"Truth and consequences": The aesthetic experience behind Verity interpretation

Beatriz A. Medeiros
1. Introduction
In august 2015, the American musician Amanda Palmer posed in front of the
New York Public Library, naked, covered only by body painting, 8 months pregnant
and with the purpose of collect children's books for the New Yorker institution. The
moment the performance happened, who didn't recognize Palmer's artistic figure may
have been somewhat confused. However, the singer shows herself as relatively famous
not only for controversial appearances1, but also supporting free access to art2, female
rights and just because she felt that was the right thing to do 3. Nevertheless, it's not the
first time Amanda Palmer gets naked in front a large crowd and it doesn't seem to affect
the artist as it affects the mass media4 or the critics5.
The flashier performances executed by Palmer always are followed by very
interesting responses. This can happen because of the high aesthetic value, or the
constant questioning around the artist, if what she does is art or not as it seems to be
"too easy" or "too accessible"6. However, I intend to analyze this particular
performance, since it seems to be forged differently from what Palmer's fans find
themselves accustomed. Other than anterior cases, Amanda Palmer reported all the
process that transformed her at the human version of Damien Hirst's statue, Verity, in
her blog7 and at her Patreon page8.
Before I deepen the artistic subject, it is important to contextualize the moment
in which the artist opt to create such performance, and further on the relevance of this
event as a setting factor for Palmer as an independent performer artist, even if it doesn't
involved music creation.
1

"Amanda Palmer: Naked & Dead at the Golden Globes", article published at The Huffington Post. Link:
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/amanda-palmer-naked-dead_b_429343.html>,
last
access:
08/30/2016.
2
"Amanda
Palmer's
Dopey Topless
Protest",
article
published
at LA
Weekly.
Link:
<http://www.laweekly.com/music/amanda-palmers-dopey-topless-protest-nsfw-2399141>, last access: 08/30/2016.
3
"Amanda Palmer: How to drink with your fans", article published at New Statesman. Link:
<http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/drinking-your-fans>, last access: 08/30/2016.
4
"Making a boob of herself! Amanda Palmer's breast escapes her bra as she performs on stage at Glastonbury",
article published at Daily Mail. Link: <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2351373/Making-boobAmanda-Palmers-breast-escapes-bra-performs-stage-Glastonbury.html>, last access: 08/30/2016.
5
"Amanda
Palmer:
Naked
and
Hairy!",
post
at
the
blog
Grimy
Goods.
Link:
<http://www.grimygoods.com/2009/07/16/amanda-palmer-naked-and-hairy/>, lat access: 09/01/2016.
6
"Amanda Palmer: 'this is the future of music'", post at the blog Insp. Link: <http://insp.ngo/amanda-palmer-this-isthe-future-of-music/>, last access: 09/01/2016.
7
At: <http://amandapalmer.net/truth-and-consequences/>, last access: 09/01/2016.
8
At: <https://www.patreon.com/amandapalmer>, last access: 09/17/2016.

Amanda Palmer inserted herself in online community of Patreon in march of

2015. The website of financial support has a mechanism of Automatic finance capital
raising to creators, or producers, that desired to earn money by doing what they know.
This money is provided by "patrons", people interested in purchase what the creator of
"Things" as it is called at Patreon offer. These productions revolve around the
music, audiovisual and graphic areas, literature and among other materials, art related or
not. Until the present date9, Patreon has more than 1.180.000 "patrons" individuals10
supporting more than 40.000 creators11.
Palmer, according to statistics of Patreon12, is the creator with greater number of
"patrons" (8.564, until the present date) and with more incoming per "Thing" (around
33.950 US dollars). Her exposition as human statue to promote children's book donation
to the New York Public Libraby were a "Thing" supported by Amanda's "patrons" that,
in theory, didn't received any exclusive return from the artist. Even so, I'm not
concerned about these statistics and their meaning surrounding Amanda Palmer, her
fans and the impressive monetary aid she attracts to herself. I'm more concerned on
analyzing the response some of Palmer's fans, as well as her performance seeing this
was sold as a "Thing". Therefore, it is to understand, following the epistemology of
Performance Art and theorization that discuss artistic authenticity, if Amanda Palmer's
Verity version can be considered a merchantable art or if this performance should be
funded by the artist herself, as the case of so many happenings13 in the 1970' and 1980'
decades (COHEN, 2002).

2. Performance art and its impact as response stimulators

Goffman (1959) wrote,
"Uma performance pode ser definida como toda e qualquer atividade de um determinado
participante em uma certa ocasio, e que serve para influenciar de qualquer maneira, qualquer
dos participantes." (SCHECHNER, 2006)
"A performance can be defined as all and whatever activity of a certain participant in a certain
occasion, and it serves to influence in any way, any participant." (SCHECHNER, 2006).

