tray necklace that went over her whole chest. Then the man sits down, loads up his nerf gun and starts shooting the rubber bullets at the tray. I looked around to see if anyone else looked as puzzled as I could not tell. I couldn't tell if this was now a circus act or some form of sexual innuendo in which I should feel like I am interrupting something. The shooting came to an end, and he unfastened her from the wall, and they left happily together. She then came back by herself and did a candlestick cheer pose that seemed to represent her delight with the situation that just occurred and then walked out. To conclude the show the man collected all his belongings back into the barrel and walked out as well. During the question-and-answer portion of the show I wanted badly to ask, " so what was it about?", but I chickened out and got nervous hearing all of the previous questions about the history and production elements. I left that room smiling with friends wondering, "what did we just watch?", but also really enlightened about the possibilities and significance of performance art. All in all, it was a unique experience that I was honored to be apart of.