From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates
This article examines extinction in recent performances by the British contemporary artist Marcus Coates. It considers three works, including Human Report (2008), Apology to the Great Auk (2017) and The Last of Its Kind (2017), which tackle the disappearance of species and habitats in ways that are...
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ftuniveastangl:oai:ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk:78301 2023-05-15T16:22:56+02:00 From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates Wade, Sarah 2020-02-17 application/pdf https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78301/ https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78301/1/Wade_Sublime_Accepted_Manuscript_211119.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2019.1717886 en eng https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78301/1/Wade_Sublime_Accepted_Manuscript_211119.pdf Wade, Sarah (2020) From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates. Performance Research, 24 (7). pp. 137-142. ISSN 1352-8165 doi:10.1080/13528165.2019.1717886 Article PeerReviewed 2020 ftuniveastangl https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2019.1717886 2023-01-30T21:54:11Z This article examines extinction in recent performances by the British contemporary artist Marcus Coates. It considers three works, including Human Report (2008), Apology to the Great Auk (2017) and The Last of Its Kind (2017), which tackle the disappearance of species and habitats in ways that are often comic and absurd. While humour might initially appear incongruous and insensitive as a way of dealing with such serious subjects, this article argues that Coates cultivates this characteristic of his ecologically-orientated performances in sincere and strategic ways. I demonstrate how these works wield satire, parody, bathos and the absurd to raise awareness of extinction and even foster a desire to act in the face of it. The article situates Coates’s performances in the realm of the ‘ridiculous’ as conceived by Timothy Morton (2016), in which satire and melancholy coalesce and where we might ‘encounter the art of the absurd’ (144), in order to consider the ecological possibilities of humour in this body of work. Article in Journal/Newspaper Great auk University of East Anglia: UEA Digital Repository Morton ENVELOPE(-61.220,-61.220,-62.697,-62.697) Coates ENVELOPE(162.083,162.083,-77.800,-77.800) Performance Research 24 7 137 142 |
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Open Polar |
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University of East Anglia: UEA Digital Repository |
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ftuniveastangl |
language |
English |
description |
This article examines extinction in recent performances by the British contemporary artist Marcus Coates. It considers three works, including Human Report (2008), Apology to the Great Auk (2017) and The Last of Its Kind (2017), which tackle the disappearance of species and habitats in ways that are often comic and absurd. While humour might initially appear incongruous and insensitive as a way of dealing with such serious subjects, this article argues that Coates cultivates this characteristic of his ecologically-orientated performances in sincere and strategic ways. I demonstrate how these works wield satire, parody, bathos and the absurd to raise awareness of extinction and even foster a desire to act in the face of it. The article situates Coates’s performances in the realm of the ‘ridiculous’ as conceived by Timothy Morton (2016), in which satire and melancholy coalesce and where we might ‘encounter the art of the absurd’ (144), in order to consider the ecological possibilities of humour in this body of work. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wade, Sarah |
spellingShingle |
Wade, Sarah From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates |
author_facet |
Wade, Sarah |
author_sort |
Wade, Sarah |
title |
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates |
title_short |
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates |
title_full |
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates |
title_fullStr |
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates |
title_full_unstemmed |
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates |
title_sort |
from the sublime to the ridiculous: extinction in the work of marcus coates |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78301/ https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78301/1/Wade_Sublime_Accepted_Manuscript_211119.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2019.1717886 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-61.220,-61.220,-62.697,-62.697) ENVELOPE(162.083,162.083,-77.800,-77.800) |
geographic |
Morton Coates |
geographic_facet |
Morton Coates |
genre |
Great auk |
genre_facet |
Great auk |
op_relation |
https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78301/1/Wade_Sublime_Accepted_Manuscript_211119.pdf Wade, Sarah (2020) From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Extinction in the work of Marcus Coates. Performance Research, 24 (7). pp. 137-142. ISSN 1352-8165 doi:10.1080/13528165.2019.1717886 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2019.1717886 |
container_title |
Performance Research |
container_volume |
24 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
137 |
op_container_end_page |
142 |
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1766011045429641216 |