The sociologist, quoted by Richard Schechner, complements saying that the

repetition and the ritual are part of the performance process. Performance is rehearsed,
9

Date of: 09/17/2016

Statistics present at: <https://graphtreon.com/patreon-stats>, last access: 08/30/2016.
11
Statistics present at: <https://graphtreon.com/all-patreon-creators>, last access: 08/30/2016
12
At: <https://graphtreon.com/>, last access: 09/24/2016.
13
Aesthetic acting broadly used by visual artists, actors and actresses targeted mostly at United Stated of America, in
the 70's (COHEN, 2002).
10

replicated and executed several times, creating patterns that will be named by Schechner
as "restored behavior", or twice experienced (2002). This is one of the many definitions
to answer the questions "What is a performance?" However, I understand performance
as more than repeated or ritualized actions.
Still inside the light of Richard Schechner (2006), we see a differentiation
between two looks towards performance, the "as" and the "is". Deepening these two
terms, he explains that ""Is" performance refers to events defined and connected,
marked by a context, a convention, an use and tradition" (SCHECHNER, 2006, 69),
whereas everything can be understood "as" performance, that is performance can be
seen as a execution process that involves bodies, meanings and emotions transmission.
For Schechner, this kind of performance has artistic and cultural values that can't be
ignored and that is a part of a social construction. Performance is present inside
universal cultural logic, even if applied differently in distinct regions and populations.
The Brazilian researcher and performer Renato Cohen (2002) agrees with
Schechner theory that reads performance as a process. As Cohen writes, performance art
shows itself, before all, as an "scenic expression" (COHEN, 2002, 28), which means
that it is related with the artist body, how she shows herself to the public, the way she
pass a message. The performance is structured as scenic art, or art that happens as
spectacle, that necessarily involves artists, its body, distinguishing from other lines of
work, like visual arts. Cohen (2002) sees the performance art differently from
Schechner vision. In appearances like happenings or theatricality, the author agrees that
human and cultural values are lost when necessary. These kind of breaks are important
because will antagonize to current social impositions such as mass media and art
capitalization.
"A mdia, representada pelos chamados "meios de comunicao" e pela propaganda, se
encarrega de transformar qualquer movimento esttico-filosfico em moda e,
conseqentemente, capitalizar em cima dele." (COHEN, 2002, p. 152).
"The means of communication, represented by the so called "media" and propaganda, is
responsible to transform any movement philosophical-aesthetic in fashion, and, thereafter,
capitalize on them." (COHEN, 2002, p. 152)

Renato Cohen sees the mass media and the capitalism as the principal villains to
artistic creativity, because the system segment what must be produced, how it should be
produced and who can consume and how to consume. Artistic performance has the
functions to come upon these conventions.

Understand performance as an contemporary artistic form (COHEN, 2002;

ROCHA, 2014), the impact will be reveled as an important factor while happening.
Nol Carroll (2003) in his book "Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays", will affirm
that aesthetic experience present in artistic narratives induce different conflicts between
artist, work of art and public. These conflicts, or attitudes that clash with morals
constructed socially, are present in different narrative genders and are searched by the
consumer public of work of arts itself (CARROLL, 2003, 17). Cohen (2002) will see
the performance impact as something necessary, even if not constant, to draw the
attention of the public to the speech made by the artist. Complementing in a way Renato
Cohen's theory, Susana Rocha (2014) will affirm that the impact is an important
mediator in the public-artist relation during the performance. Is the impact that will
generate reactions in the audience in relation with the action the performer artist
performs, considering that exists an interaction space between artist and audience
throughout the artistic process.
During Amanda Palmer's performance as human statue, physical interaction
didn't occur. The artist was on top of a set up pedestal made so the people around could
put the books that would be donated to the New York Public Library. As human statue,
Palmer only moved when she received such "offer" if this word can be used looking
each donator on the eyes, like she
did back then, when she was an
street artist, before starting her
musician career (PALMER, 2015).
Even so, to not touch didn't
meant that the singer's act not
caused a smaller reaction on who
was by the Library that moment.
Observing

two

platforms

that

encourage comments and photos

sharing (the section of comments in
Amanda Palmer's own post14 and
the website of amateur photo

Image 1: Amanda Palmer as human statue in front of the NYPL.

Font:
http://67.media.tumblr.com/6550c6460cb4cdc38d1a08b90c674
14
Discussion present in: < http://amandapalmer.net/truth-and-consequences/>,
last access: 09/17/2016.
0c3/tumblr_ntet16o45t1sh4z4so2_500.jpg

sharing Crowdalbum15), I managed to find some interesting reactions from the

observation and interpretation made by the public itself after Palmer's performance.

