Janine Antoni on Tehching Hsieh, Anna Halprin, Steve Paxton and More | UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Why It Matters

Antoni’s reflections reveal how embodied practice and interdisciplinary mentorship can reshape artistic production, influencing how institutions present time‑based and participatory art. Understanding these dynamics helps curators and creators anticipate audience engagement in a post‑digital, experience‑driven market.

Key Takeaways

• Mirror cells cause viewers' bodies to move with dancers
• Anna Halprin mentored Antoni, emphasizing personal movement discovery
• Tehching Hsieh’s exhibition turns space into a timeline of life
• Antoni’s “Unveiling” transforms a bust into a participatory bronze bell
• She links art, embodiment, and unconscious through performance and material

Summary

Janine Antoni sits down for "Under the Influence" to trace the eclectic lineage of her practice, from a childhood spent collecting shells on a Bahamian beach to her collaborations with avant‑garde figures such as Anna Halprin, Steve Paxton and Bruce Nauman. She describes how the phenomenon of "mirror cells" makes an audience’s body echo a dancer’s motion, a sensation she first felt watching Paxton perform, and how Halprin’s mentorship in the 1960s taught her to trust an innate, personal movement vocabulary. Antoni highlights several artworks that embody her fascination with material and perception: a bronze bell cast from a veiled bust in "Unveiling," a precarious steel box by Charles Ray that tricks balance, and Gabriel Orozco’s mutable "Yielding Stone." She also praises Tehching Hsieh’s Dia retrospective, noting that the installation collapses space into a chronological walk through a life‑as‑art, prompting existential reflection. Memorable moments include her admission that Paxton’s performance made her cling to her seat, Halprin’s belief that “all of us have a unique way of moving,” and her own description of life as an artwork that demands total commitment. She cites the concept of the "active imagination" as a bridge between conscious and unconscious, urging artists to honor their fantasies and let their "freak flag" fly. Antoni’s narrative underscores a broader shift in contemporary art toward embodied experience, interdisciplinary dialogue, and the use of everyday objects as portals to deeper psychological terrain. Her emphasis on mentorship, materiality and time‑based installations offers a template for artists seeking to fuse performance, sculpture and personal mythology into resonant, participatory works.

Original Description

In this new episode of Under the Influence, New York-based artist Janine Antoni shares her favorites, from mentor Anna Halprin's unique relationship to movement to Piero Manzoni's The Base of the World (1961): "You kind of have to stand on your head to see it." Key to her own trajectory was a 1994 Boston exhibition with Bruce Nauman: “Some artists have a portal to a very specific part of our unconscious, and Bruce Nauman is one of those artists."

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