Marina Abramović

November 30th 1946 - Belgrade, Serbia

 Ideas
• Career began in the early 1970s and Abramović's work is described as exploring the
relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the
possibilities of the mind.

• Rhythm 10 in 1973, explored ritual and gesture, the mimicking of gesture, merging past
and present sound and actions, and the power of the performance mind.

• Rhythm 5 in 1974, Abramović sought to re-evoke the energy of extreme bodily pain,
burning a large communist star on stage and throwing clippings from her body onto it, for
physical and mental ‘purification’, whilst addressing the political traditions of her past.

• Rhythm 2 in 1974, explored whether a state on unconsciousness could be

incorporated into a performance. Took a pill to render her immobile but still lucid in
mind so she could observe what was going on. She reacted very badly. 10 mins after
regaining control she took another pill, this one kept her bodily present, but removed her
mind. She has no memory of the time elapsed after the pill.

• Rhythm 0 in 1974, designed to test the limits of the relationship between performer and
audience. She took a passive role so it was the public being the force that acted on her.
Audience could inflict pain, pleasure or ever harm her with 72 objects she lay before
them.
 Ulay
- She collaborated with Uwe Laysiepen aka Ulay to explore the Ego
and Artistic Identity.
- They dressed and behaved like twins and created a relationship of
complete trust. As they defined this phantom identity, their individual
identities became less accessible. In an analysis of phantom artistic
identities.
- Charles Green has noted that this allowed a deeper understanding of
the artist as performer, for it revealed a way of “having the artistic
self made available for self-scrutiny.”
- Abramović & Ulay explored extreme states of consciousness and
their relationship to architectural space. They devised a series of
works in which their bodies created additional spaces for audience
interaction. In "Relation in Space" (1976).
- Abramović has said: “The main problem in this relationship was what
to do with the two artists’ egos. I had to find out how to put my ego
down, as did he, to create something like a hermaphroditic state of
being that we called the death self.
 1990s to Present
- Balkan Baroque 1997, seven hours a day for four days scrubbing 300 fresh
bloody own bones. Symbolic reckoning of the tragic brutality that had recently
occurred during the civil war in her homeland the Former Republic of
Yugoslavia.

- House With An Ocean View 2002, spent 12 days living on display in a New
York gallery. She did not allowed her self to speak or eat but singing was
“possible but unpredictable”.

- Seven Easy Pieces 2005, she re-performed seven classic performance art
works. For eight hours a day in the lobby of the Guggenheim Museum in New
York, she performed these pieces, which included work by Bruce Nauman, Vito
Acconci, Valerie Export, Gina Pane, Joseph Beuys, and two early works of her
own.

- The Artist Is Present (2010) at MoMA, Abramovic performed her most recent
long durational work. During museum hours, for at least eight hours a day, six
days a week, she was sitting motionless in the atrium. Museum visitors could sit
in front of the artist, locked in an intimate gaze for as long as they wished.
 Works
• The Onion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI8zl6UuSOs

• Art must be Beautiful; Artist must be Beautiful -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1smoNE6Stc

• Relationship in Time (Ulay) -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sRSoGAc3H0

• Aaa Aaa (Ulay) -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAIfLnQ26JY

• Marina’s Advice to the Young Artist -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ck2q3YgRlY