Image 2: A fan comment on the post of Amanda Palmer

The comment at Image 2, written by a fan and "patron" of Amanda Palmer

serves as an illustration for what we call interpretative response to the aesthetic
performance of musician. Even if Palmer, at no time, have spoken about how she
wished to represent fear in her performance, the fan interpreted the artist's action as
staging of fears her on self felt, making some sort of transference of her own
experiences and sensations towards the dramatization of Verity. Furthermore, is
possible to see the impact the fan suffer to see what was made by the artist she supports
at Patreon. The quote "This is not at all what I expected, and, indeed, it's SO MUCH
BETTER.", can be understood as an expression of this impact, in the sense of surprise.
I also observe and not only in this comment that in general, that wasn't
relevant regrets inside Palmer's "paying fanbase" after the artist performance as human
statue. Express that "I am so, so glad to have backed your Patreon." is necessary
approval that the musician receives after posting such event in her personal blog.

Image 3: Three comments of fans about Patreon and money usage made by Amanda Palmer

The three comments replicated at Image 3 also are relevant for demonstrating
public acceptance about the usage Palmer makes with the money patrons provide her
and that were used to create the acting performance of human Verity. However, these
15

See at: < https://www.crowdalbum.com/album/55d77326617070395600002c/Amanda-Palmer-As-A-LivingStatue_20150820?mediaId=1056076695388358437_34843136>, last access: 09/17/2016.

comments go beyond acceptance. The capitalization of Amanda's work by the fans

offers these people a sense of closeness to the artist and her art. The play with the letters
to characterize the duality of our/your ( "(y)our") shows that there is an approach in the
execution of art through financial capital, as if Amanda's money, given by fans, were
entirely hers, to use as she likes, because there is a trust relation between public and
artist. This affirmation is highlighted by the first comment in the Image 3, especially the
part "so whatever you do, it's worth my money", is, in a way, the trust deposit in Palmer
and her artistic production.
These demonstrations of trust at the relationship between artist and public, that
go beyond the artistic barrier and are molded until arrived at artist's capitalization, or
sponsorship, stage are interesting to analyze because are developed with some sort of
"freedom" between the two parts. Freedom the artist has to produce what she wants and
freedom the public has to pay for what it wants, in the quantity it judges fair.

Image 4: Comment by a fan in Crowdalbum website

At Image 4, is possible to see a brief account made by a fan of Amanda Palmer

about the people reaction around the ongoing performance. Even if this specific fan
hasn't show an impact reaction, as a shocked one, or surprise, the questions of those
around the happening related that was, in fact, such answer from the public receiver.
The impact is shown as an "added value in capturing audience attention" (ROCHA,
2014, 23) in the related case, with the objective of collect books that will be donated to
the children's wing in the New York Public Library.
However, I noticed that the impact here not only draws attention to the cause,
but also to the artist performing. If Amanda Palmer's goal was to create a commotion to
promote awareness for a cause or if her goal was only to expose herself in an artistic
acting, both the episodes require public participation.
To Palmer, this is a way of work as an artist, thus it seems to make sense that she
receives for what she produces, even what she "sells" isn't music. The musician will
justify this by trying to prove herself as an authentic persona, technically this ought to
legitimate her performances and songs. This factor is an important variant for analyzes
of Verity's interpretation and the reception of the audience.

3. Artist and authenticity

Seeing the speeches made by Amanda Palmer in her book "The Art of Asking"
(2015), the issue about authenticity is shown as a constant factor for the artist. In many
parts the musician writes about the necessity in being believed,
"Ria pensando em todos os artistas que conheci (...) que decidiram abrir mo de uma vida
com salrio previsvel, ascenso na carreira e declarao no imposto de renda (...) e que tudo
isso, talvez se resumisse a uma coisa s:
ACREDITEM EM MIM.
Acreditem em mim.
Sou real." (PALMER, 2015, p. 38-39)16
"I laughed thinking on all those artists I knew (...) that decided to give away a life with
predictable salary, career climb and income tax return (...) and all of these, perhaps to sum up
in one thing:
BELIEVE ME.
Believe me.
I'm real. "

Palmer, in this moment, searches the explanation for what she understands in
being a motivation that guides independent artists, the desire to be seen and believed.

16

The highlights here are included by the author herself.

