Visitors can sit in front of the artist and see her in the eye

recently in the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened a retrospective of" Grandma art performance ", Serbian painter Marina Abramovic (Marina Abramović, pp. 1946). The exhibition covers four decades of her career. Visitors can see more than 50 works of art - photography, installation, sound and video art, and, of course, performances, one of which "performs" she Abramovich. Six days a week, seven and a half hours a day, she still sits at a table in an empty museum hall and looks into the eyes of visitors, who sit opposite. Sitting with Abramovich can, until you get bored (or have not yet kicked out those who also wants to become a part of her work). The performance is called The Artist is Present ( «The artist is present"). It will last until the close of the exhibition, that is, until 31 May. If Abramovich survive - without a doubt, for her, this work is related to severe physical exertion, - the duration of the performance will be more than 600 hours.

Abramovich is not the first time to exhibit their vulnerability: in 2002, demonstrating performance "House overlooking the ocean, she lived in twelve days suspended on the wall of the gallery" flat ", in front of visitors. Its aim was to show the "ritual" ordinary, everyday activities. All 12 days, the artist is not eating and not talking. Going down down she too could not: the stairs were attached knives.

Since the beginning of his career, Mr. Abramovich was doing with his body and the spirit of experimentation that many can certainly be called cruel. It is carved on his stomach communist star, publicly took pills that caused her convulsions or by influencing the brain, turning it into a "vegetable", as well as cleaning the bloody cow bones (in the work, talking about the horrors of war). One of the most famous performances Abramovich became the one where she gave herself entirely to spectators, inviting them to use the 72 items, among which were a knife and loaded pistol. Gradually, participants were divided into those who wanted the artist to cause pain, and those who defended it. In the end, when someone is intent on using the gun on purpose, the latter demanded to terminate.

Thirteen years (from 1976 till 1989 th) Abramovich acted together with her lover, artist Ulaem (Ulay). They have become "a single creature, dressed and behaved the same way. On their account a significant number of the most powerful pieces on the topic of relations between loving people. Once they have 17 hours were related to each other hair. On another occasion they breathed each other in the mouth until it dropped from exhaustion. "The main hero of" performance "Rest energy" was an arrow aimed straight at the heart of Abramovich: Wulai nock, and the artist drew the bow itself. They parted in the middle of the Great Wall, on which they walked toward each other for three months.

artist invited to participate in the exhibition of several students who "recreate" its five famous performances. Among them - the one where a man and a woman (in the original performance it was, of course, Abramovich and Wulai) stand completely naked in the doorway, and viewers are forced to squeeze between them. The visitor decides who in the eyes while looking - man or woman - and it can tell a lot about him.

Interview with Marina Abramovic can read the here .

article prepared by Julia Maksimova, AI

Source: moma.org , artinvestment.ru