English Letter for Jane

Jochen Gerz, the convinced autodidact who was never trained at an academy of art but instead pursued German, English, Sinology, and Early History in a kind of general studies, deploys all artistic means except painting and sculpting, but is always anxious that the tools could be too difficult, too alienating. Criticism and doubts about art constantly also entail criticism and doubts about its instruments.

Doris von Drathen 1990

The vehicle of performance also allows the artist to confuse the boundaries of personal experience and social convention... His performances often involved an enactment of extreme psychological and physical states that leveled public and private identity. For example To Cry until Exhaustion (1972) and To write with the Hand (1972) were socially regressive endurance tests and pathetic attempts at communication that assaulted the maker as much as the witness. Typical of performance art at the time, the body had no character, yet the visceral intimacy of the activity provoked a subjective response.

Helga Pakasaar 1999