The desire in being authentic. However, how can an artist mostly an independent17
one can be seen as authentic, something real?
When referring to modern individuals, Charles Taylor (1991) will affirm that
authenticity is obtained when a subject decides to listen to its own "inner voice"
(TAYLOR, 1991, 29) that states the particular moral concept of the particular person,
even if not necessarily connected with the general social moral. This, for the author, is
the only way to reach the true human state, for the individual to get in touch with its
own qualities, not dictated by third parts. In other words, reach the authenticity stage in
its fullness.
Accord to the researcher San Kaluarachchi (2015), authenticity is intrinsically
connected to the quantity of experiences and personal information a musician put in her
own compositions. To Allan Moore (2002) authenticity goes beyond personal accounts.
It is tangled with historic and cultural constructions, providing its significance more by
the audience understanding then by lyrical compositions of a song, for example.
However, I also see as important the supposition that Amanda Palmer uses to
nominate her work as authentic, real, true. As the quoted before, the artist writes in her
book, I presume that all or almost all performances staged by her are created with
the goal of entice faith in the audience. Making the public pay how much it wants, for
what it wants, as it happens in the website Patreon, was a resource found by the
American singer to show her performances and compositions are real and are a part of
her own.
Thus my understanding resemble Kaluarachchi's notion (2015), the level of
personal content between artist and production is one of the most important factors to
measure the authenticity of certain artist. This measure, however, isn't easy scaled,
because it evolves the complexity of subjectivity and identity construction of the artist
(MOORE, 2002; TAYLOR, 1991). Besides, the relation of the audience will have with
the musician, at this case, is also very important, after all someone has to name the artist
as an authentic subject. The donator of the "gift" of truth will be, to be exact, the ones
that see the persona that wishes to be seen, the audience critics, fans and media.
Amanda Palmer searches all the time to being seen and believed, be
acknowledge as someone authentic, that produces true art. The performance adapted by
her of Damien Hirst's work of art shows an interesting illustration of what the singer
17

I understand that any artist is truly independent. She always will depend in her public, for example, to sell her
creations. Artists I called by independent are those that doesn't see themselves connected to big music labels or
records, musicians that produce and promote their creations without the help of majors.

wishes to mean. For such reading, notice the Image 5, Verity, the work chosen by
Amanda Palmer and Image 6, the artist's rereading.

Image 5: Verity by Damien Hirst. Font: http://jibridgland.blogspot.com.br/2012/10/damienhirsts-verity.html

Image 6: Verity by Amanda Palmer. Font: Jeremy Kerr

(@lemonbar77)

The copper version of Verity was described by its creator as a work of art that
should inspires justice and truth. The sculpture was made to substitute an old one, of a
pregnant native, located in the Coast city of Ilfracombe, Devon, England, ordered to
9

attract tourists to the location18. The pregnant woman is divided in the middle, showing
one dissected side, with her internal organs and baby in the venter out in the open,
besides she proudly raises a sword, caring herself with safety and haughtiness, as a
figure without fear of exposing her most intimate and fragile side. All these
characteristics stimulate a sensation of authenticity and veracity, in which Amanda
Palmer says to base her work, expressing to her audience her intimacy through her
compositions.
In her book, Palmer (2015) affirms that she uses contents of her personal life in
the process of production of her songs, as a way to prove she's real, that she passes to
situations similar with the ones of her fans daily. She also uses her Twitter 19 account to
talk about the happenings in her routine and claimed that the fans responses inspire
several responses of fans, that helped her with different lyrical creations.
In an optimistic sense, I see Palmer as Verity, proud and haughty, but still open
to the public eye. With her conflicts and humanity exposed to be seen, criticized,
supported and praised for whom she aims as target Audience or for the critics. The
selection of such sculpture seemed to be well received inside Palmer's fan base, the fact
of being pregnant while she performed as human statue created different impact
reactions, but the legitimization of something real was happening, as observed in
comments at the Images 7 and 8.

Image 7: Comment legitimating the "real artist".

Image 8: Comment legitimating the art produced by Amanda Palmer.

As shown in the comments, there is a legitimization of Amanda Palmer as a

"real" artist, authentic for inspiring other people to follow her steps, characterized by
18

See
the
interview
with
Hirst
to
North
Devon
Gazette:
<http://www.northdevongazette.co.uk/news/hirst_lifts_the_lid_on_verity_1_1651052>, last access: 09/17/2016.
19
https://twitter.com/amandapalmer, last access: 09/25/2016.

10

Dali's quote, remembered by the fan at Image 7. There's also legitimization towards
Palmer's production of art, with the justification of being an inspiration to other artists,
because she produces art with "courage", accord to the commentary of the fan at Image
8, that has an interesting speech place, since she's an

artist herself, inspired by

Amanda's performance, validating her own theory. This legitimization, even if not
academically theorized, shows all practical sentiments rising around Palmer and her
productions, by the audience paying ones or not.

