Emiley Hoffman

Art History Research Report

Art 390
4/25/21

 Marina Abramović “Rhythm 0,” 1974

“Rhythm 0,” by Marina Abramović in 1974 who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1946.
Abramović is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist who also makes her work with
writing, and filmmaking. Her work explores the human body, feminism and pushing the limits of
endurance one person can withstand for periods of time, plays with the relationship between the
performer and audience, and the possibilities of the mind. As Marina has now been active in her
career for over four decades, she often refers to herself as the "grandmother of performance art".
Abramović is known to have pioneered the notion in performance art of bringing in the
participation of audience while the performer is focusing on "confronting pain, blood, and
physical limits of the body".
Marina Abramović's work contains a methodical strain used in 1960s performance art. Her
work mostly involves voluntarily putting herself in danger and creating lengthy, harmful routines
that result in her having lacerations, or enduring other various hardships. She views her art
almost as a propitiatory rite, as she performs by herself for a congregation of viewers. And the
physical anguish she takes on to explore themes of trust, endurance, cleansing, exhaustion, and
departure. Her work has either engaged, fascinated, and even repelled live audiences.
Interpreting her work as instead of using traditional media such as sculpture, or painting Marina
has moved it completely to her body. Instead of thinking of her body simply as a surface, she has
said that she thinks of the body as the "point of departure for any spiritual development."
Rhythm 0 is one of Abramovic’s most important works as it was to test the limits of the
relationship between performer and audience. As she developed her most challenging/famous
performances she made herself take on a passive role, with the public being the outside force that
would act on her. Abramović placed on a table 72 objects that people could use in any way that
they chose as well as having a sign that informed them that they held no responsibility for any of
their actions. The objects varied as some could induce pleasure, while others could be wielded to
inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were a rose, a feather, honey, a whip, olive oil, scissors,
a scalpel, a gun and a single bullet. Then for six hours Marina allowed the audience members to
manipulate her body and actions without consequences. This tested how sensitive and hostile
human subjects can be when actions have no social consequences. During the beginning the
audience was hesitant and did not do much. Although, when the realization began to set in that
there was no limit to what they could do, the piece became brutal very quickly. By the end of the
performance, her body was stripped, attacked, and devalued as a person. Additionally, markings
of aggression were painted all over the artist's body. There were cuts on her neck made by
audience members, and her clothes were cut off her body. With an initial determination to find
out how the public acts with no consequences tied to their actions, she realized by the end that
the public might very well have killed her for their own personal enjoyment. One person had
aimed the gun at to Marina’s head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive
atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, Abramovic stood up and started walking toward
the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.
Abramović became the first performance artist to be formally accepted by the institutional
museum world with her major solo shows taking place through Europe and the US over 25 years.
In 2020, Abramović became the first female artist to host a major solo exhibition in the Main
Galleries of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Her career was boosted in 1997, when she
won the Golden Lion for best artist at the Venice Biennale. She also captured public attention
for The House with the Ocean View (2002), a gallery installation in which she lived in for 12
days in three exposed cubes mounted onto a wall. By 2005 she had begun to meditate about
the legacy of performance art, in which works usually had no substance beyond their original
viewing, apart from their occasional preservation on film. She began to play with how her
performances could remain fresh as other work mediums such as sculpture or painting.