4. Conclusion
This paper tried to understand if ways of non usual financial revenues, having as
representation the website Patreon, to a certain small group of artists are valid,
especially when dealing with issues concerning artist's legitimization as an authentic
being. I used the musician Amanda Palmer, because she seems to offer significant
influence regarding the use of new tools, like Social Network Sites and crowdfunding to
mobilize her fanbase and prompt them to support her. Besides, the artist sold as a
"Thing" an auto exposition, a human statue, naked and while eight months pregnant.
The action happened to collect books for the New York Public Library, but it also
worked as a promotion of herself.
Minding Renato Cohen's theory that says that art decodes the truth (2002, 63), I
searched to understand the existence of Amanda Palmer's authenticity legitimization, in
which she reaffirms to have and include all her creations, I analyzed the aesthetic choice
the artist made by interpreting Verity of Damien Hirst and the response of the audience
that saw her production as a performer.
I noticed and discussed the importance of the impact factor for performances,
mainly the ones that has a goal to draw attention for a cause bigger than the artistic
universe. Palmer didn't made art for art, because she had an objective of making people
donate books to the children's wing at the New York Public Library, with the
justification to facilitate the access of poorer kids to reading. The artist published a text
in her blog with an explanation about her performance. In the text there's a list citing
reasons to value the stimulus of interest to reading in the first infancy, besides some sort
of statistics of how many children has access to books in the United States. There's also
an open link to the NYPL's website, in case anyone wants to donate books after reading
about Palmer's performance.

11

The impact of this performance, theoretically, was important so that other people
tried to understand about the cause promoted by the artist. I didn't have access to the
necessary numbers to affirm that Palmer's action was actually effective, however the
intention exists and can influence other forms of art that involves similar causes.
Next, I discussed the importance of authenticity that promotes visibility to
artists, especially independent ones. I noticed that were certain legitimization of
Amanda Palmer's performance from the fans. This legitimization offer a tone of
authenticity on what Amanda is producing and serving in ways of nontraditional
financial revenues, but that has a crescent utilization inside the independent artistic and
musical scene. To this fans, it makes sense to pay for a performance made by Palmer,
because it inspires, is part of a "just cause" and, more importantly, represents what the
singer speaks several times. The performance is a representation of herself, what
generates some sort of affection towards her fans when they watch her executing it.
Renato Cohen (2002) understands artistic capitalization as something negative,
however Amanda Palmer shows that an artist needs to earn money to live and execute
her artistic productions. Seeing we are inserted in a logical world capital, the usage of
ways that allows people pay how much they want for a work of art and an artist, seems
like a more democratic measure, an alternative for a capitalization that obliges certain
consume for certain types of public. An artist produces what she wants, audience
consumes what it wants.
The fact that Amanda Palmer has taken the project as something more personal
than the books collection doesn't seemed to have bothered the audience. Maybe this
have occurred, because the artist relates the whole process for the elaboration of the
performance in her blog. She seems more worried in being seen then to promote a social
action, still this only brings her closer to the classical performing artists that constructed
themselves the same way. To be paid for it it's only a way of artistic capitalization, as it
happens in the music itself.

3. References
CARROLL, Nel. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge University
Press, 2003.
COHEN, Renato. Performance como linguagem. Criao de um Tempo-Espao de
experimentao. So Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 2002.

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KALUARACHCHI, San Andrew Graham. 'Drawn to Those Ones that Ain't Afraid':
Authenticity and Authorship in the Laurel Canyon Singer-songwriter Scene. In:
KRGER, Simone; MOY, Ron (org). Popscript Volume II: Graduate Research in
Popular Music. North Caroline: Lulu Press, 2015.
MOORE, Allan. Authenticity as Authentication. In: Popular Music, n 2, vol 21.
Cambridge University Press, 2002. pp. 209-223.
PALMER, A. A Arte de Pedir. Traduo: Denise Bottmann. 1 ed. Rio de Janeiro:
Intrnseca, 2015.
ROCHA, Susana de Noronha Vasconcelos Teixeira da. Berna Reale: a importncia do
choque e do silncio na performance. In: Revista Estdio: Artistas sobre Outras Obras,
vol 5, n 9, 2014. pp. 22-30.
SCHECHNER, Richard. O que performance? In: Performance Studies: an
Introduction. New York e London: Routledge, 2006. pp. 28-51.
TAYLOR, Charles. The Sources of Authenticity. In: The Ethics of Authenticity.
London: Harvard University Press, 1991. pp. 25-29.

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